If everyone’s working from home, why is commercial office space booming?
Many people loved working from home during the pandemic. They got to spend more time with their families, adopted more pets, enjoyed the magic of delivery services, binged Netflix, swapped their suits for sweats and even started an unprecedented number of businesses. All these reasons – and plenty of others – are behind why so many workers want to continue doing the same, even as we try to put Covid in the rearview mirror.
For those employees, here’s a warning: prepare for reality. Employers are planning to have you back in the office.
Why else would Facebook lease another 300,000 sq feet of office space in New York City to add to its already 3m sq feet occupied? Why would Google be spending $2.1bn on a Manhattan office building and expand its “sprawling campus” in the city to house its more than 12,000 employees? These are tech companies with businesses built on the cloud … so why expand offices?
And why would Manhattan’s commercial real estate market be “rebounding” with CRBE, which tracks these sorts of things, reporting that leasing activity rose 100% year over year as of 31 March? “We just hit 95% occupancy, which is the highest occupancy number in the history of the building,” gushed one New York City landlord.
This is not just a New York City thing, either.
In Charleston, South Carolina, commercial vacancy rates are below 2% and almost 10m sq feet of industrial space is under construction. In Jacksonville, Florida, 2021 was a “great year” for commercial real estate investors, with all product types posting increases in market rent, occupancy and interest from buyers. Northwest Arkansas commercial real estate has its lowest vacancy rate since 2005. In Philadelphia, Baltimore, Santa Clara and Chicago, there’s a
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