Texas-based workspace innovation company Vari® won a Fitwel® Best in Building Health® award for its design of VariSpace Coppell. The prestigious award honours companies enhancing human health through buildings designed for wellness and sustainability.
A rigorous third-party healthy building certification system, Fitwel sets the industry standard for evidence-based strategies that promote health and wellness through the built environment. Fitwel is the world’s leading certification system committed to building health for all – making an award from the organisation all the more prestigious.
VariSpace Coppell received the highest score in the Multi-Tenant Whole Building (Design) category – making Vari the first company in Texas to receive recognition in the category. Corgan was honoured by Fitwel for its work as the interior designer for VariSpace Coppell. Vari built the 180,000-square-foot Class A office building, which opened in August 2022. The multi-tenant building is already more than 50% leased.
Vari’s mission is to create workspaces that elevate people – helping businesses rethink their offices, providing tenants with flexible, furnished spaces, and providing a space where people want to work. Uniquely positioned as both a landlord and a workspace furnishing company, Vari owns and operates one million square feet of Class A office space that make up three distinct VariSpace buildings. Through these ideation labs, Vari has developed insights to help other landlords and organisations create spaces where employees actually want to come to the office.
The mind behind the design
Corgan, the interior designer on the project, provided expertise from Fitwel Ambassadors who were part of the VariSpace Coppell design team. For Corgan, the vision was to create a space that celebrated movement and the outdoors. Key design features include a signature monumental staircase that anchors the lobby space and encourages people to connect and take the stairs, and outdoor areas including a bocce ball court and exterior balconies.
“We developed VariSpace Coppell with the future of work in mind, so we’re proud to be the first in Texas to win the Best in Building Health award in this category,” said Jason McCann, CEO and co-founder of Vari. “Healthy workspaces can increase retention, improve productivity, and foster wellness, so creating an environment that supports our tenants’ wellbeing was a top priority.”
“We believe that the workplace is a tool for our clients and their employees – a tool that not only enables work but comprehensively supports the employee and their mental and physical wellbeing,” said Lindsay Wilson, President at Corgan.
“The past few years have been transformational, revealing unprecedented challenges and opportunities for the world, and in particular, the real estate industry and healthy building movement,” said Joanna Frank, President and CEO of CfAD. “As Vari’s achievements have demonstrated, prioritizing health is no longer a reactive market trend – it’s an established business imperative that can increase value in the near term and mitigate risk in the future.”
Located at 450 Freeport Pkwy in Coppell, Texas, VariSpace Coppell was developed in partnership with Corgan, the interior designer, BOKA Powell, who designed the building, and Adolfson & Peterson (AP), who constructed it.
Vari recently published the company’s first ESG report as part of its ongoing commitment to elevate people, culture and communities.
Visit fitwel.org to learn more about the honourees.
Content Team
Work in Mind is a content platform designed to give a voice to thinkers, businesses, journalists and regulatory bodies in the field of healthy buildings.
