April 13, 2022

What’s in store for empty downtown office buildings?

April 12, 2022 | Camille Squires | Quartz

Business districts have a vacancy problem. The white-collar workers around the US  who fled city centers at the start of the pandemic haven’t all come back yet. Even as some large employers like Google and Apple start to roll out back-to-office policies, it’s looking like many of them may never return.

More US companies are embracing remote or hybrid work and shrinking their office footprint, according to poll data from Gallup. As a result, office buildings in major US cities are experiencing the highest vacancy rate for downtown offices in roughly 30 years.

In the top 10 US metro areas, downtown vacancies are 4% higher on average compared to pre-pandemic levels. In sprawling Texas cities like Houston and Dallas where office construction boomed despite a surplus of outdated buildings, offices sat empty even before the pandemic. Today, more than two years into the pandemic, roughly a quarter of downtown offices are vacant.

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