If they were nice and walking distance from people's homes, people would probably use them. Instead they're in the middle of no where for cheap rent and employees are sick of long commutes for work that could be done at home.
You are right! And if the company does not provide lunch and there are no restaurant nearby, you have to cook food everyday to prepare for lunch next day. It is just taking so much time to shop grocery(which is also bad beacuse you have to sit in the traffic) and cook.
two questions: 1). Do you have a single family house?. 2) If yes - do you want a commercial development next to it?. If one of your answers is "no" - then don't talk about things you have no idea about.
@@arney444Is this commercial space useful to me and would I want to walk there. It also depends on how much asphalt and car traffic the commercial space has.
When it comes to municipal finances, cities and towns get a lot more tax dollars per square foot from mixed-use and mid-to-high density buildings. They have all collectively shot themselves in the foot many years ago by having horrible zoning laws and city planning. If it takes a crisis for people to realize low-density single use zoning is not economically sustainable, so be it.
Yes, a crisis is apparently needed. Not so coincidentally, we have a massive housing crisis that is becoming more massive every day, and that comes from this same root cause.
I think it's going to take these office parks going bankrupt to begin a true realignment of priorities away from wasteful land use, back towards more efficient ones. Beyond the grassroots efforts underway in many places.
I think you hit the nail on the head with one thing: they were a tax shelter. Office parks are a terrible way to use land. When actually occupied, they are only used 40 hours per week, meaning that the majority of the time, they sit empty. Not only that, but since everyone in the suburbs drives, they’re surrounded by massive parking lots that make the buildings look tiny in comparison. They don’t exactly have the best carbon footprint, since the majority of the “vegetation” is lawn which requires watering
Life long New Jersey guy here. Back in the bad old days when the world was new and I still had hair, many of us wondered just why the ×+$$# we were building so much office space. Someone calculated that there was enough office space for everyone in the State to have their own desk and shuffle paper. As a scientist it was sickening to watch what happened to Bell Labs. As an environmental scientist it was sickening to see so much open space dissappear under yet another office park and supporting strip malls.
@@lu544 Building with purpose and intensity. You can build high quality low-rise cities with plenty of office, working, and entertainment space in a small to medium sized city. Allow missing middle housing, retrofits of property not specifically zoned for that use, and lax enough building and tax laws to make it worthwhile for someone to invest in a mixed-use building in the core part of the community. The buildings need as much flexibility as the businesses that come and go due to the creative destruction of business.
@@lu544 What a strange question. The alternative is to just build things the way we used to. Zoning laws have only been around for about 100 years, and have only been used as they have for about 60 years. If we just revert to traditional city planning, we'll get out of this mess and work out way back to sensible financing for cities.
I’m kind of unsympathetic about the governments that are going to lose money on this. They can change their tax, zoning and building codes. They can liberalize building and implement land taxes to deal with this. If there was housing and other businesses around the offices, the offices would have some demand rather than nothing. Boomer style suburbanization is economically unsustainable financially, we knew this was going to happen at some point.
Less so the governments, more so the people that elect the government. If they're not going to accept that suburbia isn't very viable without seeing their tax bill climb sharply, well, too bad, reality has a way of making itself known
The Boomers didn't do this. They were born into it and never knew any different. The reason we have fallen out with suburbia is that we grew up in a more connected world and could see how proper cities are better in the US and especially abroad.
I don't think we ever needed so much office space to begin with. 2020 kind of proves this. Office workers were sent home and nothing happened. How can a society need so many people consuming so many resources a not contributing? The only thing that made this possible was currency printing.
Agree. Our company is in an office park and could get a smoking deal on a bigger space from a company that went to 100% remote work during COVID. It worked so well they never came back. But the lease had not expired so they were looking for someone else to foot the bill. I said don't do it. Where's the money? We just spend a bunch of money on an office space for what? Spend the money on better equipment, people, supplies, whatever. But a giant office building is just a financial ball and chain you have to drag around.
@@castirondudeIt was just a way to get money off of companies. Pretty much like buying a house for a family, these offices spaces mark up the price and cost a LOT. And were not even needed in the first place.
@@celuiquipeut6527not needed in the first place? it was a cheaper place to have your company when they were built. work from home wasn’t possible until the past 10-15 years lol
@@cheapdrunk8531 since the early 2000 when everything went digital with VOIP offices became obsolete. I understand and yes, there was a time when it was needed. Its not anynore.
So we're just going to over look the part that these towns have invested heavily into car centric and now it's going to drain their pockets. We need a new approach. A strong towns approach and build places people actually want to live, play and work in.
👆this man is correct. We’ve rebuilt our entire society infrastructure around inherently unsustainable practices. Time to adapt and move back to cities, the way humans have lived for millennia. I don’t care what a slave owner from the 1700s thought, he thought it was just A-OK to own other human beings.
@@mustang8206 everyone is too broke for a car. They're massively subsidised and most people buy them using debt. They're an economic disaster for the working and middle classes.
As a millenial with graduate degrees (and who is "on paper" a supposed "brainy youngster"), the thing I hate the most about my current, otherwise pretty great, job is that it's based out of a soulless office park. The commute from the more central part of the city to the suburbs sucks. The lack of amenities while at work sucks. The lack of pleasantly walkable areas for break sucks (unless you like the idea of strolling past half-filled parking lot after half-filled parking lot). It just overall sucks to work in an office park. And I feel like the company has its head in the sand about it while simultaneously trying to attract "brainy youngsters".
Your company isn’t listening because it’s still being run by Boomers, who still think suburbia is a utopia. But there’s good news: and that is, time (death) eventually solves all problems.
In addition to office parks being sterile and soul sucking, most of them in my part of the country are just far enough removed from public transportation routes that it makes it mandatory to drive. In some cases, they are literally a stone's throw away from the train station, but no sidewalks or means of crossing multiple lanes of traffic.
nope. the city center is just get too expensive. companies have to sprawl out ward or rent for housing shoot up 3,000 like New York. in fact the bay area housing crisis is due too many want to live in a super city. if they spread out to medium to small cities than we could build more houses. In Canada the problem is even worst. they even more hyperurbanizatied that usa. They have plenty of land just that jobs have to more to other areas.
They will be converted to giant serverhalls for e-commerce and people working at there laptops from home. Having videomeetings online are far more easy than spending time and money for travels and in some cases hotelnights.
@@kyle857 suburbs are dependent on new development to create revenue to cover the infrastructure that’s aging like a ponzi scheme. Almost none are economically solvent cuz they are just too expensive compared to tax revenue.
@@MrTim-ez2qd not if it’s an actual city and not just an office park. There’s many reasons people choose to live in a city other than just going to an office tower.
Video: 1. The world is changing (as it always does) 2. in the past most businesses chose office buildings and asked builders to build office buildings 3. now businesses are trying out new ways of working and because of that less office buildings are needed 4. this is a big problem because now we have buildings that can't do the exact thing they have done for a few years. Things might have to change! This is horrible. 5. cities and towns have to find new ways of taxing people that earn a lot
@arney444 i get what ur saying but illegal immigrants work hard as f*ck. In my experience, they work almost as much as 2 american citizens can. We should probably take advantage of that...
@@KP-sg9fm Yes, the majority of illegal immigrants are hardworking people, who would take any kind of odd jobs to make a living. But the real problem is not easily visible. We - the entire world - are at a huge turning point with regard to availability of non-skilled jobs. In 5-8 years from today, there will be huge extinction of those jobs, those jobs will be disappearing with the speed of millions a year. What we - as a country - are going to do with tens of millions of people, who do NOT have ANY skills whatsoever? we as a country will face a huge crisis
@@KP-sg9fm No matter how this people are eager to work, there will be NO work for them. In the democratic States like NY and Illinois there is already an UNPRECENDENTED rise of crime, because these illegal immigrants are desperate to get ANY money to live on. But they have NO skills whatsoever to be employed in a modern country. McDonalds and Burger Kings are already maxed out. Janitor and earth-digging jobs are maxed out. How many more loan moaners do we need?
Yep, folks get to use their car and generally don't have to pay to park while enjoying the freedom of movement that a car brings! And with the office park so close to where folks live, they may have to drive the car, but their commute will be far, far shorter than the urban dweller stuck waiting on an unreliable and crowded bus/train. (Try buying groceries for a family of four and using public transportation. No, I don't want to go grocery shopping every two days; that isn't a solution!)
@@commentinglife6175 THANK YOU! All these urbanist idiots really don't understand the level of personal utility a car brings to a person's life. They can't see any distance travel beyond daily work commutes and really think nobody ever uses more than a back-pack's worth of cargo volume. Their stupidity is exhausting.
@commentinglife6175 maybe flip it around. People working in office parks are all dependent on roads and highways that always get backed up and have terrible transit, due to being in the middle of nowhere. Downtown has all the rapid transit infrastructure, express routes, and optimized/dedicated lane bus infrastructure. Just because an office park is in the suburbs, doesn't mean it's nearby to YOUR suburb. This just results in everyone driving everywhere else.
@@TomPVideo Having lived near DC with their metro system AND their awful traffic, I'd say your initial assumption is wrong. Yes, some people might have to commute to an office park elsewhere, but provided the company didn't move (granted, COVID changed this dynamic for sure), people would target suburbs near their office. That's what my family did when we bought a home back in the Midwest. As for inner-city transit, I've waited on trains that either didn't show up on time or were too full to fit more people all trying to commute. A public transit system is worthless if you can't use it! I'll risk a bad commute living in the 'Burbs and using my car cause at least suburban homes are similar so finding one I like near my office isn't difficult; try to find the similar living situation near a downtown office for the same price - ain't happening!
The death of office parks won’t be the undoing of suburbia. The low density single family zoning is the real killer. Suburbs cannot raise enough revenue via property taxes with such low density.
When these are no longer used as office parks, they will probably be repurposed into housing, the same way that old city factories were turned into lofts. .
Not with high interest rates. While every building is different it's generally very expensive to convert office space to residential space so most contractors will need loans. High interest rates means no loans. The other option would be large capital firms, who wouldn't need loans, doing it. Unfortunately profit margins on anything other than very high end property means they have better options.
@@kevinolsen8779 I don't know what you mean by NIMBY. Converting offices into apartments is more difficult and expensive than it might seem. For starters, all the wiring and plumbing has to be re-done. Other changes must be made to accommodate local building codes. You essentially have to rebuild the entire structure.
@MatthewEng2593 You will need to somehow convince the banks and the local municipality to accept the lower valuation if they're ever going to be sold first
I really dislike the "millennial preferences" argument. I didn't move to a city because I wanted to be a sophisticated urbanite. I moved to a city because that's where the jobs are. Internal advancement is barely a thing anymore, so if you want to increase your income, you have to job hop. Better to be in a city where there's lots of potential jobs close by.
I mean the example given is northern NJ, which is in the metro area and still has lots of jobs. There was definitely a trend among millennials to prefer to live in NYC than northern Jersey aside from purely jobs, when previous generations it was the opposite.
weve literally used cities for millenia and the fact that some people thought: 'actually cities bad' is HILARIOUS. especially thinking suburbs are the answer even though we know theyre ecologically destructive and a tax drain
The cities were wrecked after civil rights era and the introduction of the welfare state from the later 1960s. By the 1970s, people were fed up. We're seeing this right now on the West coast, just takes a few years to catch up
@@PhilipJFry-qh2jg except people aren't abandoning the cities on the west coast, they are moving in, and new housing is being built -- despite the problems (which can be fixed).
I started a job recently that involves a fair bit of travel to customer sites. Honestly the hard part isn't the travel it's the fact I'll be semi excited to go to a city i haven't yet only to realize the customer is in an office part 45 minutes from the city ☠️
I live in South Florida and know a couple of people who live in urban areas and commute to suburban offices. Since this is the reverse of the usual traffic pattern, they seem to be quite happy with the lack of traffic congestion.
Not easy to do. With exception of medical office space. Most have central plumbing in the middle near elevators, they also have a central AC system. Converting that to housing wont be as easy or cost effective as tearing down the buildings and building purpose built buildings in their place. Remember these office parks were often built cheap and by the lowest bidder. Not like many of the downtown buildings. As an Mechanical engineer that does this for a living I know.
wtf? I can't speak with dense places like NYC etc. but most places have plenty of housing. The other side of the coin is we are about to have a population shrinkage. Why make a bunch of housing for folks that aren't real. Too many people you just repeat the narrative without using your brain.
there's plenty of affordable housing in this country, you can get a house in Detroit nearly for free. it's just not affordable in places where there are good jobs. putting apartments in an empty office park, where there are no more jobs, seems to perpetuate the problem.
@@charlesgoin8217 An even bigger issue than the plumbing or AC is the typical floorplate size of these buildings. Take a look at one on google maps (especially the lower rise 1-2 story product) and these buildings can be 30-75,000 SF on a single floor, which means a very small portion of the area is within an acceptable distance to a window. Have seen instances where they cut a circle out of the middle of the building to make it donut-shaped and have interior courtyard facing units, but that's not financially feasible for 99.9% of properties.
They've already started doing that where I live. Saw the listing's on Zillow and only words that came to mind: Dystopian housing. No human should have to live in that.
It really isn’t. They wouldn’t function otherwise. This is like saying all plants are bad without stating any nuance. How else are you meant to fund the funds without investing the money?
The suburbs will definitely be the ones to face the worst effects of… suburban office parks, not sure how this could blow back on cities, which have their own sets of struggles with commercial real estate but a much more sustainable tax base. We’re almost 25 years from Office Space’s perfect depiction of the misery of doing a 9-5 job in a suburban office park. There’s no way younger generations, knowing the ubiquity of remote work, are going to move back en masse to this style of working. The majority of suburbs near office parks make any kind of transformative housing project a nearly impossible battle, so until that changes, this kind of decay will continue as suburban towns feel the effects of this stagnation and decay.
Child of the 80s here (class of '87). I'm from New Orleans and was a kid when everyone was getting' the hell outta Dodge and heading for the 'burbs, so I wound up in both Metairie and Kenner, two of NOLA's main suburbs. I remember when those office parks were going up and how modern everyone thought they were. As a result, much of Metairie Kenner are now one extended agglomeration of strip malls and office parks, could be Anywhere, USA. Which is a shame considering how unique New Orleans proper is.
in NYC and other cities, office buildings are being converted into mixed-use buildings: apartments, grocery, gym, daycare, retail, etc., mixed in at the ground level, with apartments above. in these office parks, landlords are going to have to re-configure and re-invent uses for these buildings. Knocking them down just fills garbage dumps
This was a really cool video, I have lived and worked my entire life around office parks and never thought of it like this. The collapse of them could really have a great economic impact across North America. Thank you for making this video!
Strange, the very last thing I want to do for a commute is drive into the city where I have to deal with all the city problems, like dramatically inflated prices, no parking but no shortage of traffic, and all the noise pollution. In the exurbs, I might get road noise twice/day during rush hours. In the city, I couldn't get away from packs of motorcycles cruising the streets, drunks being rowdy all night, people crowding up behind you at an ATM, trash and broken glass in the streets. Absolutely no regrets about leaving.
Hence places like NYC implementing congestion tolling to combat the city traffic and noise NYC was very strangely quiet during 2020, which probably had something to do with the lack of cars anywhere
Agree, my previous company was downtown. Everything super expensive, parking expensive. When we went to remote work all the projects went faster than ever before. But hey they got millions upon millions invested in the buildings so that's the main reason they went back to office. So they don't look stupid for having an empty building.
The solution to High prices is High Prices. The solution to Low Prices is Low Prices. As so many of the parks empty out; If the rents are allowed to fall then they will attract smaller businesses and other uses that will repurpose them. Also some may be suitable to be converted to residential use. It varies by use case. Here in New England they will fall into disrepair and be seized for the taxes rinse and repeat.....
Except too many smaller cities have come to depend on that property tax bill. If the large company packs up, that can be 10% of the tax revenue right there.
Most office space is unfit for use as apartment space. Residential space requires far more plumbing and drainage capacity, as well as the installation of gas lines. That would mean boring out far larger drainage and water supply lines, which can cost as much as bulldozing and new construction would.
@@AaronCMounts It depends on locality and other factors. In high seismic areas for example. If the building was up to snuff. No it would be cheaper to retrofit. Also in warmer climates. Of course market conditions are the most important factor. But I agree often a "bulldozer remodel" is the best option for obsolete structures. And I can speak from experience it's very satisfying stuffing old concrete in a dumptruck a yard an half at a time.😎
99% of all the commercial properties in the US are built on borrowed money. The Owner has to pay interest and then make a profit. If the owner cannot make a profit, it will declare bankruptcy and abandon the building. Bottom line: it is not going to help lower the price, it is going to add an abandoned building and add all the problems with it.
@@thomaslthomas1506 Warmer climates aren't always the boon folks think it is. An improperly remodeled property in a warm climate is going to have mold problems within weeks, as the building resettles around the new holes it didn't have before and breaks any sealant involved. A lot of office buildings already have mold problems because, as many folks have already pointed out, they're built and maintained (or not maintained, as I can testify for most offices I've ever worked in) on the cheap. It really does come down to just bulldozing the thing and starting over. Most offices are held together with plywood, hopes and dreams anyway, the noise from having actual households in them would be atrocious.
It should be possible to make apartments in this buildings, or even better a mix of apartments, small businesses and shops. And please, reverse at least 50% of the parking to grass and trees. And cover the last 50% with solar panels. It may not save funds but at least people will have a home and will be able to live without needing a car for basic needs. And the more homes the less expensive it is to have a home, including for retired people.
You can setup all the small business space and shop space you want, but good luck enticing anyone to actually move into them. A 3-floor apartment complex of over 150 doors wouldn't be enough to entice even a small coffee house to move in, let alone any type of clinic, bar, retail shop or supermarket.
Do you personally agree to increase in your taxation to pay for the Chinese-propagaded BS and waste a.k.a. "solar panels"? If not a secret - what is exactly your educational level? I am doing a research about this demagogues shouting and crying about "solar panels", and so far did not find a single one who knows what he/she talks about.
I'm more and more convinced that the suburbs themselves are a failed experiment. Propping up business parks seems like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Suburban towns are already subsidized by the nearby urban areas they seem to hate so much, with utilities, services, and amenities that cost more than the taxes single family homes, drive-throughs, and strip malls bring in. Don't get me wrong, with the lack of housing, especially housing appropriate for larger families, most American cities as they stand right now, can't bring those suburbanites back into the urban fold. But with some effort, some zoning changes, and some new thinking (and some really old thinking), I'm a firm believer that cities are, for most people, the future, and not a bad one. The whole, "I'll move to the suburbs when I start a family" thing will, hopefully, die a much needed death. Along with the myth of moving to the country to live with nature. If you love nature...don't build a home on it.
I work in one of these in North Bethesda (but let's be real and call it Rockville). The office isn't that close to much, but there is a mixed use development planned about a block or two away. I think it's about 2000 residential units plus retail. The area is reasonably transit accessible, so it can work pretty well. In some cases, urbanization and mixed use near office parks can be a solution.
Assuming you're working off 355, that's because the area is dense enough that it's basically a city by US standards. This video is more about those office parks you'd see in Clarksburg or Poolesville.
So we have businesses surrounding office parks worried about not having a revenue stream, we have a low-income housing crisis that's rippling ALL the way upwards, and we have a lot of impending vacancies in these multi-storied buildings...this feels like an easy pivot that we will fuck up royally.
@4:56 if you're going to try to mask a current San Francisco skyline under a "70s vintage" filter, try to make sure the gigantic Salesforce tower isn't part of it.
I've successfully worked from my home office for > 30 years. Never going back to that ill-conceived construct of "down town," or suburbian "office park." NOR AM I willing to grind myself to death, so the boss can afford to by himself another new car next year. Not from my blood, sweat, and tears. Thank goodness for the internet.
I bought a condo in a 1970s office/retail/residential complex. After 80% of the office space sat vacant for the better part of a decade, most of it is being converted into spaces zoned for commercial or residential. I would live in a loft in a former office building in a heartbeat. I’m hoping GenZ feels the same way. If this revitalization goes as planned then my community will be every bit the place I hoped it would be.
Depending on location, some former office space might be able to survive through rezoning. I doubt there will many that would pass up a mini penthouse overlooking a lake if the price is right.
as long as the original 1970s architecture is preserved, as a zoomer i dont want our entire cityscape to either be 1800s historical or millenial modernist architecture
This is a great video. Slightly contradicts companies push for employees return to office. There is a big lack of mindset change from people in leadership positions.
The real reason for the rise and fall of the suburban office park is the history of IT and telecommunications. When all companies had was their own LAN server network, it was easier to build a suburban office around it than retro fit city office space. And this is where the company's datacentres were securely located. The suburban office was essentially a shell for an 80's and 90's computer network. But with the rise of high speed internet connections and cloud computing data storage services, the requirement for a private centralised network faded. Computing power became smaller, mobile and distributed. Telecoms in cities got upgraded to handle higher and faster data traffic. Hence, all the roadworks to install this infrastructure and coffee shops to provide laptop wifi connections. But there is a future for suburban office space with the rise of robotics. Robots will need somewhere to be stored and serviced. These office shells might be easily convertible into homes for robots. It had nothing to do with Millennial's lifestyle choices. It was all down to technology.
I think you're partially right, but there are some other factors like it being s tax shelter and America's over dependence on cars and the refusal to use public transportation.
I was with you until the point about robots. Seems like the robots could just be stored in an anonymous industrial park, no need to retrofit an office building for this.
agreed man. everyone is like office parks are useless workers want to work from home. most of these office parks were built before you could work from home
No thank you I will never work in an office park ever again. I worked in one of those hellholes for 4 years. The only palatable coffee shop was an 8-minute drive away. The two restaurants on the ground floor were too expensive to be considered a backup when I didn't feel like packing a lunch. Meeting friends after work was a logistical nightmare as most of them worked in the downtown core. Accessibility by public transportation was challenging even during rush hour. A one-way drive to work was 25 km. I liked my job but the inconvenience of the location eventually prompted me to look for a new job.
Really enjoyed this presenter's style of humour and how she engages the audience! Plus the script was very well suited to her presentation skills. Great job guys! Would come back to see her present other topics in the future 😊
As someone who worked at UBS in Stamford in 2013 & 2014 I can tell you that the headquarters were still in Stamford (there was also the building in Manhattan, but main ops & the trading floor was still in Stamford). There was talk of moving to the City proper (easier to attract the best talent for parts of the business, trading operations would be closer to the main exchange & thus faster. But for other aspects, like asset management/the hedge fund-y side of the business being in Stamford was still also an advantage), but last I heard before I left was that Stamford had made a very favorable tax offer to UBS to remain in Stamford. Heck I remember that CT was offering young couples nice incentives (possibly even in cash? But I think it was tax rebates) for moving out to CT to start their families.
I had a scary off the record conversation with a commercial real estate guy the other day saying that a lot of buildings in Seattle are probably going into forbearance in 2025
In 2005 I started a week out of graduation from Villanova at Merrill Lynch, starting at the home office of operations globally, a absolutely huge and beautiful campus in Pennington, New Jersey. This was 3 years before the financial crisis and Merrill Lynch was not owned by a bank yet and was making money hand over fist with subprime mortgage backed securities. We were the kings and it was awesome. I stayed at Merrill Lynch for another 10 years but of course after Bank of America took over starting in 2009 it was never the same. Bank of America sold the property in the largest real estate sale in New Jersey history. Time goes by. I turned out rich at least by 40.
"Agricultural" is completely different from a Corporate Campus/Office. I don't think Jefferson was referring to the survival of America through the labor of Mid Level Executives. Nice try though.
Let's replace them with flats. Even if they can't be refit, land is still land, especially with existing basic infrastructure: road access, electricity, water supply, sewage system, fiber, ... Not only will the local self-governemnt get its real-estate tax, but new residents/taxpayers too. I like idea of remote work rejuvenating small cities which often offer nice quality of life and access to many facilities (schools, shops, malls, sport) within small relatively small radius, no need for long, wasteful commutes.
Many WW2 veterans grew up in poor conditions in big cities. They welcomed a yard and home to call their own. Still today, many parts of cities aren’t great.
I live in the very inner of the inner rings of NYC burbs and these places are dying on the vine. And I get it, too. The campus type building inventory is all soulless, sterile and generally uninteresting.
This article also skips the inner city gentrification that was starting in the eighties and picking up speed in the 90's and 2000's . Gen X and retiring Boomers, tired of their power going out every time it rained, started realizing that property in the city could be bought cheap, improved upon, and bought with the proceeds of selling their suburban homes to those arriving in the 80's and 90's. The Millennials may have accelerated the trend for sure, but it was already WELL underway by the time they were adults.
Not sure I agree with the conclusion (or suggestion), but definitely an interesting video nevertheless. It _required_ a jolt like the pandemic to show people that, in modern times with desk/computer based jobs that working from home (along with maybe quarterly in-person get togethers) is often more than enough. It can boost productivity (more time, less commuting, safer) and overall quality of life. However, as your video outlines, given how society has acclimated to this infrastructure, it is putting serious pressure on the things that rely on that tax base. America’s sprawling “stroad” and strip mall riddled suburbia is rife with issues, not least of which are these increasingly empty corporate office complexes.
Whats most interesting is that this topic was largerly insider knowledge to the retirement finance world in 2022 & now the cracks are showing as more awareness trickles out of this disaster
I get your point about wanting them to survive, but that’s no different than not wanting progress I understand the issues that it will have I work in one of those buildings and now I work from home The amount of gas money that I have saved for my family is beyond imaginable. I’ve been able to help my kids in their school while I worked from home Again, I get the frustration with the property taxes, but industries die And I say that, knowing that one day, I will likely be affected, but the reality is still the same
I live in Eagan in Minnesota and was glad to see we made it into your video. To expand on that point, there are 3 large facilities within a block of each other that have been vacant since at least 2020. Once I think was vacated in 2019 but the lease didn't get renewed likely becausw if 2020. You know it's a problem when you see this happening to multiple office buildings. There are several routes these proerties can go: 1) Occupancy bu 1 or many business tenants. 2) Destroy and sell to developers for commercial or to convert to resdiential 3) Conversion into residential apartments or condominiums. Conversion to apartments/condos is expensive as plumbing as to be reconstructed throughout the building. You also need a new layout and sound proofing. Redevelopement is a huge investment for C&D. Occupying only comes back if the economy starts to pick up. Working from isn't the complete answer: a lot of companies have consolidated roles into their corporate offices.
I'm so glad you mentioned Eagan, MN. When I lived just to the south of there, it seemed that Eagan & Rochester would someday end up bumping 'office parks."
11 месяцев назад+1
The obvious answer is to repurpose the office parks into affordable housing and ground level shops and serviced. The projects would create plenty of job save the real estate companies and investment funds, and combat an unbelievably bad homelessness crisis for a developed country. Win-win-win. And while at it, turn these ridiculously huge parking lots into bus stops and train stations. Couple of extra dollars to make it nice as well as profitable.
These could go the way of malls. For big examples, the Great Mall of the Great Plains rose up and was removed, parking lot included, in less than twenty years. Or the Mall of Memphis, which was truly special, from opening to close, just over twenty-two years.
I live downtown in a major city, the homeless situation has gotten out of control and crime has gotten worse. I think this video fails to recognize how much urban crime improved in the late 90s, which made moving back to urban centers appealing again. Even if violent crime doesn't get close to 1980s levels, the perception is things are trending in the wrong direction and that will help keep these office parks alive.
Working in the burbs is soul-sucking. Car -> freeway -> fast food -> office with bad architecture -> home -> repeat, blah!!! Love working in the city lol! 🙂
i don't think the architecture is bad, the urban planning is but most office parks have more architectural worth than the sea of bland millenial buildings
Yep. My wife’s company signed a 5 year lease (with an option to extend another 5 or 10)for 12 floors in an office park in 2018. Occupied in mid 2019. 2023 they declined the option for all but 4 floors. That’s all they need with a hybrid working model.
Millennials spent their childhood in the suburbs. And as a child that can’t drive you realise how trapped you can be in those suburbs. That’s why we moved to cities where we can actually be connected to others in a community instead of alone in our little houses that we can’t afford.
Just because Thomas Jefferson (famously) espoused a pastoralist philosophy in the early 1800s doesn't mean the office parks of the mid-20th century are a direct or even indirect consequence of that philosophy. You can probably find vague explanations for pretty much any American development in the thousands of writings of its key historical characters. Without a convincing line of causality, though, this is just confirmation bias. There's an unhealthy need in US public discourse to make things poetic by shoving a founding father into a story that really doesn't need one. Seems like office parks are much more reasonably explained by suburbanization and a search for more cost-effective space in the post-war boom.
Go,d I hated those. Hate those. I lived near some that were built in the 90s and never filled up. They were 2020 well before 2020. But I worked for Sprint which did the multi-billion dollar stupid campus. Every floor a cube farm. Just awful. And all my friends were so excited -- a dry cleaner, a daycare, a gym -- all on campus! I was thinking "most of you could evaporate right in front of me and I wouldn't care, so why would I want to spend even more time with you?" Plus, the campus looked like something out of Logan's Run.
"most of you could evaporate right in front of me and I wouldn't care, so why would I want to spend even more time with you?" 🤣😂😅 Never change, @chipcook5346... never change.
I live in the NE and we have this problem in almost every town outside the large cities. While it's been getting more noticeable over the last ten years but they continue to build these office complexes.
I live near Eagan - there's about 100k sq ft of office park less than a mile from me that's just wrapping up build out.... Can't help but question why they're building that right now
I believe it is something that this video did not touch on. Big cities with crime explosions - such as Minneapolis. The companies that cannot get employees back to work in their city offices, because of crime, are moving to suburbs, again. They are finding bargain rate rents/leases (due to the reasons outlined in the vid) and low crime rates.
LOL - @7:19 - You skipped Gen-X... they totally were apart of the cycle back into downtown cities. They had punk shows and raves in old buildings, then made them their office headquarters.
Both my former and current companies downsized their office park space and switched to the flex-desk model: no permanent desks as employees work a hybrid of remote and in-office, so not all employees are in the office on the same days. That seems to be the office park trend post-pandemic, which should downsize the sq. ft. leased in the overall economy.
i can see the problem BUT this problem can be a solution. There's always been a problem with mult family housing in the suburbs. retrofit the closed office parks into apartments. I understand that it would be very expensive to do but you wouldn't have to build the entire building. The parking is already there Probably a bus stop is already there. They don't have to be five star apartments. I know that a lot of them would not pass certain criteria for windows that open or what have you. The apartments don't necessarily need their own washer and dryer You can install a laundry mat.. basically make them like college style apartments. with the prices the way they are People will not care . Those restrictions are simply laws that people have created and people can create exemptions for. Yes it may be a crisis to lose the office parks but we're in a housing crisis too. We may not always need office parks . We are talking about where office workers want to be like We are always going to have office workers.. 20 years from now we probably not need many office workers AI is going to do it. of the few office workers that will require a human very very few will require an office they will work from home. One thing that's not really debatable is everyone needs a place to live.
My level of sympathy is about as low as my excitement about being a member of the generation continually forced to clean up boomers’ messes and blamed for killing xyz industry that should have died off naturally long ago.
The "say it with me, the 1980s" is such a jarring non-sequitur in context of the conversation that I've replayed that section of the video 4 times to figure out why that would possibly be said.
I'm before my cup of coffee, and usually I hear the "say it with me" as continuation of a thought, not a Segway into an entirely different subject entirely. How can I say it with you when I have no idea what's gonna be said? Lmao
Thank you for the great video. Here are some other reasons for businesses' flight to the sururbs. 1. Cities usually have higher business taxes. 2. Cities usually levy more kinds of taxes on businesses. 3. Some cities have a wage tax, especially on the East Coast. a. Suburban municipalities imposing wage taxes really picked up in the 80s and 90s. a. However, the surburan rates are lower, usually between 0.5% to 1.0%. b. Philly's rate is 3.75%, a little lower for non-residents. c) in 1995, Philly's rate was 4.96%. d. All employees are taxed, including up to and including the CEO. 4. Sururbal munipalities gave busineesses large incentives to relocate, like lower taxes and helping to pay for the building.
Well, suburban office parks were better than forcing employees to commute from their homes in the suburbs to office buildings downtown. I was forced to do that right before covid and thank gawd covid ended that stupidity and now I work 100% from home. But, if there was an office park near where I live I wouldn’t have a problem commuting to it. Anything is better than forcing people to drive all the way into downtown. Anything. As a caveat, New Jerseys real problem is nobody wants to live in or move to New Jersey. The Sun belt is still where people are migrating to. Particularly places like Texas, Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee. New Jersey simply has a bad reputation for being dirty, polluted, crime ridden, and cold nasty weather.
@Kainae In fact, it's easier to do them the older the office building is, in general. If the building dates to a time before the open office, conversion can be a matter of running plumbing in the walls as everything else is probably already there.
1:00 "We should maybe root for the humble office park survival" ABsolutely NOT. Corporate real estate greed is part of what got us into this and it's not going to be what gets us out. They're already recalling the entire tech industry to city centers to offset the real estate problem under the guise of RTO facilitating better work. But this generation is no longer willing to bail out bad decisions by greedy boomers and we're all 100% here for it. If anything, office parks need to be converted into affordable living communes. But ya know, they'll never do that. So let it burn.
Another aspect not discussed in this video is the costs associated with working in a suburban office park. Housing costs around these parks have creeped up overtime due to bad civic planning, traffic is horrible due to everyone needing to drive in the same 2 hour blocks of the day, and overall these buildings are bland, poorly connected to the surrounding communities, and expensive to maintain as they age. Not to mention how much transportation costs have shot up for the average young household.
Something I've seen happen and what I'd like to see a lot more of are these office spaces being transformed into residential areas or hotels. With such a huge increase in cost of living, I actually feel this is perhaps a stronger solution for these properties in today's day and age than office properties.
i think they should do something to atleast preserve the architecture of the office park, even if they are outdated its unfair to wipe our architecture because the parking lot around it and not everyone is going to want the cityscape to boring millenial minimalist buildings
Ummm they are empty and still asking insane rents its makes more sense to drive farther for smaller office space. most used to be nice most are just rotting old buildings and out of date even rent spaces in a empty parking lot??
Office parks could be the perfect place to start building new dense mixed-use suburbs. They're better suited to this kind of redevelopment than power centers which are often located around intersections with buildings that have footprints and which do require a lot of parking and visibility from the street to be effective.
So much of the work is remote now, even when you are sitting in an office. The business that embrace remote work will be saving bundles of cash and be much more competitive vs those that do not.
33 year old Millennial here. I love my city’s downtown for a trip to a restaurant, shopping, and other entertainment but I prefer living and working in the suburbs. But I also usually work from home lol
![Stromae, Pomme - “Ma Meilleure Ennemie” (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Visualizer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1F3OGIFnW1k/mqdefault.jpg)
If they were nice and walking distance from people's homes, people would probably use them. Instead they're in the middle of no where for cheap rent and employees are sick of long commutes for work that could be done at home.
You are right! And if the company does not provide lunch and there are no restaurant nearby, you have to cook food everyday to prepare for lunch next day. It is just taking so much time to shop grocery(which is also bad beacuse you have to sit in the traffic) and cook.
two questions: 1). Do you have a single family house?. 2) If yes - do you want a commercial development next to it?. If one of your answers is "no" - then don't talk about things you have no idea about.
@@arney444 1). Does the office park loud to disturb peace? 2). If yes- is that really a office park or a car factory?
@@arney444Is this commercial space useful to me and would I want to walk there. It also depends on how much asphalt and car traffic the commercial space has.
@@Beastphilosophy Not sure I understand. What is my post, which you replied to?
When it comes to municipal finances, cities and towns get a lot more tax dollars per square foot from mixed-use and mid-to-high density buildings. They have all collectively shot themselves in the foot many years ago by having horrible zoning laws and city planning. If it takes a crisis for people to realize low-density single use zoning is not economically sustainable, so be it.
City taxes have been subsidizing single-family suburbia for decades. Time for the "free markets" to take care of that anomaly.
Yes, a crisis is apparently needed. Not so coincidentally, we have a massive housing crisis that is becoming more massive every day, and that comes from this same root cause.
“Let’s assume cheap gasoline and materials forever” - Boomers
I think it's going to take these office parks going bankrupt to begin a true realignment of priorities away from wasteful land use, back towards more efficient ones. Beyond the grassroots efforts underway in many places.
@@elbowstrikeThe fracking revolution does give us all the gasoline we want.
I think you hit the nail on the head with one thing: they were a tax shelter. Office parks are a terrible way to use land. When actually occupied, they are only used 40 hours per week, meaning that the majority of the time, they sit empty. Not only that, but since everyone in the suburbs drives, they’re surrounded by massive parking lots that make the buildings look tiny in comparison. They don’t exactly have the best carbon footprint, since the majority of the “vegetation” is lawn which requires watering
I'm fine with the office space itself only getting used 40 hours a week, but Jesus! All that parking just to sit empty 128 hours of the week 😞
And my house is sitting empty 40 hours per week. Also a waste.
Life long New Jersey guy here. Back in the bad old days when the world was new and I still had hair, many of us wondered just why the ×+$$# we were building so much office space. Someone calculated that there was enough office space for everyone in the State to have their own desk and shuffle paper.
As a scientist it was sickening to watch what happened to Bell Labs.
As an environmental scientist it was sickening to see so much open space dissappear under yet another office park and supporting strip malls.
@@lu544 Building with purpose and intensity. You can build high quality low-rise cities with plenty of office, working, and entertainment space in a small to medium sized city. Allow missing middle housing, retrofits of property not specifically zoned for that use, and lax enough building and tax laws to make it worthwhile for someone to invest in a mixed-use building in the core part of the community. The buildings need as much flexibility as the businesses that come and go due to the creative destruction of business.
@@lu544 What a strange question. The alternative is to just build things the way we used to. Zoning laws have only been around for about 100 years, and have only been used as they have for about 60 years. If we just revert to traditional city planning, we'll get out of this mess and work out way back to sensible financing for cities.
Sounds like The Mall all over again.
First time I've seen Bell labs mentioned outside a documentary about it. 😮
@@pace1195 missing middle housing. Yeah I just love hearing my neighbors music at all hours of the day.
I’m kind of unsympathetic about the governments that are going to lose money on this. They can change their tax, zoning and building codes. They can liberalize building and implement land taxes to deal with this. If there was housing and other businesses around the offices, the offices would have some demand rather than nothing. Boomer style suburbanization is economically unsustainable financially, we knew this was going to happen at some point.
Less so the governments, more so the people that elect the government. If they're not going to accept that suburbia isn't very viable without seeing their tax bill climb sharply, well, too bad, reality has a way of making itself known
Bingo.
The Boomers didn't do this. They were born into it and never knew any different. The reason we have fallen out with suburbia is that we grew up in a more connected world and could see how proper cities are better in the US and especially abroad.
@@beback_thanks for the reasonable answer. I swear people on the internet literally want a generational war or some shit😂
@@gh0s1wav Yeah it's really dumb. Like, try and be more than just your birth year. It's only flattering for about 10 years anyway.
I don't think we ever needed so much office space to begin with. 2020 kind of proves this. Office workers were sent home and nothing happened. How can a society need so many people consuming so many resources a not contributing? The only thing that made this possible was currency printing.
This might have more to do with investments in the economy, and not the amount of currency in circulation.
Agree. Our company is in an office park and could get a smoking deal on a bigger space from a company that went to 100% remote work during COVID. It worked so well they never came back. But the lease had not expired so they were looking for someone else to foot the bill. I said don't do it. Where's the money? We just spend a bunch of money on an office space for what? Spend the money on better equipment, people, supplies, whatever. But a giant office building is just a financial ball and chain you have to drag around.
@@castirondudeIt was just a way to get money off of companies. Pretty much like buying a house for a family, these offices spaces mark up the price and cost a LOT. And were not even needed in the first place.
@@celuiquipeut6527not needed in the first place? it was a cheaper place to have your company when they were built. work from home wasn’t possible until the past 10-15 years lol
@@cheapdrunk8531 since the early 2000 when everything went digital with VOIP offices became obsolete. I understand and yes, there was a time when it was needed. Its not anynore.
So we're just going to over look the part that these towns have invested heavily into car centric and now it's going to drain their pockets. We need a new approach. A strong towns approach and build places people actually want to live, play and work in.
👆this man is correct. We’ve rebuilt our entire society infrastructure around inherently unsustainable practices. Time to adapt and move back to cities, the way humans have lived for millennia. I don’t care what a slave owner from the 1700s thought, he thought it was just A-OK to own other human beings.
Just say you're too broke for a car. Most people want to live, play, and work somewhere they can drive in
@@mustang8206 everyone is too broke for a car. They're massively subsidised and most people buy them using debt. They're an economic disaster for the working and middle classes.
@@stuckupcurlyguy You're too broke for a car* Most people can afford one. Even most 16 year olds have one
As a millenial with graduate degrees (and who is "on paper" a supposed "brainy youngster"), the thing I hate the most about my current, otherwise pretty great, job is that it's based out of a soulless office park. The commute from the more central part of the city to the suburbs sucks. The lack of amenities while at work sucks. The lack of pleasantly walkable areas for break sucks (unless you like the idea of strolling past half-filled parking lot after half-filled parking lot). It just overall sucks to work in an office park. And I feel like the company has its head in the sand about it while simultaneously trying to attract "brainy youngsters".
Your company isn’t listening because it’s still being run by Boomers, who still think suburbia is a utopia. But there’s good news: and that is, time (death) eventually solves all problems.
In addition to office parks being sterile and soul sucking, most of them in my part of the country are just far enough removed from public transportation routes that it makes it mandatory to drive. In some cases, they are literally a stone's throw away from the train station, but no sidewalks or means of crossing multiple lanes of traffic.
Can you (with a graduate degree) not express yourself in better, more defined terms than saying it "sucks"?
nope. the city center is just get too expensive. companies have to sprawl out ward or rent for housing shoot up 3,000 like New York. in fact the bay area housing crisis is due too many want to live in a super city. if they spread out to medium to small cities than we could build more houses. In Canada the problem is even worst. they even more hyperurbanizatied that usa. They have plenty of land just that jobs have to more to other areas.
@@answerman9933-OP did specify. You were just too busy trying to language-police to notice.
They are facing the same problem as urban malls.
e-Commerce? Why?
They will be converted to giant serverhalls for e-commerce and people working at there laptops from home.
Having videomeetings online are far more easy than spending time and money for travels and in some cases hotelnights.
Cities got economically destroyed by suburbs. It’s only fitting for the suburbs to get economically destroyed by those recovering cities.
Suburbs are dependent on residents, not office buildings though.
@@kyle857 suburbs are dependent on new development to create revenue to cover the infrastructure that’s aging like a ponzi scheme. Almost none are economically solvent cuz they are just too expensive compared to tax revenue.
Cities are gonna get even more wrecked by virtual work when office spaces in those cities aren’t used anymore
@@MrTim-ez2qd not if it’s an actual city and not just an office park. There’s many reasons people choose to live in a city other than just going to an office tower.
@@rpvitiello plenty of cities like San Francisco are losing business
Video:
1. The world is changing (as it always does)
2. in the past most businesses chose office buildings and asked builders to build office buildings
3. now businesses are trying out new ways of working and because of that less office buildings are needed
4. this is a big problem because now we have buildings that can't do the exact thing they have done for a few years. Things might have to change! This is horrible.
5. cities and towns have to find new ways of taxing people that earn a lot
Cities and towns have to realize NOT to waste money on illegal immigrants and welfare for those who does not want to work.
@arney444 Moron
@arney444 i get what ur saying but illegal immigrants work hard as f*ck. In my experience, they work almost as much as 2 american citizens can. We should probably take advantage of that...
@@KP-sg9fm Yes, the majority of illegal immigrants are hardworking people, who would take any kind of odd jobs to make a living. But the real problem is not easily visible. We - the entire world - are at a huge turning point with regard to availability of non-skilled jobs. In 5-8 years from today, there will be huge extinction of those jobs, those jobs will be disappearing with the speed of millions a year. What we - as a country - are going to do with tens of millions of people, who do NOT have ANY skills whatsoever? we as a country will face a huge crisis
@@KP-sg9fm No matter how this people are eager to work, there will be NO work for them. In the democratic States like NY and Illinois there is already an UNPRECENDENTED rise of crime, because these illegal immigrants are desperate to get ANY money to live on. But they have NO skills whatsoever to be employed in a modern country. McDonalds and Burger Kings are already maxed out. Janitor and earth-digging jobs are maxed out. How many more loan moaners do we need?
Office parks are a symbol of an economy totally dependent on the private car.
Yep, folks get to use their car and generally don't have to pay to park while enjoying the freedom of movement that a car brings! And with the office park so close to where folks live, they may have to drive the car, but their commute will be far, far shorter than the urban dweller stuck waiting on an unreliable and crowded bus/train. (Try buying groceries for a family of four and using public transportation. No, I don't want to go grocery shopping every two days; that isn't a solution!)
@@commentinglife6175 THANK YOU! All these urbanist idiots really don't understand the level of personal utility a car brings to a person's life. They can't see any distance travel beyond daily work commutes and really think nobody ever uses more than a back-pack's worth of cargo volume. Their stupidity is exhausting.
@@commentinglife6175You can just walk to the grocery store in most cities
@commentinglife6175 maybe flip it around. People working in office parks are all dependent on roads and highways that always get backed up and have terrible transit, due to being in the middle of nowhere. Downtown has all the rapid transit infrastructure, express routes, and optimized/dedicated lane bus infrastructure.
Just because an office park is in the suburbs, doesn't mean it's nearby to YOUR suburb. This just results in everyone driving everywhere else.
@@TomPVideo Having lived near DC with their metro system AND their awful traffic, I'd say your initial assumption is wrong. Yes, some people might have to commute to an office park elsewhere, but provided the company didn't move (granted, COVID changed this dynamic for sure), people would target suburbs near their office. That's what my family did when we bought a home back in the Midwest. As for inner-city transit, I've waited on trains that either didn't show up on time or were too full to fit more people all trying to commute. A public transit system is worthless if you can't use it! I'll risk a bad commute living in the 'Burbs and using my car cause at least suburban homes are similar so finding one I like near my office isn't difficult; try to find the similar living situation near a downtown office for the same price - ain't happening!
"Bell labs" building was abandoned for years. Some investors bought it and now lease out sections to other businesses.
The death of office parks won’t be the undoing of suburbia. The low density single family zoning is the real killer. Suburbs cannot raise enough revenue via property taxes with such low density.
When these are no longer used as office parks, they will probably be repurposed into housing, the same way that old city factories were turned into lofts. .
Not with high interest rates. While every building is different it's generally very expensive to convert office space to residential space so most contractors will need loans. High interest rates means no loans.
The other option would be large capital firms, who wouldn't need loans, doing it. Unfortunately profit margins on anything other than very high end property means they have better options.
Nimby......sigh....it was ever thus
@@kevinolsen8779 I don't know what you mean by NIMBY. Converting offices into apartments is more difficult and expensive than it might seem. For starters, all the wiring and plumbing has to be re-done. Other changes must be made to accommodate local building codes. You essentially have to rebuild the entire structure.
I can't be that hard to convert them offices. Maybe just sell them off floor-by-floor like flats. Let the new owners build the home
@MatthewEng2593
You will need to somehow convince the banks and the local municipality to accept the lower valuation if they're ever going to be sold first
I really dislike the "millennial preferences" argument. I didn't move to a city because I wanted to be a sophisticated urbanite. I moved to a city because that's where the jobs are. Internal advancement is barely a thing anymore, so if you want to increase your income, you have to job hop. Better to be in a city where there's lots of potential jobs close by.
I mean the example given is northern NJ, which is in the metro area and still has lots of jobs. There was definitely a trend among millennials to prefer to live in NYC than northern Jersey aside from purely jobs, when previous generations it was the opposite.
weve literally used cities for millenia and the fact that some people thought: 'actually cities bad' is HILARIOUS. especially thinking suburbs are the answer even though we know theyre ecologically destructive and a tax drain
The cities were wrecked after civil rights era and the introduction of the welfare state from the later 1960s. By the 1970s, people were fed up. We're seeing this right now on the West coast, just takes a few years to catch up
@@PhilipJFry-qh2jg except people aren't abandoning the cities on the west coast, they are moving in, and new housing is being built -- despite the problems (which can be fixed).
@@matteframe Parisites are moving in with artificial (welfare) incentives. The organic, productive humans are leaving
@@PhilipJFry-qh2jg productive citizens are moving in and buying the most expensive real estate in the country. You're ignorant.
Well if the people in the burbs moved back to the cities good luck with that. Lol. Would be over crowded.
I started a job recently that involves a fair bit of travel to customer sites. Honestly the hard part isn't the travel it's the fact I'll be semi excited to go to a city i haven't yet only to realize the customer is in an office part 45 minutes from the city ☠️
I live in South Florida and know a couple of people who live in urban areas and commute to suburban offices. Since this is the reverse of the usual traffic pattern, they seem to be quite happy with the lack of traffic congestion.
They are usually called, "Mixed-Use" properties. apartments, shopping, etc.
It would be great to see these office buildings repurposed into condos & apartments to help address the shortage of affordable housing.
Not easy to do. With exception of medical office space. Most have central plumbing in the middle near elevators, they also have a central AC system. Converting that to housing wont be as easy or cost effective as tearing down the buildings and building purpose built buildings in their place. Remember these office parks were often built cheap and by the lowest bidder. Not like many of the downtown buildings. As an Mechanical engineer that does this for a living I know.
The buildings themselves aren't worth converting, but the land is and could be used to make more walkable neghbourhoods
wtf? I can't speak with dense places like NYC etc. but most places have plenty of housing. The other side of the coin is we are about to have a population shrinkage. Why make a bunch of housing for folks that aren't real. Too many people you just repeat the narrative without using your brain.
there's plenty of affordable housing in this country, you can get a house in Detroit nearly for free. it's just not affordable in places where there are good jobs. putting apartments in an empty office park, where there are no more jobs, seems to perpetuate the problem.
@@charlesgoin8217 An even bigger issue than the plumbing or AC is the typical floorplate size of these buildings. Take a look at one on google maps (especially the lower rise 1-2 story product) and these buildings can be 30-75,000 SF on a single floor, which means a very small portion of the area is within an acceptable distance to a window.
Have seen instances where they cut a circle out of the middle of the building to make it donut-shaped and have interior courtyard facing units, but that's not financially feasible for 99.9% of properties.
I think they should have their zoning changed so that they can be remodeled into apartments and condos/stratas
Better yet, abolish zoning so people can just do what makes sense.
@@castirondude You'll have sawmills and cattle feedlots setting up next to peoples' houses.
@@AaronCMounts That's fine , we have that here and it's no big deal.
They've already started doing that where I live. Saw the listing's on Zillow and only words that came to mind: Dystopian housing. No human should have to live in that.
@castirondude Lmao no. Spend an hour navigating around the atlanta metro area and you'll soon be begging for zoning
the fact that the finance industry controls the fate of pension funds is so fucked.
It really isn’t. They wouldn’t function otherwise. This is like saying all plants are bad without stating any nuance. How else are you meant to fund the funds without investing the money?
who would you want to run a pension fund? A middle-tier bureaucrat?
Thanks, Reagan!
The suburbs will definitely be the ones to face the worst effects of… suburban office parks, not sure how this could blow back on cities, which have their own sets of struggles with commercial real estate but a much more sustainable tax base.
We’re almost 25 years from Office Space’s perfect depiction of the misery of doing a 9-5 job in a suburban office park. There’s no way younger generations, knowing the ubiquity of remote work, are going to move back en masse to this style of working.
The majority of suburbs near office parks make any kind of transformative housing project a nearly impossible battle, so until that changes, this kind of decay will continue as suburban towns feel the effects of this stagnation and decay.
Because cities collect revenue off property taxes of those offices lol
Child of the 80s here (class of '87). I'm from New Orleans and was a kid when everyone was getting' the hell outta Dodge and heading for the 'burbs, so I wound up in both Metairie and Kenner, two of NOLA's main suburbs. I remember when those office parks were going up and how modern everyone thought they were. As a result, much of Metairie Kenner are now one extended agglomeration of strip malls and office parks, could be Anywhere, USA. Which is a shame considering how unique New Orleans proper is.
in NYC and other cities, office buildings are being converted into mixed-use buildings: apartments, grocery, gym, daycare, retail, etc., mixed in at the ground level, with apartments above. in these office parks, landlords are going to have to re-configure and re-invent uses for these buildings. Knocking them down just fills garbage dumps
also knocking them down would be a massive architectural waste, these office parks have nice looking buildings
This was a really cool video, I have lived and worked my entire life around office parks and never thought of it like this. The collapse of them could really have a great economic impact across North America. Thank you for making this video!
came from youtube recommend
man, morning brew makes great newsletter and content!
Strange, the very last thing I want to do for a commute is drive into the city where I have to deal with all the city problems, like dramatically inflated prices, no parking but no shortage of traffic, and all the noise pollution.
In the exurbs, I might get road noise twice/day during rush hours. In the city, I couldn't get away from packs of motorcycles cruising the streets, drunks being rowdy all night, people crowding up behind you at an ATM, trash and broken glass in the streets. Absolutely no regrets about leaving.
Hence places like NYC implementing congestion tolling to combat the city traffic and noise
NYC was very strangely quiet during 2020, which probably had something to do with the lack of cars anywhere
Agree, my previous company was downtown. Everything super expensive, parking expensive. When we went to remote work all the projects went faster than ever before. But hey they got millions upon millions invested in the buildings so that's the main reason they went back to office. So they don't look stupid for having an empty building.
The solution to High prices is High Prices. The solution to Low Prices is Low Prices. As so many of the parks empty out; If the rents are allowed to fall then they will attract smaller businesses and other uses that will repurpose them. Also some may be suitable to be converted to residential use. It varies by use case. Here in New England they will fall into disrepair and be seized for the taxes rinse and repeat.....
Except too many smaller cities have come to depend on that property tax bill. If the large company packs up, that can be 10% of the tax revenue right there.
Most office space is unfit for use as apartment space. Residential space requires far more plumbing and drainage capacity, as well as the installation of gas lines. That would mean boring out far larger drainage and water supply lines, which can cost as much as bulldozing and new construction would.
@@AaronCMounts It depends on locality and other factors. In high seismic areas for example. If the building was up to snuff. No it would be cheaper to retrofit. Also in warmer climates. Of course market conditions are the most important factor. But I agree often a "bulldozer remodel" is the best option for obsolete structures. And I can speak from experience it's very satisfying stuffing old concrete in a dumptruck a yard an half at a time.😎
99% of all the commercial properties in the US are built on borrowed money. The Owner has to pay interest and then make a profit. If the owner cannot make a profit, it will declare bankruptcy and abandon the building. Bottom line: it is not going to help lower the price, it is going to add an abandoned building and add all the problems with it.
@@thomaslthomas1506 Warmer climates aren't always the boon folks think it is. An improperly remodeled property in a warm climate is going to have mold problems within weeks, as the building resettles around the new holes it didn't have before and breaks any sealant involved. A lot of office buildings already have mold problems because, as many folks have already pointed out, they're built and maintained (or not maintained, as I can testify for most offices I've ever worked in) on the cheap. It really does come down to just bulldozing the thing and starting over. Most offices are held together with plywood, hopes and dreams anyway, the noise from having actual households in them would be atrocious.
I have been so much more content and productive working from home. Also not having to deal with a useless commute each day has been wonderful.
Same
Working from home is the best!
It should be possible to make apartments in this buildings, or even better a mix of apartments, small businesses and shops. And please, reverse at least 50% of the parking to grass and trees. And cover the last 50% with solar panels. It may not save funds but at least people will have a home and will be able to live without needing a car for basic needs. And the more homes the less expensive it is to have a home, including for retired people.
You can setup all the small business space and shop space you want, but good luck enticing anyone to actually move into them. A 3-floor apartment complex of over 150 doors wouldn't be enough to entice even a small coffee house to move in, let alone any type of clinic, bar, retail shop or supermarket.
Do you personally agree to increase in your taxation to pay for the Chinese-propagaded BS and waste a.k.a. "solar panels"? If not a secret - what is exactly your educational level? I am doing a research about this demagogues shouting and crying about "solar panels", and so far did not find a single one who knows what he/she talks about.
I'm more and more convinced that the suburbs themselves are a failed experiment. Propping up business parks seems like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Suburban towns are already subsidized by the nearby urban areas they seem to hate so much, with utilities, services, and amenities that cost more than the taxes single family homes, drive-throughs, and strip malls bring in.
Don't get me wrong, with the lack of housing, especially housing appropriate for larger families, most American cities as they stand right now, can't bring those suburbanites back into the urban fold. But with some effort, some zoning changes, and some new thinking (and some really old thinking), I'm a firm believer that cities are, for most people, the future, and not a bad one. The whole, "I'll move to the suburbs when I start a family" thing will, hopefully, die a much needed death. Along with the myth of moving to the country to live with nature. If you love nature...don't build a home on it.
I work in one of these in North Bethesda (but let's be real and call it Rockville). The office isn't that close to much, but there is a mixed use development planned about a block or two away. I think it's about 2000 residential units plus retail. The area is reasonably transit accessible, so it can work pretty well. In some cases, urbanization and mixed use near office parks can be a solution.
Pike and Rose 🌹😊
Assuming you're working off 355, that's because the area is dense enough that it's basically a city by US standards. This video is more about those office parks you'd see in Clarksburg or Poolesville.
So we have businesses surrounding office parks worried about not having a revenue stream, we have a low-income housing crisis that's rippling ALL the way upwards, and we have a lot of impending vacancies in these multi-storied buildings...this feels like an easy pivot that we will fuck up royally.
@4:56 if you're going to try to mask a current San Francisco skyline under a "70s vintage" filter, try to make sure the gigantic Salesforce tower isn't part of it.
I've successfully worked from my home office for > 30 years. Never going back to that ill-conceived construct of "down town," or suburbian "office park." NOR AM I willing to grind myself to death, so the boss can afford to by himself another new car next year. Not from my blood, sweat, and tears. Thank goodness for the internet.
I bought a condo in a 1970s office/retail/residential complex. After 80% of the office space sat vacant for the better part of a decade, most of it is being converted into spaces zoned for commercial or residential. I would live in a loft in a former office building in a heartbeat. I’m hoping GenZ feels the same way. If this revitalization goes as planned then my community will be every bit the place I hoped it would be.
Depending on location, some former office space might be able to survive through rezoning. I doubt there will many that would pass up a mini penthouse overlooking a lake if the price is right.
as long as the original 1970s architecture is preserved, as a zoomer i dont want our entire cityscape to either be 1800s historical or millenial modernist architecture
This is a great video. Slightly contradicts companies push for employees return to office. There is a big lack of mindset change from people in leadership positions.
Welp, guess those office park owners should pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get to converting them to housing ASAP, huh?
The real reason for the rise and fall of the suburban office park is the history of IT and telecommunications. When all companies had was their own LAN server network, it was easier to build a suburban office around it than retro fit city office space. And this is where the company's datacentres were securely located. The suburban office was essentially a shell for an 80's and 90's computer network. But with the rise of high speed internet connections and cloud computing data storage services, the requirement for a private centralised network faded. Computing power became smaller, mobile and distributed. Telecoms in cities got upgraded to handle higher and faster data traffic. Hence, all the roadworks to install this infrastructure and coffee shops to provide laptop wifi connections. But there is a future for suburban office space with the rise of robotics. Robots will need somewhere to be stored and serviced. These office shells might be easily convertible into homes for robots. It had nothing to do with Millennial's lifestyle choices. It was all down to technology.
As someone who worked in IT in the early 2000s I think you are right about that.
I think you're partially right, but there are some other factors like it being s tax shelter and America's over dependence on cars and the refusal to use public transportation.
I was with you until the point about robots. Seems like the robots could just be stored in an anonymous industrial park, no need to retrofit an office building for this.
agreed man. everyone is like office parks are useless workers want to work from home. most of these office parks were built before you could work from home
No thank you I will never work in an office park ever again. I worked in one of those hellholes for 4 years. The only palatable coffee shop was an 8-minute drive away. The two restaurants on the ground floor were too expensive to be considered a backup when I didn't feel like packing a lunch. Meeting friends after work was a logistical nightmare as most of them worked in the downtown core. Accessibility by public transportation was challenging even during rush hour. A one-way drive to work was 25 km. I liked my job but the inconvenience of the location eventually prompted me to look for a new job.
Jefferson would have hated office parks as great wastes of once rural land -- farmland, woodlands, just as I do.
Really enjoyed this presenter's style of humour and how she engages the audience! Plus the script was very well suited to her presentation skills. Great job guys! Would come back to see her present other topics in the future 😊
Found the bot.
As someone who worked at UBS in Stamford in 2013 & 2014 I can tell you that the headquarters were still in Stamford (there was also the building in Manhattan, but main ops & the trading floor was still in Stamford).
There was talk of moving to the City proper (easier to attract the best talent for parts of the business, trading operations would be closer to the main exchange & thus faster. But for other aspects, like asset management/the hedge fund-y side of the business being in Stamford was still also an advantage), but last I heard before I left was that Stamford had made a very favorable tax offer to UBS to remain in Stamford. Heck I remember that CT was offering young couples nice incentives (possibly even in cash? But I think it was tax rebates) for moving out to CT to start their families.
I had a scary off the record conversation with a commercial real estate guy the other day saying that a lot of buildings in Seattle are probably going into forbearance in 2025
“I am no longer fit to exist in polite society.” Girl, same.
Ah i used to love your videos back on Cheddar Karin! Glad you found a new place here
In 2005 I started a week out of graduation from Villanova at Merrill Lynch, starting at the home office of operations globally, a absolutely huge and beautiful campus in Pennington, New Jersey. This was 3 years before the financial crisis and Merrill Lynch was not owned by a bank yet and was making money hand over fist with subprime mortgage backed securities. We were the kings and it was awesome. I stayed at Merrill Lynch for another 10 years but of course after Bank of America took over starting in 2009 it was never the same. Bank of America sold the property in the largest real estate sale in New Jersey history. Time goes by. I turned out rich at least by 40.
Thumbs up just cause I like to read stories like this.
No, continuing to support an inefficient suburban model that should have never been built is the definition of the sunk cost fallacy.
right? what are we going to do with this arm-severing machine if we don't keep putting our arms into it?
"Agricultural" is completely different from a Corporate Campus/Office. I don't think Jefferson was referring to the survival of America through the labor of Mid Level Executives. Nice try though.
Right? That was such a non-sequitur!
Let's replace them with flats. Even if they can't be refit, land is still land, especially with existing basic infrastructure: road access, electricity, water supply, sewage system, fiber, ... Not only will the local self-governemnt get its real-estate tax, but new residents/taxpayers too. I like idea of remote work rejuvenating small cities which often offer nice quality of life and access to many facilities (schools, shops, malls, sport) within small relatively small radius, no need for long, wasteful commutes.
Many WW2 veterans grew up in poor conditions in big cities. They welcomed a yard and home to call their own. Still today, many parts of cities aren’t great.
I live in the very inner of the inner rings of NYC burbs and these places are dying on the vine. And I get it, too. The campus type building inventory is all soulless, sterile and generally uninteresting.
This article also skips the inner city gentrification that was starting in the eighties and picking up speed in the 90's and 2000's . Gen X and retiring Boomers, tired of their power going out every time it rained, started realizing that property in the city could be bought cheap, improved upon, and bought with the proceeds of selling their suburban homes to those arriving in the 80's and 90's. The Millennials may have accelerated the trend for sure, but it was already WELL underway by the time they were adults.
Not sure I agree with the conclusion (or suggestion), but definitely an interesting video nevertheless. It _required_ a jolt like the pandemic to show people that, in modern times with desk/computer based jobs that working from home (along with maybe quarterly in-person get togethers) is often more than enough. It can boost productivity (more time, less commuting, safer) and overall quality of life. However, as your video outlines, given how society has acclimated to this infrastructure, it is putting serious pressure on the things that rely on that tax base. America’s sprawling “stroad” and strip mall riddled suburbia is rife with issues, not least of which are these increasingly empty corporate office complexes.
Instead of propping up outdated business models, repurpose those office parks as housing or commerce, or mixed use of both.
That first area you showed with the highway is Southfield Michigan near Detroit. I live nearby. Made me chuckle.
Whats most interesting is that this topic was largerly insider knowledge to the retirement finance world in 2022 & now the cracks are showing as more awareness trickles out of this disaster
I get your point about wanting them to survive, but that’s no different than not wanting progress
I understand the issues that it will have I work in one of those buildings and now I work from home
The amount of gas money that I have saved for my family is beyond imaginable.
I’ve been able to help my kids in their school while I worked from home
Again, I get the frustration with the property taxes, but industries die
And I say that, knowing that one day, I will likely be affected, but the reality is still the same
I live in Eagan in Minnesota and was glad to see we made it into your video. To expand on that point, there are 3 large facilities within a block of each other that have been vacant since at least 2020. Once I think was vacated in 2019 but the lease didn't get renewed likely becausw if 2020. You know it's a problem when you see this happening to multiple office buildings.
There are several routes these proerties can go:
1) Occupancy bu 1 or many business tenants.
2) Destroy and sell to developers for commercial or to convert to resdiential
3) Conversion into residential apartments or condominiums.
Conversion to apartments/condos is expensive as plumbing as to be reconstructed throughout the building. You also need a new layout and sound proofing. Redevelopement is a huge investment for C&D. Occupying only comes back if the economy starts to pick up. Working from isn't the complete answer: a lot of companies have consolidated roles into their corporate offices.
I'm so glad you mentioned Eagan, MN. When I lived just to the south of there, it seemed that Eagan & Rochester would someday end up bumping 'office parks."
The obvious answer is to repurpose the office parks into affordable housing and ground level shops and serviced. The projects would create plenty of job save the real estate companies and investment funds, and combat an unbelievably bad homelessness crisis for a developed country. Win-win-win.
And while at it, turn these ridiculously huge parking lots into bus stops and train stations. Couple of extra dollars to make it nice as well as profitable.
These could go the way of malls. For big examples, the Great Mall of the Great Plains rose up and was removed, parking lot included, in less than twenty years. Or the Mall of Memphis, which was truly special, from opening to close, just over twenty-two years.
Great video and you knocked it out of the park with the mgfx and animations on this one! ⭐⭐⭐⭐
9:08 "😔 they couldn't have known" I feel sorry for them too, terrible timing for that article. 😂
Great video! Appreciate your hard work and hope you get more views. Appreciate the Eagan callout!
Very informative. Great video!
You’re missing one HUGE contributing factor… the expansion of the US highway system.
I live downtown in a major city, the homeless situation has gotten out of control and crime has gotten worse. I think this video fails to recognize how much urban crime improved in the late 90s, which made moving back to urban centers appealing again. Even if violent crime doesn't get close to 1980s levels, the perception is things are trending in the wrong direction and that will help keep these office parks alive.
Finally, the ONLY sober voice among infantile idiots....
Didn’t realise Thomas Jefferson was a Proto-suburbanite
Working in the burbs is soul-sucking. Car -> freeway -> fast food -> office with bad architecture -> home -> repeat, blah!!! Love working in the city lol! 🙂
i don't think the architecture is bad, the urban planning is but most office parks have more architectural worth than the sea of bland millenial buildings
Yep. My wife’s company signed a 5 year lease (with an option to extend another 5 or 10)for 12 floors in an office park in 2018. Occupied in mid 2019. 2023 they declined the option for all but 4 floors. That’s all they need with a hybrid working model.
Enjoyed this video. Nice work !
"They couldn't have known" 🤣- best line
Millennials spent their childhood in the suburbs. And as a child that can’t drive you realise how trapped you can be in those suburbs. That’s why we moved to cities where we can actually be connected to others in a community instead of alone in our little houses that we can’t afford.
Just because Thomas Jefferson (famously) espoused a pastoralist philosophy in the early 1800s doesn't mean the office parks of the mid-20th century are a direct or even indirect consequence of that philosophy. You can probably find vague explanations for pretty much any American development in the thousands of writings of its key historical characters. Without a convincing line of causality, though, this is just confirmation bias. There's an unhealthy need in US public discourse to make things poetic by shoving a founding father into a story that really doesn't need one. Seems like office parks are much more reasonably explained by suburbanization and a search for more cost-effective space in the post-war boom.
Go,d I hated those. Hate those. I lived near some that were built in the 90s and never filled up. They were 2020 well before 2020. But I worked for Sprint which did the multi-billion dollar stupid campus. Every floor a cube farm. Just awful. And all my friends were so excited -- a dry cleaner, a daycare, a gym -- all on campus! I was thinking "most of you could evaporate right in front of me and I wouldn't care, so why would I want to spend even more time with you?" Plus, the campus looked like something out of Logan's Run.
"most of you could evaporate right in front of me and I wouldn't care, so why would I want to spend even more time with you?" 🤣😂😅 Never change, @chipcook5346... never change.
I live in the NE and we have this problem in almost every town outside the large cities. While it's been getting more noticeable over the last ten years but they continue to build these office complexes.
I live near Eagan - there's about 100k sq ft of office park less than a mile from me that's just wrapping up build out.... Can't help but question why they're building that right now
I believe it is something that this video did not touch on. Big cities with crime explosions - such as Minneapolis. The companies that cannot get employees back to work in their city offices, because of crime, are moving to suburbs, again. They are finding bargain rate rents/leases (due to the reasons outlined in the vid) and low crime rates.
LOL - @7:19 - You skipped Gen-X... they totally were apart of the cycle back into downtown cities. They had punk shows and raves in old buildings, then made them their office headquarters.
Poor Gen X
@@TheKarinTS 😂 - poor ol'gen-x - the "boomers" of Gen-Z
Why is not a possibility to alter these buildings into livable apartment buildings?
Great video! Loved the Bell Labs plug
This video was good! 💪 Thanks for that intro. It was pretty catchy
Both my former and current companies downsized their office park space and switched to the flex-desk model: no permanent desks as employees work a hybrid of remote and in-office, so not all employees are in the office on the same days. That seems to be the office park trend post-pandemic, which should downsize the sq. ft. leased in the overall economy.
i can see the problem BUT this problem can be a solution. There's always been a problem with mult family housing in the suburbs. retrofit the closed office parks into apartments. I understand that it would be very expensive to do but you wouldn't have to build the entire building. The parking is already there Probably a bus stop is already there. They don't have to be five star apartments. I know that a lot of them would not pass certain criteria for windows that open or what have you. The apartments don't necessarily need their own washer and dryer You can install a laundry mat.. basically make them like college style apartments. with the prices the way they are People will not care . Those restrictions are simply laws that people have created and people can create exemptions for. Yes it may be a crisis to lose the office parks but we're in a housing crisis too. We may not always need office parks . We are talking about where office workers want to be like We are always going to have office workers.. 20 years from now we probably not need many office workers AI is going to do it. of the few office workers that will require a human very very few will require an office they will work from home. One thing that's not really debatable is everyone needs a place to live.
My level of sympathy is about as low as my excitement about being a member of the generation continually forced to clean up boomers’ messes and blamed for killing xyz industry that should have died off naturally long ago.
The "say it with me, the 1980s" is such a jarring non-sequitur in context of the conversation that I've replayed that section of the video 4 times to figure out why that would possibly be said.
I'm before my cup of coffee, and usually I hear the "say it with me" as continuation of a thought, not a Segway into an entirely different subject entirely. How can I say it with you when I have no idea what's gonna be said? Lmao
Level them and turn them into green spaces. It’s cheaper for everyone to work from home.
Thank you for the great video.
Here are some other reasons for businesses' flight to the sururbs.
1. Cities usually have higher business taxes.
2. Cities usually levy more kinds of taxes on businesses.
3. Some cities have a wage tax, especially on the East Coast.
a. Suburban municipalities imposing wage taxes really picked up in the 80s and 90s.
a. However, the surburan rates are lower, usually between 0.5% to 1.0%.
b. Philly's rate is 3.75%, a little lower for non-residents.
c) in 1995,
Philly's rate was 4.96%.
d. All employees are taxed, including
up to and including the CEO.
4. Sururbal munipalities gave busineesses large incentives to relocate, like lower taxes and helping to pay for the building.
Well, suburban office parks were better than forcing employees to commute from their homes in the suburbs to office buildings downtown. I was forced to do that right before covid and thank gawd covid ended that stupidity and now I work 100% from home. But, if there was an office park near where I live I wouldn’t have a problem commuting to it. Anything is better than forcing people to drive all the way into downtown. Anything.
As a caveat, New Jerseys real problem is nobody wants to live in or move to New Jersey. The Sun belt is still where people are migrating to. Particularly places like Texas, Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee. New Jersey simply has a bad reputation for being dirty, polluted, crime ridden, and cold nasty weather.
they can probably transformed into homes that have some stores in the firs flores
Unfortunately office to residential conversions are very difficult….and expensive!
@@Kainae yeah i can imagine. But if financed correctly it could be a solution.
@Kainae
In fact, it's easier to do them the older the office building is, in general. If the building dates to a time before the open office, conversion can be a matter of running plumbing in the walls as everything else is probably already there.
1:00 "We should maybe root for the humble office park survival" ABsolutely NOT.
Corporate real estate greed is part of what got us into this and it's not going to be what gets us out. They're already recalling the entire tech industry to city centers to offset the real estate problem under the guise of RTO facilitating better work. But this generation is no longer willing to bail out bad decisions by greedy boomers and we're all 100% here for it. If anything, office parks need to be converted into affordable living communes. But ya know, they'll never do that. So let it burn.
Another aspect not discussed in this video is the costs associated with working in a suburban office park. Housing costs around these parks have creeped up overtime due to bad civic planning, traffic is horrible due to everyone needing to drive in the same 2 hour blocks of the day, and overall these buildings are bland, poorly connected to the surrounding communities, and expensive to maintain as they age. Not to mention how much transportation costs have shot up for the average young household.
Something I've seen happen and what I'd like to see a lot more of are these office spaces being transformed into residential areas or hotels. With such a huge increase in cost of living, I actually feel this is perhaps a stronger solution for these properties in today's day and age than office properties.
i think they should do something to atleast preserve the architecture of the office park, even if they are outdated its unfair to wipe our architecture because the parking lot around it and not everyone is going to want the cityscape to boring millenial minimalist buildings
Ummm they are empty and still asking insane rents its makes more sense to drive farther for smaller office space.
most used to be nice most are just rotting old buildings and out of date even rent spaces in a empty parking lot??
Office parks could be the perfect place to start building new dense mixed-use suburbs. They're better suited to this kind of redevelopment than power centers which are often located around intersections with buildings that have footprints and which do require a lot of parking and visibility from the street to be effective.
So much of the work is remote now, even when you are sitting in an office.
The business that embrace remote work will be saving bundles of cash and be much more competitive vs those that do not.
33 year old Millennial here. I love my city’s downtown for a trip to a restaurant, shopping, and other entertainment but I prefer living and working in the suburbs. But I also usually work from home lol
Working in a freaking skyscraper is no better than these office parks.