Open, Flexible Office Spaces High On Tenants' Demand List

With office tenants doing away with the classic cubicles, today’s offices sure don’t look like they did 10 years ago. We spoke with Glassdoor director, global real estate facilities Rick Friedman and Buzzfeed director of real estate facilities Ochi Scobie about what their companies prefer for their office spaces. Both will be speaking at our upcoming Bisnow's Office Leasing & Development West event Nov. 2 in San Francisco.

Rick tells us Glassdoor’s office in Mill Valley favors an open floor plan with a large floor plate. There’s lots of natural light and the location is in a natural setting.

Instead of the ever-popular San Francisco or Silicon Valley, he says Glassdoor chose the North Bay because it was an attractive location close to existing employees. It also allowed the company to offer “an alternative work location, access to a different labor pool and to attract talent from the North Bay.”

Rick says Glassdoor employs more than 650, but is actively hiring in all departments, including sales, engineering, product, data science and marketing.

Much like other office tenants in the Bay Area, he says future office needs will include being near urban centers to attract Millennials, being close to public transportation and amenities, and having a large floor plate with an open plan and large windows. Superior IT infrastructure will also be key, he says.

Buzzfeed has had an incredible amount of growth and now has five offices around Los Angeles, Ochi tells us.

“With our most recent office, we were looking for a place with a significant amount of shooting space,” Ochi says.

In comparison to Buzzfeed’s office in New York, the company's LA offices are more focused on production and are on the ground level with a more campus vibe. The New York office is in a high-rise Class-A building.

Although Ochi says she's not sure about future office needs since the company didn’t anticipate its fast growth rate, "the one thing that has remained consistent with all of our spaces is that they need to be flexible." She says Buzzfeed will continue to need spaces that allow employees to experiment with video and pivot while the company grows.