End of offices? New York's business districts face uncertain future

Only 14% of city's one million workers back at desks by mid-January, data shows

Published Thu, Jan 28, 2021 · 05:50 AM

New York

BOARDED-UP stores, shuttered restaurants and empty office towers: Covid-19 has turned New York's famous business districts into ghost towns, with companies scrambling to come up with ways to entice workers to return post-pandemic.

Data collected by security firm Kastle Systems shows that only 14 per cent of New York's more than one million office workers had returned to their desks by the middle of January, putting the countless sandwich shops and small businesses in Midtown and Wall Street at risk.

With vaccines now being rolled out, corporations and business leaders are grappling with how to attract employees back after spending the better part of a year working from home, and in turn maintaining the character of business districts.

In a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) survey published this month, 79 per cent of employees said that working remotely had been a success - but the report also found that offices are not about to be consigned to history.

Some 87 per cent of employees said the office was important to them for collaborating with team members and building relationships, aspects of working life they felt were easier and more rewarding in person than over Zoom.

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Few workers plan on being in offices Monday to Friday, though. "The vast majority of employees say a hybrid system of two to three days working from home and two to three days working in the office is their preferred approach," said Deniz Caglar, co-author of the PwC report.

Experts say companies should transform their offices away from places where employees come to send e-mails or make phone calls - which they can do at home - and towards more appealing spaces suited for mentoring, camaraderie and fostering creativity. That could mean larger, more flexible conference rooms rather than cubicles, something as simple as better decor, outdoor space such as balconies or terraces, and "hoteling", where workers schedule use of a workspace instead of each employee having their own desk.

"Think of it as a theatre, where you have different sets for different scenes," David Smith, co-author of a Cushman & Wakefield report about workplaces of the future, told AFP.

It may also mean offices becoming more multipurpose - facilities such as gyms, cafés, launderettes and concierge services that make employees feel their commute is worthwhile - accelerating a trend that was growing before Covid-19, experts say.

While offering staff flexibility, several major employers are doubling down on their commitment to offices, betting big on New York's business districts despite the uncertainty caused by the pandemic.

In August, Facebook signed a lease on a 730,000-square-foot space in Midtown, while a Google spokesperson told AFP the technology giant is continuing to expand its campus in the Chelsea neighbourhood.

Greenberg Traurig, a law firm that employs 400 people in New York, has installed sneeze guards, touchless faucets, hand sanitiser machines, increased ventilation and distanced work stations. It has staff coming in on "a rotational basis", and the firm plans to proceed with its move into a new state-of-the-art building near Grand Central Station this year, vice-chairman Robert Ivanhoe told AFP.

In late December, New York governor Andrew Cuomo cut the ribbon on a new US$1.6 billion train concourse servicing Penn Station, highlighting local politicians' hopes of reviving Midtown.

Business district leaders say they are looking to add green spaces to the neighbourhoods, while outdoor dining - extremely rare in New York before the pandemic - is expected to become a permanent feature. AFP

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