As employees continue to work from home, leases are running out and corporate office space is in jeopardy. Managers around the world have to decide if it's more efficient to keep their offices open, downsize, or go entirely remote. Seven months into this pandemic, the question remains... is working from home really going to stick? How is the commercial real estate industry handling the move to remote work spaces? Can professionals truly replicate the "sense of space" that comes with collaborating in person... from home? And five years from now, what will the typical workday look like?

 

Featured Guests

Steve Garrity - Vice President, Highwoods Properties

Nick Poole - Managing Director, JLL

Yvonne Baker - Regional Managing Partner, Franklin Street

Bill Moss - Director, Dr. P. Phillips Institute for Research and Education in Real Estate at UCF

Episode Highlights

2:34 - The state of commercial real estate pre-COVID

4:25 - The rise of the open offices

9:19 - How the pandemic is changing office space

12:07 - The importance of "a sense of space" in collaborative work

13:44 - How working from home affects company culture

18:30 - Will companies downsize their offices? Eliminate them entirely?

23:04 - Permanent fixes for temporary problems

25:27 - Will everyone be back in the office in two years?

28:01 - Dean Jarley's final thoughts

 

Episode Transcription

Spooky Voice:                   Submitted for your approval: a man gets up every day... he gets dressed, he drives to work, he interacts with 10,000 students.

Paul Jarley:                         Well, hello there. Welcome to The College of Business.

Spooky Voice:                   The year is 2020 and Dean Paul Jarley has entered ...

Paul Jarley:                         Hello? Is anybody here?

Spooky Voice:                   The Twilight Zone.

Paul Jarley:                         Tina? Tiff? Josh? Anybody here?

Paul Jarley:                         This show is all about separating hype from fundamental change. I'm Paul Jarley, dean of The College of Business, here at UCF. I've got lots of questions.

Paul Jarley:                         To get answers, I'm talking to people with interesting insights into the future of business. Have you ever wondered, is this really a thing? On to our show.

Paul Jarley:                         Seven months into this pandemic and the UCF College of Business is largely empty. Office occupancy can't be greater than 10%. Many of my employees don't want to return to work. They tell me they can get their work done from home, just fine.

Paul Jarley:                         It makes me wonder what I should do with all this space, but I have to admit, I'm not really sure what I'd turn it into. Maybe an apartment for me, so I never have to leave work? Perhaps dorms for students? Maybe, I could lease it all out to Amazon as warehousing space? I'm not really sure.

Paul Jarley:                         To help me think about the future of office space, I've assembled a panel of experts. Listen in.

Paul Jarley:                         If anybody can remember what life was like before March, could you talk a little bit about what the trends in class A office space has been, over the last few years? What have been the major trends that you are all seeing?

Paul Jarley:                         Bill, do you want to kick us off?

Bill Moss:                            So, everything was fine while I was still in the industry at CBRE. Since I left, it's all gone haywire.

Paul Jarley:                         Bill Moss was the managing partner of CBRE. It's the largest commercial real estate brokerage company here in central Florida.

Paul Jarley:                         These days, he's the director of the Dr. P. Phillips Institute for Research and Education in Real Estate at UCF.

Bill Moss:                            Maybe Steve could kick things off with really,