What's On The Office Horizon?

Some trends in the changing office environment—such as better amenities and increased collaboration—receive positive responses from all generations. Others, not so much.

The decline of the private office can be hard for some employees to accept, especially when they've been lusting over that corner office and a promotion to partner for years. Cushman & Wakefield managing principal Ran Holman told the crowd at Bisnow's Workplace of the Future event that the number of private offices in the spaces the firm leases or manages is down by about 40%.

The disconnect between the spaces that CRE folks lease and manage and the ones they work in is shrinking. Savills Studley executive managing director Frank McCafferty says brokers and developers are finally utilizing office spaces in the same way as their clients.

And while tenants can bring in their own designers and vision for a space once they move in, fixed-in-place amenities must win them over before they ink a deal. Crescent managing director John Zogg says his team focuses on adapting the environment outside those four walls to be inviting. (Case in point: The Crescent is getting a Shake Shack in a few weeks.)

Here's GL Seaman & Co's DIRTT champion, Mary Miano, Ran, Frank, John, Jacobs senior project director Debra Aungst, and panel moderator Gensler's Christopher Goggin at our event Thursday.

But Mary has another concern. While she's certainly seen many developers succeed at delving into a sense of place in a given building or neighborhood, she still finds that GL Seaman needs to educate builders and end users how to create and use the space. She'd like to see those within the industry adapt more quickly. 

Debra says another challenge of creating office space is balancing not only what clients need immediately, but what they will need in the future. If a client signs a 10-year lease, a design needs to grow with it over the years. 

Here's Jacobs' Judy Ginieczki with Debra and Mary.