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BigMoose9000 t1_ja8lp8n wrote

Reply to comment by sirzoop in Midtown Owners Hedge on Costly Office-to-Home Conversions by psychothumbs

Honestly surprised it's that low

If there was a way to measure "under lease but effectively vacant" it'd probably be a lot higher

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mr_feenys_car t1_ja8w53f wrote

my company is in this situation now.

signed a 5-year, full-floor lease immediately before the pandemic. absolute worst timing for it. during COVID we shifted to a more dispersed org structure.

outside of a few corporate on-sites and team-building days, no one is in the office. i go in once every couple months just to switch things up, but it's a ghost town. can't even use it to host client-facing meetings, because it makes us look like a scam company.

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WatchesAndNYC t1_ja9lxca wrote

A company I work with did a 30 year 10 full floors of a building in 2018, and the staff is now completely remote except a small team I’m on that meets there once a month. It’s absolutely insane to see it so empty. All that space, all that money, just going to waste. They leave the lights on 24/7 just to help the city look a bit more alive haha

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columbo928s4 t1_ja9tke0 wrote

can the company not sublease it out?

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pedalbot_0785 t1_ja9z42e wrote

to whom tho?

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columbo928s4 t1_ja9zsd8 wrote

yeah i mean that's the big challenge, but i assume if they're willing to take a substantial haircut on the $/sqft they can find a tenant, and having a tenant pay any portion of their fixed lease costs seems preferable to just eating the full cost of a 30 year 10 floor lease if they are legitimately never using the space

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ctindel t1_jadwcvl wrote

Signing a 30 year lease for office space just seems so stupid at face value anyway even before the pandemic.

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kiklion t1_ja8qyxl wrote

Like places that are under lease but only 50% or less utilized due to hybrid/WFH companies who don’t plan on renewing or downsizing if they do?

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BigMoose9000 t1_ja9cjfb wrote

Yea, commercial leases are typically for longer terms. My company has a couple offices they've been trying to sublease for years now that are basically abandoned. When the leases expire it's hard to imagine the landlords will have any more luck.

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hjablowme919 t1_ja9rqom wrote

Two months ago I would have been surprised it was that low. However, as I have been applying for jobs in NYC, I see more and more jobs requiring you to be in the office at least 3 days a week. I just told a recruiter "No" to a job that requires 5 days a week in the office. I told him "Do they know it's 2023? Who is asking for 5 days a week in the office for a tech job?"

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DkTwVXtt7j1 t1_ja8zzvy wrote

Yeah my office is under lease but we aren't renewing. The number will grow.

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secretactorian t1_ja9m8qm wrote

That was my former office. Room for 30, but maybe 3-5 ppl were in on a 1 day/week basis.

They're in a CBRE office and looking to downgrade but there aren't any smaller spaces in the building. A lot of the small spaces are being or have been snatched up. Gonna cost them a lot to break the lease.

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