Office sector players agree there will be an increased demand for space flexibility in the future, but they are divided on how much lower occupancy rates in traditional offices will be when the current pandemic subsides, if at all.

Knotel CEO Amol Sarva predicted office occupancy will permanently hover around 60% as more companies move toward a work-from-home policy during a Bisnow coworking and flexible office webinar Tuesday.

Transwestern New York co-founder and partner Lindsay Ornstein, Sarva's co-panelist on the webinar, disagreed, saying that people will eventually feel safe enough to return to the office and work in communal spaces, and occupancy rates will bounce back.

“We’re going to see [lower occupancy rates] for sure in the short term, because we have to and health and safety necessitate that,” she said. “But in the long term … people want to be together. I can’t wait to give my colleagues and friends a hug. People want to sit next to each other in the pantry and have a coffee and a conversation. So as soon as there is treatment or vaccine for this disease and people have a sense of safety again, I don’t think we’re going to go to these draconian measures."

Ornstein pointed to recent events that prompted the real estate sector to anticipate a dramatic and permanent change that did not occur.

“After every crisis, we’ve had these extreme reactions — after 9/11, nobody was going to be above the 10th floor, and after Hurricane Sandy no one was going to be on the lower levels,” she said. “Time goes by, and people tend to forget ... We will have open floor plans and we will have workstations. I don’t think the super condensed model is going to last, but I don’t think that was going to last anyway because people just didn’t like it.”