Limbo magical top11/9/2023 Real estate agents say they are witnessing a “flight to quality,” in which tenants flock toward fancy spaces in the hopes of drawing workers back to the office. He later added: “The only two great things that weren’t made in the office were fire and the wheel.”Ĭoming out of the pandemic, the Gural family’s approach could put their business in a more difficult position. “The next trove of office workers, of professionals, they’re going to want to work in offices.” Gural said, recalling the spirit if not the letter of the Jerry Seinfeld canon. “Young people want to work in an office - what’s the Seinfeld line? ‘I finally figured out why we have kids, because they’re here to replace us,’” Mr. He takes inspiration from his own two children, both in their 20s, who tell him that they want the experience of commuting on the subway and working far from their couches. He is staying confident, for the time being, partly by pinning hopes on a broader return to the office. The worst part about that is that it might affect some of the philanthropy we do.” To try to figure out what happens next, it seemed instructive to speak with someone for whom the vacancy numbers have specific urgency - someone who owns that empty office space.Īsked about the worst-case scenario for his own business, Mr. Passengers eye one another, feeling fidgety and useless. Nobody has any idea when it’s going to move again. Remote-work levels crisscrossing the country are more mixed, with just under one-third of America’s workdays now done from home.īut in New York, the broad feeling across offices is one that locals know well: It’s like sitting on the subway waiting to get somewhere and then feeling the car lurch to a stop. Just 9 percent of the city’s office workers were going in five days a week at the start of the year, according to the Partnership for New York City, a business group. On the subway, commuters delight in a once-unimaginable indulgence: bag-spreading across two seats.Ībout a year and a half after Mayor Eric Adams chided workers - “You can’t stay home in your pajamas all day!” - New York’s offices in late August were under 41 percent of their prepandemic occupancy. At a tech workplace downtown, a gaggle of 20-somethings divide into teams, calling out “Who’s on the Orange team?” and “We’re going to kill it!” as part of a game night enticing them back to in-person work. At an office in SoHo, rows of desks sit empty, while a shaggy dog - shadowing an owner nostalgic for work-from-home comforts - wanders the conference rooms.
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