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Office Vacancy Rate in San Francisco Just Hit a New High

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Re: Office Vacancy Rate in San Francisco Just Hit a New High

#21

Post by ghaff »

randycupertino wrote: post #2

Will be interesting to see changes taking place in urban planning as the new era of working from home begins to effect the urban center and suburban areas moving forward. I've noticed it in the lunch spots in my suburban town- all way more crowded than they used to be and went through a transition period where they had to get used to the new volume. Feels like a new era of some big changes in relation to city plannin…

On the other hand, the few times I've gone into Boston or Cambridge during the week, rush hour traffic is as bad as it's ever been as far as I can tell. It's really hard for me to square the evidence of my eyes with narratives about city offices emptying out. Perhaps it's a rather uneven phenomenon.

Re: Office Vacancy Rate in San Francisco Just Hit a New High

#22

Post by spamizbad »

ammut wrote: post #3

I'm curious to see what will happen with the bagholders of office real estate. Will they try to reinvent themselves as mixed use residential/commercial? Or is it possible we will see a wave of defaults as vacancy rates continue to climb?

There's going to be a massive PR campaign to get employees back into the office. Story after story about how going back to the office increased productivity etc etc. They're going to give businesses the hard sell to lease office space again and get their employees back into the office.

Not everyone will go along with this, but if they could get 80% of the people back it'll probably be enough to prevent commercial real estate from collapsing.

Re: Office Vacancy Rate in San Francisco Just Hit a New High

#23

Post by qikInNdOutReply »

jedberg wrote: post #16
fny wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I heard there was a housing shortage. Obvious solution would be to turn commercial properties into residential ones.

It's obvious but not easy. Oftentimes commercial spaces don't have a lot of plumbing. They usually just have the one bathroom and kitchen space per floor usually in the middle. A large office space would need walls and a lot of plumbing work to convert to apartments (and probably a lot more electricity to power multiple kitchens full of appliances).

And it can rather easily be added on the outside in some isolated ducts. The problem is cutting it down to appartments that correspond to fire safety codes. CAL demands you have two exits, which a office building easily fullfills with two staircases. But how do you do that in a converted apartment building, without loosing tremnedous amounts of space to hallways.

Re: Office Vacancy Rate in San Francisco Just Hit a New High

#24

Post by anigbrowl »

jedberg wrote: post #16
fny wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I heard there was a housing shortage. Obvious solution would be to turn commercial properties into residential ones.

It's obvious but not easy. Oftentimes commercial spaces don't have a lot of plumbing. They usually just have the one bathroom and kitchen space per floor usually in the middle. A large office space would need walls and a lot of plumbing work to convert to apartments (and probably a lot more electricity to power multiple kitchens full of appliances).

Everyone said the same thing about lofts/industrial spaces. Going by other contexts, the greatest profits will flow to people who Just Do It and make people happy, later seeking forgiveness instead of permission.

Re: Office Vacancy Rate in San Francisco Just Hit a New High

#25

Post by klodolph »

werber wrote: post #11

I'm curious to see if this change in the urban landscape is going to lead to a modern office loft type situation like NYC saw in the 60-70s with former commercial spaces being available under specific tenant laws to artists.

They weren’t legal in NYC until 1982, I believe, but people lived in them anyway during the 60s and 70s. Fire marshals would knock on the door and kick people out. The 1982 loft law provided a road map for these spaces to get a certificate of occupancy without screwing over the existing tenants.

I suspect this kind of thing wouldn’t happen unless we saw a real drop in the value of office space in SF, and if it did, it wouldn’t be like NYC.

Re: Office Vacancy Rate in San Francisco Just Hit a New High

#26

Post by mathverse »

WFH is going to have a huge impact on urban planning. But then again when did the urban planners really did work for the benefit of all the people?

If you have a huge house with a garden and can work from home I think you just won the lottery.

All the good urban planning in European cities I think comes at the expense of comfort of how people live.

If you live in a 85sqm in a city you are lucky but probably pay too much for rent anyway and have to suffer noisy neighbors and construction.

Re: Office Vacancy Rate in San Francisco Just Hit a New High

#27

Post by mortenjorck »

Much as I would like the opposite to be true, it's good to see the reality check at the bottom:

> And once again, while tempting to see or promote an opportunity to convert all the vacant office space into housing in a response to San Francisco’s housing woes, the conversion of existing office space to residential use currently makes no economic sense for the vast majority of downtown San Francisco buildings, due to the relative value of each use and the cost of conversion.

Residential conversion always comes up in these discussions, but the truth is it's a much more limited opportunity than it appears at first glance.

Re: Office Vacancy Rate in San Francisco Just Hit a New High

#28

Post by nilsbunger »

fny wrote: post #8
randycupertino wrote: post #2

Will be interesting to see changes taking place in urban planning as the new era of working from home begins to effect the urban center and suburban areas moving forward. I've noticed it in the lunch spots in my suburban town- all way more crowded than they used to be and went through a transition period where they had to get used to the new volume. Feels like a new era of some big changes in relation to city plannin…

Last I heard there was a housing shortage. Obvious solution would be to turn commercial properties into residential ones.

Many of them aren't well-suited to it. Everything from plumbing to window coverage is not designed for it. Zoning also doesn't allow it - have you tried to get a zoning change through SF?

Anyway, you can convert some of them, but it's not an easy journey!

Re: Office Vacancy Rate in San Francisco Just Hit a New High

#29

Post by vinyl7 »

randycupertino wrote: post #2

Will be interesting to see changes taking place in urban planning as the new era of working from home begins to effect the urban center and suburban areas moving forward. I've noticed it in the lunch spots in my suburban town- all way more crowded than they used to be and went through a transition period where they had to get used to the new volume. Feels like a new era of some big changes in relation to city plannin…

I don't believe WFH will last as long as people think it will

Re: Office Vacancy Rate in San Francisco Just Hit a New High

#30

Post by zeusk »

vinyl7 wrote: post #29
randycupertino wrote: post #2

Will be interesting to see changes taking place in urban planning as the new era of working from home begins to effect the urban center and suburban areas moving forward. I've noticed it in the lunch spots in my suburban town- all way more crowded than they used to be and went through a transition period where they had to get used to the new volume. Feels like a new era of some big changes in relation to city plannin…

I don't believe WFH will last as long as people think it will

I don't believe assigned, mandatory offices and commute will last as long as people think it will
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