A prominent New York landlord that houses offices leased by financially struggling WeWork at two high-profile Manhattan properties said it’s in talks with the provider of flexible office spaces over a backup plan should WeWork's turnaround plans falter.

Developer RXR Realty, a provider of space to WeWork at 75 Rockefeller Plaza and 620 Avenue of the Americas, could offer to take on WeWork’s enterprise customers and sign direct leases with them should WeWork cease operations at RXR's buildings, RXR CEO Scott Rechler said in an interview. Those customers are companies with at least 500 employees, including Seattle-based e-commerce giant Amazon, which CoStar reported has taken 90,000 square feet at Rockefeller Center.

The talks are an example of how landlords around the globe are closely watching New York-based WeWork as it looks to renegotiate or cancel its leases to achieve profitability. This comes as many companies allow employees to work remotely some of the time, a practice that's combining with an uncertain economic outlook to temper demand for office space in major markets from London to New York to San Francisco.

"We are working directly with WeWork about how to design a constructive path forward," RXR spokesperson David Garten told CoStar News, adding the company has always been a good partner. "We’ve worked with them in the past when they struggled."

WeWork leases about 90,000 square feet at 75 Rockefeller and close to 229,000 square feet at 620 Avenue of the Americas, according to CoStar data. The beaux-arts-style 620 Avenue of the Americas opened in 1896 and is billed as the symbol of the cast-iron era. It houses major retail tenants T.J. Maxx and Marshalls.

While a WeWork spokesperson declined to comment further to CoStar News about any interactions with RXR, the money-losing company has said its lease obligations continue to be the “primary challenge and obstacle” to its cash flow, prompting it to warn that “substantial doubt exists" about its ability to continue as a going concern. That's a turnaround for the high-profile company that drew attention to the flexible office space market in the decade after its founding in 2010 with well-appointed offices that could feature beer taps for individuals or groups of employees from major corporations.

This year, WeWork's lease liabilities totaled over 67% of its operating expenses and 74% of its revenue in the second quarter, far higher than that of rivals such as Industrious, which has a higher percentage of locations in management partnership agreements without leasing risk. WeWork recently said it’s renegotiating nearly all its leases after it has exited or amended 590 leases since the fourth quarter of 2019 and cut $12.7 billion in future lease payments, as the market shifted and it sought to rein in costs incurred during its high growth.

WeWork’s current troubles aside, Rechler said the company has helped create demand for flexible office spaces and has led landlords, including RXR, to also jump in with its own prebuilt workspace offerings.

“It's forced us all to adapt to that,” Rechler told CoStar News. “As landlords, we're doing it directly."

RXR in 2020 introduced its own flexible prebuilt space for lease that gives tenants flexibility in design, but with traditional lease terms that Rechler said have had growing demand.

The workspace gets filled “every time we build" as tenants desire that option, he said.

WeWork “helps set a product line,” Rechler said separately Tuesday at the CREtech New York conference. “Our tenants have an expectation to now be able to use a flexible office ... and all the amenities and different types of services associated with that. [WeWork] sets the framework for that.”