Commercial Real Estate Investing From A-Z What Will Office Space Look Like in the Near Future?
What are companies looking for right now? Benjamin Osgood will share insights coming directly from office tenants. He has brokered over $250M in real estate transactions and is the founder of Recreate Commercial.
You can read this entire interview here: https://bit.ly/30DLrrv
What will office look like in the near future?
We've learned from COVID that we all don't necessarily need an office for work, because as the pandemic has shown us, we can work anywhere if we need to, give us a laptop and a wifi connection, and we're good from the work side of things. I think that's going to be a trend that we'll continue to see. But we've also learned on the other side of that that we still need a physical place to come in, meet with our team, foster our company culture, mentees need a place to be mentored. Conversely, supervisors want to see their people working, they want to make sure that, even though the Slack channel is green, the light is on, that they're actually working.
But then also, we're rethinking what is the workspace used for? Is it for work that is heads down? No, totally not. We need a place to come in, collaborate, innovate, throw ideas on a whiteboard, get over caffeinated, hang out with our team. We're tribal people, we want that human connection, I want that human connection. Most people want that human connection. I think most companies are going to need a physical space. And we can't forget that the office is very much a commodity in both hiring and employee retention. We know that companies want that really cool place to come work, there's a reason why those employees stay there and why culture is so integral to a company success, and zoom meetings have their limitations.
We're also thinking that maybe we don't need to spend so much of our lives commuting. And maybe we don't need to go into the office five days a week. We're definitely seeing an office space that's configured differently. For one, is it going to be dense, linear benching? Probably not. Even pre COVID, we knew that that was not the greatest way to work, it was simply a way to hedge against very expensive rent. Pack as many people into as dense of a space as you can. It's going to be more collaborative, more soft seating, more whiteboards on casters, maybe more of a residential feel with plants and furniture that reflects a more chill and welcoming environment rather than just heads down linear benching. One thing our clients are saying is, We realize we're taxed on working from home 100% of the time, it has lost its charm, but also, not commuting five days a week is pretty cool, too. So we are anticipating and predicting a hybrid.
How do you think that will affect how much office space companies will look for? Do you think it'll be the same, or smaller?
I think it's zero sum. On one hand, we are decreasing our densities. So by way of example, pre pandemic, especially in major cities, like New York, Chicago and San Francisco, we were planning for 150 square feet per employee. And now that's almost upended. it's at about 325 sf per employee, which is more than double the square footage. The space is being configured much differently. Now we're taking that same square footage, but rather than line it out with just rows of linear benching, it's more soft seating. It's like, Grab that corner over there with your team, grab your tablet, or laptops or whatnot, grab a coffee, let's talk, let's collaborate, let's innovate. You just need more space for that type of use.
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