|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
By: Ilana Siyance
New Yorkers are anxiously following vacancy rates at Manhattan office buildings for subtle signs of a market recovery.
As reported by the NY Post, while there is still a long way to go until we reach pre-pandemic occupancy levels in commercial real estate, there are promising signs of a recovery. Office occupancy in Manhattan inched up to roughly 53 to 55 percent on an average work day, as per an estimate by the Partnership for New York City. The nonprofit business group, which advocates for large businesses, will release survey results this week trying to gauge occupancy rates for the nearly half-billion square-foot market.
Based on the cited early estimates, the modest uptick will serve as a strong symbolic and also substantive progress over the 49 percent reported in September, as per Partnership CEO and president Kathryn Wylde. Based on the latest occupancy levels, employers and landlords expect 57 percent occupancy for the Big Apple by the end of the year, Wylde said. “We’re certainly moving in the right direction,” Wylde had said back in September, when nearly half of office workers (49%) were back at their desks. “Old habits are hard to break, and for two and a half years, people have been working at home, working remotely, and we’ve have had four false starts in getting back to the office.”
Overall, Manhattan office leasing grew by an impressive 8.3% in the fourth quarter of 2022. As per the Post, gauging the overall occupancy in Manhattan office space is easier said than done and has several complexities. Among them, there was never 100 percent occupancy in the office space, even pre-pandemic. Next, different buildings are experiencing various levels of comeback, with older less-than-stellar buildings faring worse and in many cases being a lot less than half full. Also, the different neighborhoods and business sectors vary deeply.
For instance, the Class A Midtown towers on Sixth Ave may very well be more full, resulting in bustling restaurants, long lines and business as usual. Over on struggling Third Avenue, there may be much higher vacancies, leading to the shuttered retail stores and sluggish dining conditions. Creative fields including media and tech may offer employees with a more flexible schedule. Even in pre-pandemic days many employees in those industries enjoyed WFH (work from home) schedules at least part-time.
A recent survey, by research firm Emsi Burning Glass, showed that in job listings by major companies posted in December, remote or work-at-home job offerings jumped up to 10.6 percent of all positions. That’s 25,800 jobs out of a total 243,000, or close to quadruple the 4% remote-job offerings listed in early 2020. “It’s only going to get worse,” warned Wylde, commenting on the survey’s findings. It’s “a big cultural shift, and I don’t see it reversing.” As per the Post, key industries with the biggest shift towards virtual-work offers during the pandemic included administrative, information and financial services.
