CHICAGO | General Developments

[Zapatan]

Well apparently...

Kind of surprised the office construction that's happening, considering this (if true). I guess new / modern space is that much more valuable?

Five Willis Towers worth of office space is empty in downtown Chicago, and it’s going to get worse

https://www.chicagotribune.com/colum...ikq-story.html

[harryc]

March 8

[left of center]

Originally Posted by Zapatan

Well apparently...

Kind of surprised the office construction that's happening, considering this (if true). I guess new / modern space is that much more valuable?

Five Willis Towers worth of office space is empty in downtown Chicago, and it’s going to get worse

https://www.chicagotribune.com/colum...ikq-story.html

A lot of the office space under construction now was planned or began construction well before the pandemic, and I'm sure the developers are bullish on the CBD's recovery, which I think they have good reason to be. A year of WFH has shown the limitations of it. Humans are social creatures. We simply do not get energized by viewing faces on screens as we do with in-person interactions. That affects everything from organization to planning and executing operations. We simply are more productive when we are in lively environments with our fellow coworkers.

People (especially young people, which are coveted by the corporate world) are going to continue moving to cities. Everyone bellyached that cities were finished 20 years ago with 9/11 and that prediction simply did not come true. If corporations, large and small, want to hire new grads and talented workers, they will have to maintain and expand their presence in cities. These developers know that, and are proceeding ahead with their projects. Will there be a difficult few years ahead? Yeah, absolutely. But a lot of these new offices aren't coming online for a few years anyway, so no need to fret necessarily.

[Chi-Sky21]

Originally Posted by harryc

March 8

Such a turd compared to what was originally proposed for this spot.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by left of center

A lot of the office space under construction now was planned or began construction well before the pandemic, and I'm sure the developers are bullish on the CBD's recovery, which I think they have good reason to be. A year of WFH has shown the limitations of it. Humans are social creatures. We simply do not get energized by viewing faces on screens as we do with in-person interactions. That affects everything from organization to planning and executing operations. We simply are more productive when we are in lively environments with our fellow coworkers.

People (especially young people, which are coveted by the corporate world) are going to continue moving to cities. Everyone bellyached that cities were finished 20 years ago with 9/11 and that prediction simply did not come true. If corporations, large and small, want to hire new grads and talented workers, they will have to maintain and expand their presence in cities. These developers know that, and are proceeding ahead with their projects. Will there be a difficult few years ahead? Yeah, absolutely. But a lot of these new offices aren't coming online for a few years anyway, so no need to fret necessarily.

I can only speak anecdotally but most people I work with whether they're 23 years old or 55 years old right now miss being in the office. We have been just as productive at home, but everyone now after 1 year of WFH basically says they miss being in the office most of the time.

There's a lot of complications and my guess is that offices will come back just fine, but we'll probably see companies go for a hybrid WFH and work in person option a lot of the time (i.e. various people come to the office every other week).

[SIGSEGV]

Yeah but even if people only come in a few times a week... most will want their own office. Maybe they can be smaller or whatever but hot-desking is so early-20's.

[Via Chicago]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Yeah but even if people only come in a few times a week... most will want their own office. Maybe they can be smaller or whatever but hot-desking is so early-20's.

Lol that's....not happening. But desks probably will be spaced further out than the trend had been going esp as fewer people need to come in every day

At this point the long term impact remains to be seen but WFH is something that was always coming and the pandemic simply accelerated the trend by orders of magnitude. Now all the infrastructure is in place, people are accustomed to rolling out of bed at 8:30 and reclaiming 2-3 hours of their day, and management has seen the cost savings potential. No way that genie ever entirely goes back, and I think CBD office space is in for a real rough patch

The reality is people are saying they want to go back to office, but that's not what they really mean. What they mean is they want to get the hell out of the house. Once that option is available, people will be fine going to libraries or cafes or whatever. Also, it's time to face that being located in a major city is no longer a requirement to work for a big professional services company or do a white collar job. The right person who can negotiate well will likely be able to be based wherever they want. Also with the COL becoming increasingly unobtainable for young people, the flexibility to be based is a medium size city with a decent quality of life will become increasingly popular. It used to be you had to be in a big city to have concerts and brew pubs and galleries and decent food. That's no longer the case, every no name city now has its own brewery scene and farm to table restaurant. The playing field has been substantially leveled

[west-town-brad]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

Lol that's....not happening. But desks probably will be spaced further out than the trend had been going esp as fewer people need to come in every day

At this point the long term impact remains to be seen but WFH is something that was always coming and the pandemic simply accelerated the trend by orders of magnitude. Now all the infrastructure is in place, people are accustomed to rolling out of bed at 8:30 and reclaiming 2-3 hours of their day, and management has seen the cost savings potential. No way that genie ever entirely goes back, and I think CBD office space is in for a real rough patch

The reality is people are saying they want to go back to office, but that's not what they really mean. What they mean is they want to get the hell out of the house. Once that option is available, people will be fine going to libraries or cafes or whatever. Also, it's time to face that being located in a major city is no longer a requirement to work for a big professional services company or do a white collar job. The right person who can negotiate well will likely be able to be based wherever they want. Also with the COL becoming increasingly unobtainable for young people, the flexibility to be based is a medium size city with a decent quality of life will become increasingly popular. It used to be you had to be in a big city to have concerts and brew pubs and galleries and decent food. That's no longer the case, every no name city now has its own brewery scene and farm to table restaurant. The playing field has been substantially leveled

reclaiming 2-3 hours per day?

the reality is more like working 2-3 hours MORE per day because there are no longer constraints on the work day.

[Via Chicago]

Originally Posted by west-town-brad

reclaiming 2-3 hours per day?

the reality is more like working 2-3 hours MORE per day because there are no longer constraints on the work day.

It's up to the individual to set their boundaries, otherwise you will always be taken advantage of by an entity or other people that do not have your interests at heart. That's how people burn out and have mental breakdowns, and simply going back to the office won't magically solve that if it's a person who let's themselves be walked over or never pushes back. I sign off at the end of the day and so does most of my team. Sometimes yes you need to work late, but those are the nights I would have been brining my laptop home anyway, and then I still have that work to do after an hour train ride and making dinner. Not a great feeling then either. I agree the lines have blurred, but that goes both ways. The reality is I'm more productive at home without coworker distractions or running from one conference room to the next all day. Yes there's IMs but I can prioritize those as needed, as opposed to having people stop by my desk constantly forcing me to drop what I'm doing. Personally I find it way easier to manage time

[the urban politician]

I’m telling the WFH crowd: go back to the office and reforge relations with your boss and coworkers. Don’t get too comfy.

The inevitable progression of this process is to simply hire people in India and the Philippines who will do the same job for 1/5 the salary and zero benefits. Consider yourself warned....

[Via Chicago]

Ok dad

We've already been told well likely have a hybrid model. The loop will never have the daily worker population it once did. You're in denial. Out company opened a brand new building right before the pandemic and has already said it will never support the number of people it was intended to due to spacing and keeping people permanently further apart (as well as staggered schedules). This isn't going away, it's the new normal

Also companies are not putting people from the Philippines in front of clients to do strategy and planning and execution and analytics. That's back office grunt work with easily repeatable sets of steps with literally no thinking or decision making involved (which frequently gets fd up and we have to redo it ourselves anyway). It's been the same way for 20 years now. You get what you pay for

Also my boss would gladly permanently WFH given the choice, it's funny you think upper management dosent hate coming in just as much. The difference is now no one can say it won't work, because it has for over a year. The excuse won't fly anymore, and most employees will have the expectation that they have the flexibility to work at least part time from home, esp once kids are back in school and they're no longer expected to be 6 things at once. If you as an organization aren't offering this flexibility you'll be left behind, same way suburban campuses in the 00s had issues recruiting talent. Evolve or die.

[the urban politician]

^ Exactly. You are making my point for me.

Next step: hire more people living overseas and pay them less. Evolve or die. I love having common sense, it’s a rare gift, it seems!

[Via Chicago]

You can do that already today, and have been able to do so for over 20 years, as I said. Do you think email and the internet just came online in the past 12 months? Literally nothing new. There's a reason jobs are still based here in the first place. If you think you're going to get the same service, response time, quality of work and level of attentiveness and cultural nuance from India as you will from the US, knock yourself out. You're acting like offshoring is some new concept. Been there done that lol. The work inevitably winds up coming back

You want to give your 800 million dollar marketing budget to a team in Bangalore, sure its an option. Have fun having a team that dosent understand your business, much less the country or demographics you compete in, lacks cultural nuance, and can't do something as simple as respond to a real time request at 2Pm CST

[Busy Bee]

Yeah, well TUP, that's just like, your opinion, man.

[Via Chicago]

I'm dont know what you are actually even arguing tup. That at least partial WFH won't be a real thing? That commerical real estate isn't facing down the barrel of a gun? All of these things are in fact actually happening in real time and are easy to see by any casual observer. All crises permanently change us in some way. You could walk up to any departure gate or take the elevator to any floor in an office building pre 9/11. Now aj entire generation cant imagine what that would be like. The ramifications of covid will be permanent, in ways we can predict and ways we can't. But nostalgic notions of "normal" aren't real things, and the only guarantee is the new normal won't be the same as the old one

[SIGSEGV]

I think it depends on the line of work. In my field, people have been able to WFH from years as much pretty much as they want (nobody's keeping track), and all meetings are telecons anyway due to international collaborations. But it's much less efficient for collaborative research, even in cases where my crappy home lab is theoretically sufficient.

[left of center]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

Ok dad
The loop will never have the daily worker population it once did.

I remember hearing this argument back in 2001 as well, and it didn't quite turn out that way.

Not discounting your argument, as there are cases to be made on both sides about the future of CBD's. That said, prediction is a tough business. We will see in a few years how downtowns overall fare. While I believe WFH will remain a part of the workplace model, there are a lot of efficiencies having people in one room. A 16 person zoom meeting is a hell of a lot more chaotic to handle than a 16 person round table, at least from my anecdotal experience.

[west-town-brad]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

I’m telling the WFH crowd: go back to the office and reforge relations with your boss and coworkers. Don’t get too comfy.

The inevitable progression of this process is to simply hire people in India and the Philippines who will do the same job for 1/5 the salary and zero benefits. Consider yourself warned....

This is correct.

[west-town-brad]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

You can do that already today, and have been able to do so for over 20 years, as I said. Do you think email and the internet just came online in the past 12 months? Literally nothing new. There's a reason jobs are still based here in the first place. If you think you're going to get the same service, response time, quality of work and level of attentiveness and cultural nuance from India as you will from the US, knock yourself out. You're acting like offshoring is some new concept. Been there done that lol. The work inevitably winds up coming back

You want to give your 800 million dollar marketing budget to a team in Bangalore, sure its an option. Have fun having a team that dosent understand your business, much less the country or demographics you compete in, lacks cultural nuance, and can't do something as simple as respond to a real time request at 2Pm CST

Costa Rica speaks english, is in the same time zones, and understands “American” cultural and business norms. And the cost is the same to India.

[Via Chicago]

Originally Posted by west-town-brad

Costa Rica speaks english, is in the same time zones, and understands “American” cultural and business norms. And the cost is the same to India.

And does the talent exist there to do the work you want? Will you be able to staff up an account overnight with dozens or hundreds or thousands of people to work on a given client with appropriate skillsets? Can you scale beyond thatnone account? Does housing and adequate infrastructure exist on a small isolated nation to support millions of professional service workers? If so then...go for it? Or are you just going to have to pay western expats salaries they'd be making in the states anyway (COL in CR is extremely high and way of life is primarily driven by tourism and agriculture and generational land ownership). There's less than 1/2 the people in the entire country of CR than the metro area of chicago, the poverty rate is 30%, and the country is in the middle of a debt crisis. Good luck