Boston's Office Market Is Worsening As More Developers Pivot To Labs

The region’s biggest life sciences players have teamed up to deliver a much-needed biomanufacturing facility just miles away from the market’s Kendall Square epicenter. The Massachusetts Center for Advanced Biological Innovation and Manufacturing, called CABIM, has signed a 40K SF lease at The Arsenal on the Charles…

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Boston’s business leaders are at a crossroads as the coronavirus pandemic has dramatically altered their workplaces.

A retreat from office buildings has led to historic negative absorption and record-high subleasing availability. Office occupancy rates in downtown’s high-rises sat between 8% and 12% post-Labor Day, with just 4% to 5% of offices occupied by mid-December, according to CBRE.

Businesses need transition strategies as optimism among researchers and economic leaders grows for a potential 2021 second-half economic rebound, experts on Bisnow’s Reopening The Workplace webinar said Tuesday. Office managers will have to retool their workplace beyond touchless technologies and new air filtration systems to encourage employees to leave their homes, experts said.…

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In Case You Missed It...

In the early to mid-2010s, China-based investors flooded the coffers of U.S. commercial real estate. Multiple forces aligned to make the country the No. 1 foreign investor in the U.S. American real estate was hot, and the countries were fairly friendly as globalization ruled daily political discourse with minimal pushback.

A lot has changed since then. Investment from China has plummeted, and the political relationship between the U.S. and China is different. Don't expect a new administration to change all of that. The coronavirus pandemic and its economic aftermath have placed more public scrutiny on China, which could continue to affect CRE investment flow between the two countries.

"The flow of funds out of China are determined domestically and, at least at the moment, any administration will have very little influence and ability to shift this dynamic of less investment into the U.S.," JLL Senior Managing Director of Capital Markets Dan Cashdan said in a statement to Bisnow.

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MakeOffices, a homegrown D.C. coworking provider with nine locations in the region, is closing down. 

MakeOffices Chief Operating Officer Josh White told Bisnow Wednesday the company was forced to shutter because of the financial difficulties the pandemic has created for the coworking industry and the business world at large.

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