As we’ve been telling you for going on about five years now, the office real estate market has seen better days. But there are some signs of life, especially in demand for a part-time office.

Commercial real estate giant CBRE announced Tuesday it was acquiring the flexible workplace company Industrious in a deal that values the coworking firm at about $800 million.

Turns out that whole hybrid work thing? It’s been a bit of a boon for the coworking industry, although that coworking model is evolving.

In pre-pandemic times, big companies used to regularly sign long-term leases for office space. Like, 10 years or longer. That made sense in a more predictable world where your entire workforce slogged to the same sad cubicles five days a week from the same sad suburbs. Not so much when you’re managing that hybrid satellite team in Denver you just staffed up last year.

“So nobody on earth knows how many employees they’re going to have in Denver in 2033, which makes 10-year leases tough,” said Jamie Hodari, the CEO of Industrious, that coworking company CBRE acquired.

To be clear, corporations are still signing some long-term leases for office space, especially for big shiny headquarters.

But for that satellite office that management wants to meet in person two or three days a week, the one-to-two-year contracts Industrious offers make sense.

“Our revenue is up, you know, three times since COVID,” said Hodari.

Industrious’ coworking model is a bit more like an office Airbnb: typically shorter-term rentals for companies to take over an entire office, not the pre-pandemic coworking stereotype where a bunch of freelance graphic designers hang out at the WeWork kombucha station.

“A lot of the coworking spaces I talk to who, you know, used to only cater to entrepreneurs or freelancers are now catering to these companies,” said Travis Howell, who researches coworking at Arizona State University.

Howell said some firms will even pay for just one or two employees to go to a coworking site to work next to strangers.

“It’s just to keep their employees happy,” said Howell. “It’s hard sometimes being at home five days a week.”

Although if you think coworking is the solution for the forever war between employer and employee over return-to-office, flexible workplace consultant Cali Yost is skeptical. She said employers have to know what they want their employees to do when they force them to leave the house.

“You’ve got to lead with the work, not the space,” said Yost. “You’ve got to start with the what, and then the where.”

Even if the where does include that kombucha station.