The days of most employees commuting to a regular office five days a week could be over. Over the past two months, many businesses have been forced to have their employees work from home, subsequently learning that technology can allow them to conduct business without a large office footprint.
A combination of a public health crisis and widespread economic disruption has many firms re-evaluating their business operations. In Houston, where the coronavirus pandemic has struck at the same time as an energy downturn, the office industry is grappling with an unclear future and two major questions: How will office usage shift, and what — or where — will it shift to?
Traditionally, office tenants have sought to find the one, perfect location for their business.
Brokerages often perform commute analyses for office clients, to help them understand where the bulk of employees live and how to situate an office in an accessible location. In an expansive city like Houston, the challenge is finding an office location that can cater to employees living anywhere from The Woodlands to Sugar Land, Galveston to Katy. J
LL Vice President Bryant Lach noted that if an estimated commute time is more than 45 minutes, attracting and retaining employees can become difficult. As a result, central office submarkets like Greenway Plaza, the Galleria and Downtown Houston are attractive to employers who want to draw talent from all over Houston, while also targeting a key audience: young talent living inside the 610 loop.
“Houston is so sprawling that to move out in any of those directions, you also face the potential of alienating folks who might live elsewhere, which is why Downtown and the Galleria are so popular here,” NAI Partners Senior Associate Joe Bright said.
“Unless you feel comfortable that the majority of your employees live in closer proximity to one of those suburban areas, you're going to make it harder on others.”
But with companies seeing that work still gets done when everyone isn’t in the same office, more employers could abandon the idea of one centralized office and instead set up multiple smaller offices.