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creepystepdad72 t1_jcpsc5b wrote

Residential conversion is a tough one - a vicious cycle is already well underway. The value of a business park condo is the proximity to work, but if work is trying to get out of the business park...

Coworking isn't completely unreasonable, but that's 1) a LOT of space; and 2) still in a business park - not sure it's worth an investment. There's companies that've dumped half that footage right in the middle of urban centers and the coworking companies won't touch it.

I figure it has to be REITs gobbling buildings up at steep discounts and doing a heck of a lot of work apportioning into smaller offices for leasing. Even though I think it's the most likely, it's still really tricky...

A company that would have killed for a 10K sqft. lease in 2018 (but were getting pushed out of the market in favour of the bigger guys willing to take 5-10x the footage) likely aren't interested at standard lease terms anymore.

A 10 year term isn't going to be attractive to 95% of companies, and with the amount of folks stuck with 5+ years left on a pre-COVID term trying to dump to a sublease it makes even less sense to be a primary lessee.

A valid alternative option might be hotels. Conversion costs aside, there's a good concentration of tech HQs in the area who (even with fewer on premise employees) will still have visitors. In my experience, the business park Omni's and Westin's seemed to do brisk business and I get it... There's not exactly a ton to do in Menlo Park or Redwood City, but sometimes you just want to get in and out of there.

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