Back to the Office…in the Suburbs?

With more employees resistant to long commutes after a few years of no commutes in the peak of the pandemic era, commercial real estate trends are shifting. While vacancy rates rose sharply in suburban office parks in 2020 and 2021, interest in putting offices closer to where their employees live is driving the more companies to reconsider the suburbs.

In the second quarter of 2022, brokerage firm CBRE Group noted that downtown office vacancy rates in the US surpassed the suburban vacancy rate for the first time in decades. The company noted that vacancy rates in the suburbs fell slightly to 16.8%, while it rose to 17% in city centers.

Still, it’s not just any suburban office that is seeing improvements in vacancy rates, it’s the newer modern offices close to residential neighborhoods, restaurants, and other amenities. Office facility owners that don’t yet fit that description could see better occupancy and higher rents with renovations such as contemporary design, flexible furniture and work spaces, and the addition of technological features designed for pod casting and remote or hybrid meetings. Additional benefits could come from developers reworking dedicated office and light commercial parks into mixed-use development with retail, foodservice, and residential offerings as well.

Freedonia analysts continue to watch factors such as the employee preferences, changes in design trends, commercial real estate activity and others to see how the office of the future will affect where and how we work.

For more information and discussion of opportunities, see The Freedonia Group’s extensive collection of off-the-shelf research, especially coverage in our construction segment and additional titles such as Work-From-Home Consumer Insights, and Freedonia Focus reports such as Office Furniture: United States, Real Estate: United States, and Office Construction: United States. Additional related reports include Office Coffee Service from our sister publisher Packaged Facts. Freedonia Custom Research is also available for questions requiring tailored market intelligence.