Will the pandemic reduce construction of office skyscrapers long-term

[iheartthed]

I'm starting to think the pandemic will push more people into permanent wfh than I originally thought. My sister's job may become a permanent wfh position. It's a role that she could have theoretically done remotely before this started, but she did most of her work in an office. I think the pandemic is just accelerating the corporate trend away from permanent desks to hoteling systems with smaller office footprints.

Originally Posted by Nomad9

I actually think WeWork (or similar companies) have a bright future. Obviously work from home works poorly for some people and tasks, but great for others. It seems to make sense to lessen your actual long-term, high square footage lease space and instead coordinate occasional working spaces at WeWork or whatever when needed

I have a white collar job and like working from home. How much money would my employer save by not giving me (and 50+ others) a permanent office? The alternative to WeWork could just be companies leasing less space but not having individualized offices/desks for each employer—cut office space in half and employees can reserve a desk/office if they need to go in that day or week.

I'm skeptical that WeWork survives the pandemic. WeWork is only appealing to small nimble (and vulnerable) companies that don't have a lot of resources to secure dedicated office space, particularly space in prime real estate markets. Those small nimble (and vulnerable) companies are also the ones being hammered the most by the pandemic.

[dave8721]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I'm starting to think the pandemic will push more people into permanent wfh than I originally thought. My sister's job may become a permanent wfh position. It's a role that she could have theoretically done remotely before this started, but she did most of her work in an office. I think the pandemic is just accelerating the corporate trend away from permanent desks to hoteling systems with smaller office footprints.



I'm skeptical that WeWork survives the pandemic. WeWork is only appealing to small nimble (and vulnerable) companies that don't have a lot of resources to secure dedicated office space, particularly space in prime real estate markets. Those small nimble (and vulnerable) companies are also the ones being hammered the most by the pandemic.

In my case it looks like it may be moving to a work from home sometimes/shared office kind of setup. I may come into the office 2 or 3 days a week, someone else other days..etc. Less space needed.

[llamaorama]

I think a lot of people will still go to work in an office. Humans are inherently social. Also it is important to productivity that you have a routine, get dressed, go somewhere else, etc. Nevermind that a lot of people have jobs that need to be done in person. Society spreading out into an dull carpet of rural suburbs with zero contact sounds like a dystopia. People also like cities too, otherwise this forum wouldn't exist.

However, people liking cities and people liking to go into the office as a kind of preference is something that can be fulfilled by medium-density cities with a sprinkling of ~15 story high rises and a legacy downtown area.

Will there still be sufficient demand and capital to build very, very tall skyscrapers in extremely dense cities? Outside of very poor countries, people move to excessively crowded cities that have excessive costs of living because of highly paid professional job opportunities that only exist there, in those giant buildings. Without that, property bubbles and economic pathologies that overvalue real estate are the only things that would motivate the construction of supertalls.

Perhaps the current generation of giants going up in China and the Gulf nations are going to be the last of their kind, and the maximum humanity ever achieves with tall buildings? We've always thought of huge buildings as futuristic and that's been a trend in art and science fiction for a long time. But maybe that vision is obsolete.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

However, people liking cities and people liking to go into the office as a kind of preference is something that can be fulfilled by medium-density cities with a sprinkling of ~15 story high rises and a legacy downtown area.

Hell, no. I wouldn't have the same lifestyle in Chicago or Boston. No way would I move to Tulsa or Corpus Christi, expecting the same lifestyle.

I'd prefer living in an isolated home in the woods over the typical American development patterns of hollowed-out office park center, freeway loop, and then endless sprawl.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

I think a lot of people will still go to work in an office. Humans are inherently social. Also it is important to productivity that you have a routine, get dressed, go somewhere else, etc. Nevermind that a lot of people have jobs that need to be done in person. Society spreading out into an dull carpet of rural suburbs with zero contact sounds like a dystopia. People also like cities too, otherwise this forum wouldn't exist.

However, people liking cities and people liking to go into the office as a kind of preference is something that can be fulfilled by medium-density cities with a sprinkling of ~15 story high rises and a legacy downtown area.

Will there still be sufficient demand and capital to build very, very tall skyscrapers in extremely dense cities? Outside of very poor countries, people move to excessively crowded cities that have excessive costs of living because of highly paid professional job opportunities that only exist there, in those giant buildings. Without that, property bubbles and economic pathologies that overvalue real estate are the only things that would motivate the construction of supertalls.

Perhaps the current generation of giants going up in China and the Gulf nations are going to be the last of their kind, and the maximum humanity ever achieves with tall buildings? We've always thought of huge buildings as futuristic and that's been a trend in art and science fiction for a long time. But maybe that vision is obsolete.

A common theme over the past two months is that the pandemic has accelerated trends that were already in progress. If that holds true, then suburban office parks will likely become the biggest loser from the pandemic.

[dktshb]

Rumors abound about many employers seeing the cost benefit of working from home than leasing office space. We shall see.

[llamaorama]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Hell, no. I wouldn't have the same lifestyle in Chicago or Boston. No way would I move to Tulsa or Corpus Christi, expecting the same lifestyle.

Those places aren't what I had in mind. I was thinking more like Munich or Copenhagen or something. Stockholm before it got "overpressurized" somehow and turned expensive. Excellent, important cities, but kind of squat except for a few awkward 1970s high rises in the suburbs.

edit: also ironically I think Tulsa and Corpus Christi are actually good examples of small backwater cities that ended up with oversized high-rise downtowns with lots of empty buildings and former city blocks ravaged by parking lots. Both had unsustainable oil booms(Tulsa in the 20s and Corpus in the 70s). A disturbing vision of the fate of other places which overbuild and then empty out.

The early 2000's to present trend around the world where large amounts of money are going into build giant blue glass supertall residential condos and office complexes that look like sci-fi arcologies while rent in hovels is $2,500 a month for a broom closet just seems unsustainable to me when technically a large proportion of people who live and work in these cities don't actually have to be there at all. London was a powerhouse and center of western civilization for a long time but it only sprouted giant towers somewhat recently and that trend honestly comes off as a symptom of something very economically unhealthy. Why during a period in which governments have cut interests to nothing are the super-rich spending on their money on buildings nobody lives in? Something is wrong, it can't last. The third world and China is building stuff that's even taller but what's the point of these huge buildings except to show off?

Originally Posted by iheartthed

A common theme over the past two months is that the pandemic has accelerated trends that were already in progress. If that holds true, then suburban office parks will likely become the biggest loser from the pandemic.

I agree.

It's going to be like how retail is dying, but the top end in "destinations" is doing okay.

[mhays]

If a lot of office people can work remotely, a few thoughts come to mind. Let's say it's 2022, when things are settling into a new normal:

1. Most people will have to visit the main office sometimes. For a lot of positions, this might mean keeping regular main-office hours. For others it'll be occasional. Proximity will be helpful.

2. Your significant other might need to stay in town for his/her job.

3. Many homes aren't set up for everyone to be on the computer all the time. What's working right now, sorta, won't necessarily be acceptable next year. This will be much easier if only one person in the household works from home. That includes online school if that catches on as well.

4. A lot of people will use their new WFH status to address childcare. This will work for the nine-year-old coming home after school. It won't work well for younger kids, but many parents will try.

5. I suspect companies will still locate in the same cities for the same reasons for the most part. The main effect might be that more people will be ok with the two-hour commute if it's only once a week. Highly-paid people might even fly. The person commuting three times a week might stretch the limit too.

6. Some people will be 100% at home, and some companies will try the minimal/no office approach. Those will split between at least three groups: Places they love (lifestyle centers, some expensive), cheap places, and wherever companies were founded. The two that seem different would be the lifestyle-heavy smaller cities and the founding cities. But even then, stuff like air connections will matter.

7. Coffee shops and lunch places close to home will do well. Some people will hang out with their laptops.

8. Co-working centers will gain in two ways: First, they'll be easy options for companies that want minimal office space, especially those who haven't figured it all out yet. Second, some people who work for all-remote companies will either crave human contact or need to get away from their over-used homes.

9. For office developers, a big question is whether tenants will offset this by increasing space per worker.

[llamaorama]

I don't think at-home school is going to catch on. I've been reading the local news that kids who ghost or don't attend online class are a problem and there either aren't enough truant officers or these kids are simply hard to chase down. Not all parents are making their kids do their online schoolwork. It's also hard on teachers.

Also a huge number of jobs can't be done from home so there are a lot of parents who aren't working from home and therefore can't monitor their kids who are at home. Once kids are old enough to go to public school, public school becomes child care for working parents.

It will also screw with kid's social skills in a bad way.

Let's say it's 2022, when things are settling into a new normal:

I seriously hope we aren't doing this after 2022. Do you mean to say the new normal is nobody goes anywhere forever?

[mhays]

I mean when the Covid thing is a disappearing memory.

As for school, I'm talking about college.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

Those places aren't what I had in mind. I was thinking more like Munich or Copenhagen or something.

Munich and Copenhagen are extremely expensive cities. Munich is, by far, the most expensive city in Germany. I'm not sure you'd get more housing for your money in Munich than anywhere in America, excepting maybe the Peninsular Silicon Valley cities.

[atlantaguy]

Originally Posted by The North One

Garbage? It's an economist from Stanford who's known for his research on working from home.

In the real world you're just an ignorant bigot.

I don't care who he is, my industry has been moving towards WFH for almost a decade now with fantastic results overall.

And you are one of the most opinionated, nasty fucks to ever stain this forum.

[mthd]

in the medium term, i don't see much change in the need for space. there are a lot of factors here, but decreasing densities will offset partial work-from-home regimes.

work from home is a bit of a comfortable/rich person's conceit. ask someone who doesn't have a ton of space, a nice home office, a big workstation, good light, air, local food opportunities, and peace and quiet how they feel about working from home. it's a nice option when the kids have to be taken care of, or there's a weather or transport emergency, but every day, no way.

productivity for certain kinds of things, for certain kinds of people, is high at home. for many things it is not. brainstorming, planning, critiquing, sharing ideas, etc, are all very difficult remotely and for some people totally impossible.

finally, if you ask staff whether they like working from home and are productive, they'll likely say yes and yes. if you ask their supervisors whether they're productive, they may well say no. many (most?) companies will find out in a few months whether real, productive, valuable, smart work is actually being done at the same rate as before...

[The North One]

Originally Posted by mthd

work from home is a bit of a comfortable/rich person's conceit.

And there we get into one of the fundamental problems with mass work from home ideas. It's much cheaper to build office space than to have to pay your workers enough so they can have large homes with home offices to get work done.

Like we physically dont have enough housing for this shit. Imagine every bay area worker drone living with five roommates now suddenly has to have his/her own at home office space. These cities would not function, they're already just barely functional.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by The North One

And there we get into one of the fundamental problems with mass work from home ideas. It's much cheaper to build office space than to have to pay your workers enough so they can have large homes with home offices to get work done.

Like we physically dont have enough housing for this shit. Imagine every bay area worker drone living with five roommates now suddenly has to have his/her own at home office space. These cities would not function, they're already just barely functional.

If a "bay area worker drone" were 100% remote then they would not need to actually live in the Bay Area. I've met Bay Area engineers that do a combination of wfh and periodic commuting to the Bay from lower cost places across the west (like Utah).

[themaguffin]

then suburban office parks will likely become the biggest loser from the pandemic.

I would need to see evidence of that. There is a distorted view of suburban anything on a forum like this.

If anything more low rise buildings might be more popular.

The idea of being a large congested building with crowded elevators and less realistic alternatives in taking the stairs up 20 flights... um, nope.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by themaguffin

I would need to see evidence of that. There is a distorted view of suburban anything on a forum like this.

If anything more low rise buildings might be more popular.

The idea of being a large congested building with crowded elevators and less realistic alternatives in taking the stairs up 20 flights... um, nope.

That makes no sense.

If you believe in a premise of "office space will permanently become less desirable because of Covid19", then why would a suburban office park be less affected than an urban highrise?

Suburban office parks are already the least desirable office typology, so if office space is going to suffer reduced demand, one would think the least desirable space would fare worst. Obviously there's no reason that a suburban sprawl cube farm would be inherently more susceptible to virus transmission than the equivalent urban highrise cube farm.

[llamaorama]

It’s not the building height or even the overall density that matters, it’s the way a place is laid out spatially.

“Suburban office park” indicates a place where the buildings are plopped down on a mowed grass hill with a winding circular drive into a garage off a 6 lane former rural highway and the nearest landmark is a trailer park and McDonald’s. In some cities like Houston and Atlanta these suburban towers can dwarf the skylines of small Midwest cities so they are just as crowded.

Urban could be a low rise campus resembling a college with landscaping or a small building on a corner next to some single family houses with ample yards but in a part of town where the streets are more of a grid and have sidewalks and there’s a cafe and mom and pop business district nearby.

[themaguffin]

That makes no sense.

If you believe in a premise of "office space will permanently become less desirable because of Covid19", then why would a suburban office park be less affected than an urban highrise?

I already stated why.


And yes, of course, there are large suburban offices as well, but the the VAST majority are very low rise.

And also yes, the layout matters, but that's a different topic.

[mhays]

What makes you think there will be ANY long-term effect, other than more working from home?