Pandemic vacancy: Corona changes Manhattan’s office towers

–

–
–

–

Home office will partly remain

Even optimists assume that no more than half of the employees will be back at their desks by autumn: “People will continue to work from home even after the pandemic, at least those with office jobs,” predicts Susan Lund from the McKinsey management consultancy. “You only need one computer – no matter where it is. Most companies will probably introduce a mixed model: a few days a week in the office, the other days working from home.”

Even renowned New York employers such as the major bank JP Morgan do not assume that there will be a return to the “relic” of the five-day office week. The head of the financial giant Blackrock, Larry Fink, also thinks that the financial industry has proven in the pandemic that it works from a distance: “We did well with the home office. It works very well.”

Firms are looking at savings on expensive office rents

That is why many companies have long been considering saving at least some of the sometimes astronomical rents – even for shabby mini-offices – in the skyscrapers of Manhattan. A horror vision for the city, which is urgently dependent on tax revenues – and of course for the real estate industry, which fears falling rents and therefore continues to conjure up the “good old days”.

“New York is still an important and growing market,” says Michael Slattery of CBRE, the leader in commercial real estate in New York. “Having a foothold in New York is a must for many companies. They like to pay the high rents here because they know the strength of this city. And that won’t change.”

A new face for Manhattan?

Others, however, even hope that the pandemic will change Manhattan permanently. So does Anna Tavis. She is researching the future of work at New York University: “If these expensive rents fall, then this is the opportunity for new innovative companies and start-ups. Or the opportunity for organizations to come back to New York.”

Tavis also believes that the office space itself will change if more people work from home: “Many of these partitions that now delimit mini-workplaces will disappear. There will be more space, more space, more air for employees. There fewer people will work on one floor. ”

Opportunity for new office concepts

A great opportunity for interior designers to design new, innovative office concepts, says the futurologist. And not only that: “We will have to reinvent the city. Even traffic in the city – especially with a view to a green, more sustainable economy.”

There are now many opportunities to change something – Tavis is convinced of that. “Perhaps it took the shock of the pandemic to make it clear that things simply cannot continue as the city has functioned so far.”