Commercial property in a post-pandemic world

As the commercial property sector assesses the longer-term impact of the pandemic, there’s a lot of talk in the property press about the giant, single-tenant offices becoming a thing of the past.

Whether or not that’s true remains to be seen – but certainly landlords will need to work with their tenants to make sure that we all get through the next couple of years.

A lot of companies will be under huge pressure just to keep the wheels on, and the anticipated recovery won’t necessarily be the “V” shape we’d all love to see. It will be sector by sector and very patchy. Companies will have lost key people and major customers, and that can take a long time to recover from.

But – and it’s a large “but” – there are some bright spots that have emerged from the crisis: trends that were emerging and which have been turbo boosted. Not least, the last few months have demonstrated that working from home can operate perfectly well – if the tech is in place. The potential for businesses to harness that trend and reduce their physical and carbon footprint is too good an opportunity to be missed. 

All of this will demand greater flexibility and imagination from developers and landlords, helping occupiers to work and collaborate more efficiently through better office design and the latest technology.

I see this as a huge opportunity for those parts of the property sector prepared to think differently.

Certainly I am finding that in some of my own property holdings, like The Depot, pictured above, we have seen a surge of new lettings with local businesses keen to move into space that fits around their needs to be flexible - as well as inspiring.

And that brings me on to the other trend which I am keen to capitalise upon: the desire of today’s younger workforces to get out of the traditional office environment. Go to hubs like London and Bristol and you’ll find ambitious businesses locating in character buildings cleverly refashioned in a way that encourages their people to think, create and collaborate.

Over the last few years I have been developing a number of workspaces in heritage locations, and I’ve really come to appreciate why so many businesses want to break the mould when it comes to where they work.

Agile space is what businesses now look for… workspace that supports their business plan every step of the way. There are plenty of examples of it working well around the world – but primarily and the next stage of my journey is to create a workspace around these principles… but for companies in our smaller regional centres.

After all, why should the big cities have all the best workspaces?

As they say… watch this space. And if you’d like to know more about my plans ahead of that, do please email me.