Transit systems & downtown landlords marketing a "come back downtown" campaign
I had a feeling that, eventually, something like this was going to happen. The push to revigorate downtowns is starting, I'm betting we will see this elsewhere? Also, groups with shared interests (transit, downtown landlords) joining together in the effort.
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https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg...-downtown-push |
Foot traffic in the loop has definitely been picking up.
Randolph St/ Hubbard St are already too crowded on weekend evenings. |
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Unless this was already budgeted, these marketing campaigns are a waste of money. People will be back as soon as this has passed.
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^ I don't know, I think it will be a bit more gradual. Sort of a "you first, then me" mentality, not dissimilar to the vaccine.
I like the idea of discounted fares. I even would advise that transit agencies offer free fares for a month, just to get people back on the trains and buses |
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Entirely free service for the duration of the pandemic (whatever that means) has also been proposed. Honestly though, I won't be riding a bus or train even if its free. Some things are more important than saving a couple of bucks. And free service is going to be more crowded which is a DISINCENTIVE for me. And here's a tip: SF Muni service has long been free for those who simply decline to pay and board through the rear bus doors. Nobody checks, nobody challenges them and on some routes (those through poorer parts of town) it seems like close to majority have done this for years. |
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Let's not turn this into the 12th "How did COVID affect my life?" thread and just discuss the campaigns by cities/transit agencies/businesses to bring people back downtown in earnest.
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The prices of single family homes have skyrocketed in the Toronto area since the coronavirus, all while condo prices are falling. There was even an outbreak in a condo tower here. More and more people are realizing that transit and higher densities and other aspects of urban living aren't such a good thing after all, and how it is promoted so much has been a mistake.
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Downtown San Francisco may take longer to recover than many other major American CBDs.
In large part that's because of the nature of the pre-pandemic downtown workforce. Over the last decade, big money tech corporations drove the cost of office space in the Financial District sky high, which pushed a lot of office-based businesses out of the city. SF's biggest employers are now mostly tech corporations; tech corporations are generally leading the way in working from home; SF's tech corporations, like Salesforce and Twitter, are specifically leading their industry in embracing mostly or entirely working from home. Permanently. That means there will be fewer downtown tech workers than there were before COVID, and a lot more empty offices. Who will fill the void? Some non-tech businesses will no doubt move in, but it may not be sufficient to return the area to Before Times employment levels. For years, office jobs in law, architecture, finance, health care, and even government have been relocating into less expensive digs across the Bay and in the inland suburbs. Those firms, agencies and corporations still have time left on their long-term leases, at lower costs than SF commands. And their workers have adjusted to those long-term relocations in terms of housing and commuting. Workers may not want to sell their homes so soon or buy at San Francisco's insane prices, and may remain leery of crowding back into dirty subway trains and buses for a long haul across the region--which matters a lot, because the Financial District is built in a way that requires almost all workers to commute by public transit. And there's the problem of value for the money. There must be a compelling, tangible payoff to justify moving a firm or corporation into much more expensive office space, and it's not clear the Financial District has what it takes. It certainly has a lot of things people do not want. Most visibly, there is the skeeze factor: downtown is peppered with the sort of filthy, crazed and unruly street people, oftentimes committing petty crimes, that one doesn't often find in suburban office parks. Also quite visible downtown: the lack of retail and restaurant options. Retail all but disappeared from the Financial District even before COVID, and has been decimated in Union Square since. Many of those brick and mortar stores will never reopen due to the shift to online sales. And when it comes time to reopen those restaurants that actually survived the pandemic, a very tight labor market will become issue #1, just as it was before COVID, but this time made worse by the subtraction of a ton of previous restaurant workers. Deprived of jobs for a year and counting, many have vacated their rent controlled apartments and departed for less pricey locales in which they could ride out the pandemic on unemployment benefits. Many will never return, and fewer will likely take their place. As before COVID, there will be stiff competition among employers to hire those willing to cook, wait tables, etc., which usually means offering higher pay. Yet increases will need to be sufficient to lure potential employees to commute in from the suburbs, where there are similar jobs at similar wages but with a lower cost of living. And many restaurants devastated by COVID just won't have the margins to compete on higher wages. I think there will be a lot of empty restaurant and retail spaces in SF for a long time, and darkened storefronts downtown are not a good look for potential office lessees. Of course, I could be completely wrong about all that. Life can be surprising. Nobody thought we'd live through a real life zombie apocalypse which would empty out our downtowns, after all, so only time will tell. |
^ That'd be ironic given the tech industry is something we'd have thought would pay the bills indefinitely two years ago.
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Re working from home:
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I think this is right and it means, essentially, that employees who can do some work at home will still have to come into the office about half the time and that means that living within a convenient range of the office will still be desirable. While you could move 2 states away and fly in for your days at work, that would both get expensive negating savings of living in a cheaper location, it could also get exhausting. Then there’s the question of what does this mean for the amount of office soace companies need. It probably does mean they need less but maybe not as much less as some people think because the reason for having employees come to the office is to network and collaborate with other employees meaning many employees would likely be in the office at the same time. One large SF company, Salesforce, seemed to be contemplating this when CEO Mark Benioff talked about not so much reducing space as redesigning it to facilitate employees getting together in groups; in other words no cubicles but rather open living room like office spaces. I do think it can mean less commute traffic, much lower peak demand on commuter transit systems and less business for downtown services like restaurants serving lunch. You could see a greater emphasis on dinner service in downtown dining spots. |
Dropbox's San Francisco HQ is selling for a record-breaking $1.08 billion
Andrew Chamings sfgate.com March 8, 2021 It's a story that has been common across large tech firms in San Francisco over recent months — first, a company announces a work-from-home strategy, then comes the unloading of San Francisco office space. But this deal is a whopper. File-hosting service Dropbox's Mission Bay headquarters — a four-building complex at 1800 Owens Street — is selling for $1.08 billion, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. . . . The astounding sale marks yet another major tech firm pulling out of San Francisco office space as working from home becomes the new normal. In October, Dropbox made the announcement that the office-to-home shift was permanent. “We believe the data shows the shift to remote work, though abrupt, has been successful overall,” the company said in a blog post at the time. “... In our internal surveys most employees say they’re able to be productive at home (nearly 90%) and don’t want to return to a rigid five-day in-office workweek.” In February it was revealed that Uber was looking to unload a large chunk of office space, also in Mission Bay, before they had even moved in. Salesforce, which employs over 9,000 people in the Bay Area, announced in February its “Work From Anywhere” strategy, estimating that more than 65% of employees will adopt the new system, based on a company survey. In January, Digital Realty — a tech support company that employs around 1,500 people worldwide — announced its headquarter's relocation to Austin, the tech capital of Texas. Yelp's San Francisco headquarters at 140 New Montgomery St. is also now up for lease. “With more employees working remotely we’re reducing some of our footprint in San Francisco, but we will still maintain our HQ office there,” the crowd-sourced reviews company said in a statement. Last year, Pinterest, the social-sharing site popular for pinning recipes, home inspiration and more, canceled its $89.5 million San Francisco office lease. In another sector, Gap Inc., recently announced to employees it will be closing its Old Navy offices in Mission Bay and consolidating those workers into the parent company’s Embarcadero office building. . . . |
^^Far from being bad news, this strikes me as remarkably good news:
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The unnamed buyer, at least, must think that San Francisco commercial space has a bright future and that any softness is temporary. One possibility lies in the very hot hot hot market for biotech space. Some former office spaces are being considered for conversion. In fact, Dropbox has already subleased a big chunck of the Exchange to Vir, a biotech company. And as many of us remember, Mission Bay was supposed to be a biotech center but then the InfoTech folks supplanted biotechs in demand for space and the city allowed much of the building in Mission Bay to go in that direction. They may now be wishing they hadn't (most biotech has gone to South San Francisco and Emeryville across the Bay bridge). On the other hand, though, here's another example of an infotech firm pulling back and this may show the distinction between a Financial District tower and a midrise in Mission Bay: Quote:
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Chicago's less reliance on tech is suddenly working to its advantage now, as it seems that tech companies can "pull off" work from home more than nearly any other industry.
Chicago still is heavily reliant on sales/marketing. And you will never beat a sales team that is willing to pitch in person. |
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