Better Spaces' Bukky Awosogba, SL Green's Steve Durels, Rockefeller Group's Bill Edwards, Brookfield's Duncan McCuaig, Newmark Knight Frank's David Falk and Equiem's Gabrielle McMillan. Photo Bisnow: Juliette van Winden
When it comes to building the perfect office space for the modern corporate world, landlords and designers are doing their best to guess what companies are looking for, but the answer is there is still no good answer.
"We could charge an hourly rate for the conversations we have on what belongs in this building — not the shape of it or the color of glass, but what belongs in this building as a draw," MdeAS Architects principal Dan Shannon said at Bisnow's Workplace of the Future event last week.
"There’s a sincere discussion going on there; we’re not getting it right, none of us are getting it right yet," he said. "It will work its way out, but there is a sincere discussion, we just haven’t figured it out yet."
Shannon was one of more than a dozen panelists who spoke in front of more than 300 attendees at 345 Hudson St. in Lower Manhattan, discussing the design trends, amenity packages and strategic decisions shaping offices.
In the last few years, the panelists said, every piece of the decision-making puzzle for companies — from rent to location to lease terms — has taken a back seat to employee retention and attraction. The same is true from the biggest companies in the world to businesses that do not even have a product yet.
Such was the case for Jet.com, the e-commerce business Walmart bought in 2016 for $3B. The company was founded in Hoboken, New Jersey, and back when it had 11 employees, Creative Director Christina Antonopoulos had to design a workplace to attract more talent before the company had anything to sell.