The Rise And Fall Of The Office Park 

If they were nice and walking distance from people's homes, people would probably use them. Instead they're in the middle of no where for cheap rent and employees are sick of long commutes for work that could be done at home.

When it comes to municipal finances, cities and towns get a lot more tax dollars per square foot from mixed-use and mid-to-high density buildings. They have all collectively shot themselves in the foot many years ago by having horrible zoning laws and city planning. If it takes a crisis for people to realize low-density single use zoning is not economically sustainable, so be it.

I’m kind of unsympathetic about the governments that are going to lose money on this. They can change their tax, zoning and building codes. They can liberalize building and implement land taxes to deal with this. If there was housing and other businesses around the offices, the offices would have some demand rather than nothing. Boomer style suburbanization is economically unsustainable financially, we knew this was going to happen at some point.

Life long New Jersey guy here. Back in the bad old days when the world was new and I still had hair, many of us wondered just why the ×+$$# we were building so much office space. Someone calculated that there was enough office space for everyone in the State to have their own desk and shuffle paper. As a scientist it was sickening to watch what happened to Bell Labs. As an environmental scientist it was sickening to see so much open space dissappear under yet another office park and supporting strip malls.

Office parks are a symbol of an economy totally dependent on the private car.

I think you hit the nail on the head with one thing: they were a tax shelter. Office parks are a terrible way to use land. When actually occupied, they are only used 40 hours per week, meaning that the majority of the time, they sit empty. Not only that, but since everyone in the suburbs drives, they’re surrounded by massive parking lots that make the buildings look tiny in comparison. They don’t exactly have the best carbon footprint, since the majority of the “vegetation” is lawn which requires watering

Cities got economically destroyed by suburbs. It’s only fitting for the suburbs to get economically destroyed by those recovering cities.

So we're just going to over look the part that these towns have invested heavily into car centric and now it's going to drain their pockets. We need a new approach. A strong towns approach and build places people actually want to live, play and work in.

The death of office parks won’t be the undoing of suburbia. The low density single family zoning is the real killer. Suburbs cannot raise enough revenue via property taxes with such low density.

I don't think we ever needed so much office space to begin with. 2020 kind of proves this. Office workers were sent home and nothing happened. How can a society need so many people consuming so many resources a not contributing? The only thing that made this possible was currency printing.

As a millenial with graduate degrees (and who is "on paper" a supposed "brainy youngster"), the thing I hate the most about my current, otherwise pretty great, job is that it's based out of a soulless office park. The commute from the more central part of the city to the suburbs sucks. The lack of amenities while at work sucks. The lack of pleasantly walkable areas for break sucks (unless you like the idea of strolling past half-filled parking lot after half-filled parking lot). It just overall sucks to work in an office park. And I feel like the company has its head in the sand about it while simultaneously trying to attract "brainy youngsters".

Video: 1. The world is changing (as it always does) 2. in the past most businesses chose office buildings and asked builders to build office buildings 3. now businesses are trying out new ways of working and because of that less office buildings are needed 4. this is a big problem because now we have buildings that can't do the exact thing they have done for a few years. Things might have to change! This is horrible. 5. cities and towns have to find new ways of taxing people that earn a lot

"Agricultural" is completely different from a Corporate Campus/Office. I don't think Jefferson was referring to the survival of America through the labor of Mid Level Executives. Nice try though.

the fact that the finance industry controls the fate of pension funds is so fucked.

The real reason for the rise and fall of the suburban office park is the history of IT and telecommunications. When all companies had was their own LAN server network, it was easier to build a suburban office around it than retro fit city office space. And this is where the company's datacentres were securely located. The suburban office was essentially a shell for an 80's and 90's computer network. But with the rise of high speed internet connections and cloud computing data storage services, the requirement for a private centralised network faded. Computing power became smaller, mobile and distributed. Telecoms in cities got upgraded to handle higher and faster data traffic. Hence, all the roadworks to install this infrastructure and coffee shops to provide laptop wifi connections. But there is a future for suburban office space with the rise of robotics. Robots will need somewhere to be stored and serviced. These office shells might be easily convertible into homes for robots. It had nothing to do with Millennial's lifestyle choices. It was all down to technology.

Welp, guess those office park owners should pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get to converting them to housing ASAP, huh?

They are facing the same problem as urban malls.

When these are no longer used as office parks, they will probably be repurposed into housing, the same way that old city factories were turned into lofts. .

weve literally used cities for millenia and the fact that some people thought: 'actually cities bad' is HILARIOUS. especially thinking suburbs are the answer even though we know theyre ecologically destructive and a tax drain

I think they should have their zoning changed so that they can be remodeled into apartments and condos/stratas

I have been so much more content and productive working from home. Also not having to deal with a useless commute each day has been wonderful.

The solution to High prices is High Prices. The solution to Low Prices is Low Prices. As so many of the parks empty out; If the rents are allowed to fall then they will attract smaller businesses and other uses that will repurpose them. Also some may be suitable to be converted to residential use. It varies by use case. Here in New England they will fall into disrepair and be seized for the taxes rinse and repeat.....

"Bell labs" building was abandoned for years. Some investors bought it and now lease out sections to other businesses.

It would be great to see these office buildings repurposed into condos & apartments to help address the shortage of affordable housing.

Working in the burbs is soul-sucking. Car -> freeway -> fast food -> office with bad architecture -> home -> repeat, blah!!! Love working in the city lol! 🙂

In the 80's I worked in many of those office parks in Bergen County NJ. So Here's a thought, turn them into housing. NY, NJ and CT are in housing crisis, low inventory, high prices, unaffordable for young families if they can find a suitable place.

Really enjoyed this presenter's style of humour and how she engages the audience! Plus the script was very well suited to her presentation skills. Great job guys! Would come back to see her present other topics in the future 😊

They are usually called, "Mixed-Use" properties. apartments, shopping, etc.

It should be possible to make apartments in this buildings, or even better a mix of apartments, small businesses and shops. And please, reverse at least 50% of the parking to grass and trees. And cover the last 50% with solar panels. It may not save funds but at least people will have a home and will be able to live without needing a car for basic needs. And the more homes the less expensive it is to have a home, including for retired people.

The suburbs will definitely be the ones to face the worst effects of… suburban office parks, not sure how this could blow back on cities, which have their own sets of struggles with commercial real estate but a much more sustainable tax base. We’re almost 25 years from Office Space’s perfect depiction of the misery of doing a 9-5 job in a suburban office park. There’s no way younger generations, knowing the ubiquity of remote work, are going to move back en masse to this style of working. The majority of suburbs near office parks make any kind of transformative housing project a nearly impossible battle, so until that changes, this kind of decay will continue as suburban towns feel the effects of this stagnation and decay.

I work in one of these in North Bethesda (but let's be real and call it Rockville). The office isn't that close to much, but there is a mixed use development planned about a block or two away. I think it's about 2000 residential units plus retail. The area is reasonably transit accessible, so it can work pretty well. In some cases, urbanization and mixed use near office parks can be a solution.

Child of the 80s here (class of '87). I'm from New Orleans and was a kid when everyone was getting' the hell outta Dodge and heading for the 'burbs, so I wound up in both Metairie and Kenner, two of NOLA's main suburbs. I remember when those office parks were going up and how modern everyone thought they were. As a result, much of Metairie Kenner are now one extended agglomeration of strip malls and office parks, could be Anywhere, USA. Which is a shame considering how unique New Orleans proper is.

Office parks are the perfect opportunity to create new dense, mixed use neighborhoods where people can live within walking distance of their job. They have a lot of prime, unused real estate in their parking lots just sitting, waiting to be redeveloped. The parking lots are almost never full, and have a lot of empty, extra space. If they redeveloped a small part of their land into a more compact multi-level parkade, it would fulfill both current and future parking requirements, allowing for the development of new offices, industrial warehouses, retail spaces, public pedestrian areas, and even mixed use residential buildings in a pleasant, walkable neighborhood. Given that these office parks are almost always near major highways are traffic arteries, they're in the perfect location to become transit oriented developments for a future BRT or Light Rail system. What may be stagnation and decay right now, could be an important tool to help solve the housing crisis, provide economic opportunities, and curb carbon emissions.

in NYC and other cities, office buildings are being converted into mixed-use buildings: apartments, grocery, gym, daycare, retail, etc., mixed in at the ground level, with apartments above. in these office parks, landlords are going to have to re-configure and re-invent uses for these buildings. Knocking them down just fills garbage dumps

I live in South Florida and know a couple of people who live in urban areas and commute to suburban offices. Since this is the reverse of the usual traffic pattern, they seem to be quite happy with the lack of traffic congestion.

I started a job recently that involves a fair bit of travel to customer sites. Honestly the hard part isn't the travel it's the fact I'll be semi excited to go to a city i haven't yet only to realize the customer is in an office part 45 minutes from the city ☠️

Strange, the very last thing I want to do for a commute is drive into the city where I have to deal with all the city problems, like dramatically inflated prices, no parking but no shortage of traffic, and all the noise pollution. In the exurbs, I might get road noise twice/day during rush hours. In the city, I couldn't get away from packs of motorcycles cruising the streets, drunks being rowdy all night, people crowding up behind you at an ATM, trash and broken glass in the streets. Absolutely no regrets about leaving.

I'm more and more convinced that the suburbs themselves are a failed experiment. Propping up business parks seems like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Suburban towns are already subsidized by the nearby urban areas they seem to hate so much, with utilities, services, and amenities that cost more than the taxes single family homes, drive-throughs, and strip malls bring in. Don't get me wrong, with the lack of housing, especially housing appropriate for larger families, most American cities as they stand right now, can't bring those suburbanites back into the urban fold. But with some effort, some zoning changes, and some new thinking (and some really old thinking), I'm a firm believer that cities are, for most people, the future, and not a bad one. The whole, "I'll move to the suburbs when I start a family" thing will, hopefully, die a much needed death. Along with the myth of moving to the country to live with nature. If you love nature...don't build a home on it.

Jefferson would have hated office parks as great wastes of once rural land -- farmland, woodlands, just as I do.

Let's replace them with flats. Even if they can't be refit, land is still land, especially with existing basic infrastructure: road access, electricity, water supply, sewage system, fiber, ... Not only will the local self-governemnt get its real-estate tax, but new residents/taxpayers too. I like idea of remote work rejuvenating small cities which often offer nice quality of life and access to many facilities (schools, shops, malls, sport) within small relatively small radius, no need for long, wasteful commutes.

@4:56 if you're going to try to mask a current San Francisco skyline under a "70s vintage" filter, try to make sure the gigantic Salesforce tower isn't part of it.

So we have businesses surrounding office parks worried about not having a revenue stream, we have a low-income housing crisis that's rippling ALL the way upwards, and we have a lot of impending vacancies in these multi-storied buildings...this feels like an easy pivot that we will fuck up royally.

This was a really cool video, I have lived and worked my entire life around office parks and never thought of it like this. The collapse of them could really have a great economic impact across North America. Thank you for making this video!

I bought a condo in a 1970s office/retail/residential complex. After 80% of the office space sat vacant for the better part of a decade, most of it is being converted into spaces zoned for commercial or residential. I would live in a loft in a former office building in a heartbeat. I’m hoping GenZ feels the same way. If this revitalization goes as planned then my community will be every bit the place I hoped it would be.

Excellent, informative report. Shows how America is not Europe and likely never will be.

No thank you I will never work in an office park ever again. I worked in one of those hellholes for 4 years. The only palatable coffee shop was an 8-minute drive away. The two restaurants on the ground floor were too expensive to be considered a backup when I didn't feel like packing a lunch. Meeting friends after work was a logistical nightmare as most of them worked in the downtown core. Accessibility by public transportation was challenging even during rush hour. A one-way drive to work was 25 km. I liked my job but the inconvenience of the location eventually prompted me to look for a new job.

This is a great video. Slightly contradicts companies push for employees return to office. There is a big lack of mindset change from people in leadership positions.

I want to work downtown not in some far flung suburban office park. I actually turned down a job because the company was located in a suburban office park.

Many WW2 veterans grew up in poor conditions in big cities. They welcomed a yard and home to call their own. Still today, many parts of cities aren’t great.

This article also skips the inner city gentrification that was starting in the eighties and picking up speed in the 90's and 2000's . Gen X and retiring Boomers, tired of their power going out every time it rained, started realizing that property in the city could be bought cheap, improved upon, and bought with the proceeds of selling their suburban homes to those arriving in the 80's and 90's. The Millennials may have accelerated the trend for sure, but it was already WELL underway by the time they were adults.

The obvious answer is to repurpose the office parks into affordable housing and ground level shops and serviced. The projects would create plenty of job save the real estate companies and investment funds, and combat an unbelievably bad homelessness crisis for a developed country. Win-win-win. And while at it, turn these ridiculously huge parking lots into bus stops and train stations. Couple of extra dollars to make it nice as well as profitable.

I had a scary off the record conversation with a commercial real estate guy the other day saying that a lot of buildings in Seattle are probably going into forbearance in 2025

In 2005 I started a week out of graduation from Villanova at Merrill Lynch, starting at the home office of operations globally, a absolutely huge and beautiful campus in Pennington, New Jersey. This was 3 years before the financial crisis and Merrill Lynch was not owned by a bank yet and was making money hand over fist with subprime mortgage backed securities. We were the kings and it was awesome. I stayed at Merrill Lynch for another 10 years but of course after Bank of America took over starting in 2009 it was never the same. Bank of America sold the property in the largest real estate sale in New Jersey history. Time goes by. I turned out rich at least by 40.

As someone who worked at UBS in Stamford in 2013 & 2014 I can tell you that the headquarters were still in Stamford (there was also the building in Manhattan, but main ops & the trading floor was still in Stamford). There was talk of moving to the City proper (easier to attract the best talent for parts of the business, trading operations would be closer to the main exchange & thus faster. But for other aspects, like asset management/the hedge fund-y side of the business being in Stamford was still also an advantage), but last I heard before I left was that Stamford had made a very favorable tax offer to UBS to remain in Stamford. Heck I remember that CT was offering young couples nice incentives (possibly even in cash? But I think it was tax rebates) for moving out to CT to start their families.

I really dislike the "millennial preferences" argument. I didn't move to a city because I wanted to be a sophisticated urbanite. I moved to a city because that's where the jobs are. Internal advancement is barely a thing anymore, so if you want to increase your income, you have to job hop. Better to be in a city where there's lots of potential jobs close by.

I live near Eagan - there's about 100k sq ft of office park less than a mile from me that's just wrapping up build out.... Can't help but question why they're building that right now

Not sure I agree with the conclusion (or suggestion), but definitely an interesting video nevertheless. It _required_ a jolt like the pandemic to show people that, in modern times with desk/computer based jobs that working from home (along with maybe quarterly in-person get togethers) is often more than enough. It can boost productivity (more time, less commuting, safer) and overall quality of life. However, as your video outlines, given how society has acclimated to this infrastructure, it is putting serious pressure on the things that rely on that tax base. America’s sprawling “stroad” and strip mall riddled suburbia is rife with issues, not least of which are these increasingly empty corporate office complexes.

I've successfully worked from my home office for > 30 years. Never going back to that ill-conceived construct of "down town," or suburbian "office park." NOR AM I willing to grind myself to death, so the boss can afford to by himself another new car next year. Not from my blood, sweat, and tears. Thank goodness for the internet.

That first area you showed with the highway is Southfield Michigan near Detroit. I live nearby. Made me chuckle.

Instead of propping up outdated business models, repurpose those office parks as housing or commerce, or mixed use of both.

Go,d I hated those. Hate those. I lived near some that were built in the 90s and never filled up. They were 2020 well before 2020. But I worked for Sprint which did the multi-billion dollar stupid campus. Every floor a cube farm. Just awful. And all my friends were so excited -- a dry cleaner, a daycare, a gym -- all on campus! I was thinking "most of you could evaporate right in front of me and I wouldn't care, so why would I want to spend even more time with you?" Plus, the campus looked like something out of Logan's Run.

You’re missing one HUGE contributing factor… the expansion of the US highway system.

I live downtown in a major city, the homeless situation has gotten out of control and crime has gotten worse. I think this video fails to recognize how much urban crime improved in the late 90s, which made moving back to urban centers appealing again. Even if violent crime doesn't get close to 1980s levels, the perception is things are trending in the wrong direction and that will help keep these office parks alive.

they can probably transformed into homes that have some stores in the firs flores

These could go the way of malls. For big examples, the Great Mall of the Great Plains rose up and was removed, parking lot included, in less than twenty years. Or the Mall of Memphis, which was truly special, from opening to close, just over twenty-two years.

9:08 "😔 they couldn't have known" I feel sorry for them too, terrible timing for that article. 😂

i can see the problem BUT this problem can be a solution. There's always been a problem with mult family housing in the suburbs. retrofit the closed office parks into apartments. I understand that it would be very expensive to do but you wouldn't have to build the entire building. The parking is already there Probably a bus stop is already there. They don't have to be five star apartments. I know that a lot of them would not pass certain criteria for windows that open or what have you. The apartments don't necessarily need their own washer and dryer You can install a laundry mat.. basically make them like college style apartments. with the prices the way they are People will not care . Those restrictions are simply laws that people have created and people can create exemptions for. Yes it may be a crisis to lose the office parks but we're in a housing crisis too. We may not always need office parks . We are talking about where office workers want to be like We are always going to have office workers.. 20 years from now we probably not need many office workers AI is going to do it. of the few office workers that will require a human very very few will require an office they will work from home. One thing that's not really debatable is everyone needs a place to live.

“I am no longer fit to exist in polite society.” Girl, same.

Well, suburban office parks were better than forcing employees to commute from their homes in the suburbs to office buildings downtown. I was forced to do that right before covid and thank gawd covid ended that stupidity and now I work 100% from home. But, if there was an office park near where I live I wouldn’t have a problem commuting to it. Anything is better than forcing people to drive all the way into downtown. Anything. As a caveat, New Jerseys real problem is nobody wants to live in or move to New Jersey. The Sun belt is still where people are migrating to. Particularly places like Texas, Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee. New Jersey simply has a bad reputation for being dirty, polluted, crime ridden, and cold nasty weather.

I live in the very inner of the inner rings of NYC burbs and these places are dying on the vine. And I get it, too. The campus type building inventory is all soulless, sterile and generally uninteresting.

No, continuing to support an inefficient suburban model that should have never been built is the definition of the sunk cost fallacy.

Tax Base? It's been shown that suburbia, including office parks and shopping malls *can't sustain itself*. There's not enough revenue to actually pay for the upkeep of all the infrastructure it takes build out that nonsense. Houston (latest example in the news) is going broke because it can't afford to fix just the roads, never mind when it comes time to start replacing water main or sewer lines . . . which run under roads which will need to be completely repaved or at least massive repairs made when the lines are replaced. The car centric suburb, strip malls, single family homes, office parks and all will strangle on itself.

1:00 "We should maybe root for the humble office park survival" ABsolutely NOT. Corporate real estate greed is part of what got us into this and it's not going to be what gets us out. They're already recalling the entire tech industry to city centers to offset the real estate problem under the guise of RTO facilitating better work. But this generation is no longer willing to bail out bad decisions by greedy boomers and we're all 100% here for it. If anything, office parks need to be converted into affordable living communes. But ya know, they'll never do that. So let it burn.

I live in the NE and we have this problem in almost every town outside the large cities. While it's been getting more noticeable over the last ten years but they continue to build these office complexes.

thats crazy how these office parks realized that consolidating a bunch of different uses and types of businesses into one area brings economic prosperity and tax revenue for communities. i wonder if anyone else has ever had that thought before

Working in a freaking skyscraper is no better than these office parks.

Very good video. I think it is a stretch to link Thomas Jefferson to the generation of Office Parks, but interesting theory anyway. The issue for cities is that they seem intent on generating a chaotic environment, which is not going to increase their economic viability. The Generation after millennials is decidely anti-social, so that is going to be interesting to watch! No offices at all! Thanks for the video. I definitely worked the majority of my time in either these office parks or purpose built Corporate Offices. Not as dystopian an experience as some seem to think. But, hey, times and tastes change. The Millennials, with fewer or no kids, have outsourced the production of future taxpayers to foreign producers, which is certainly cheaper…. 😂

The "say it with me, the 1980s" is such a jarring non-sequitur in context of the conversation that I've replayed that section of the video 4 times to figure out why that would possibly be said.

Office Parks are quickly giving way to sprawling warehouses.

Both my former and current companies downsized their office park space and switched to the flex-desk model: no permanent desks as employees work a hybrid of remote and in-office, so not all employees are in the office on the same days. That seems to be the office park trend post-pandemic, which should downsize the sq. ft. leased in the overall economy.

Another aspect not discussed in this video is the costs associated with working in a suburban office park. Housing costs around these parks have creeped up overtime due to bad civic planning, traffic is horrible due to everyone needing to drive in the same 2 hour blocks of the day, and overall these buildings are bland, poorly connected to the surrounding communities, and expensive to maintain as they age. Not to mention how much transportation costs have shot up for the average young household.

Ummm they are empty and still asking insane rents its makes more sense to drive farther for smaller office space. most used to be nice most are just rotting old buildings and out of date even rent spaces in a empty parking lot??

This isn't really a problem. This is just an evolution. As many office buildings are loosing companies (clients), they are being developed into housing, which ironically could solve the housing crisis but it won't... as there is not will to do so (you know, because of greed and all that a.k.a capitalism).

Why is not a possibility to alter these buildings into livable apartment buildings?

LOL - @7:19 - You skipped Gen-X... they totally were apart of the cycle back into downtown cities. They had punk shows and raves in old buildings, then made them their office headquarters.

Whats most interesting is that this topic was largerly insider knowledge to the retirement finance world in 2022 & now the cracks are showing as more awareness trickles out of this disaster

So much of the work is remote now, even when you are sitting in an office. The business that embrace remote work will be saving bundles of cash and be much more competitive vs those that do not.

I don’t see a problem, thats an opportunity for more housing in north jersey, that is much needed. Most of those buildings are empty because most people rather work from home. 😅 outside from those people who feel like going to the office is a part of their social life.

I'm so glad you mentioned Eagan, MN. When I lived just to the south of there, it seemed that Eagan & Rochester would someday end up bumping 'office parks."

Level them and turn them into green spaces. It’s cheaper for everyone to work from home.

Great video! Appreciate your hard work and hope you get more views. Appreciate the Eagan callout!

33 year old Millennial here. I love my city’s downtown for a trip to a restaurant, shopping, and other entertainment but I prefer living and working in the suburbs. But I also usually work from home lol

As a millennial, I really don't understand the push back to city centers. Quite literally crime ridden, trashy, expensive, and cramped.

Idea: Provide tax incentives to developers to retro-fit office parks to housing.

"They couldn't have known" 🤣- best line

As a Millenial (just barely, late 1996) CPA, I actually feel like suburban offices should be on the rise. I live on Long Island and work for one of the biggest CPA firms in the country. I could either drive 10 minutes to the LI office or take the trains 1.5 hours into the city. I LOVED the WFH during covid. Now that we are being pushed back to the office for no reason, of course I prefer 10 minutes to the 1.5 hours... edit to clarify, this is while I am still living at home with my parents. Home ownership will take many, many years. While we need to live at home with our parents living at home, these suburban office parks may be our best chance to work for the big companies while living at home to save up.

"My boss thinks I'm a genius, I just watch morning brew sometimes" 😌

I am 100% remote, I don't need to commute, I have a view of San Francisco Bay, my dog, a couch, a TV and a quiet place to concentrate. WE ARE NOT GOING BACK!

Yep. My wife’s company signed a 5 year lease (with an option to extend another 5 or 10)for 12 floors in an office park in 2018. Occupied in mid 2019. 2023 they declined the option for all but 4 floors. That’s all they need with a hybrid working model.

Cleveland just claimed a major victim in the "office park" decline; TRW Lyndhurst, a famous large office park about 12 miles east of Cleveland that served as the headquarters for major parts manufacturer TRW till the late 2000s before it was used for other purposes till 2019 where after 4 years of being for sale, was decided to be torn down. It was a beautiful building with great post modern acretecture built in 1982 but it's use had ran it's course and it is now in the process of being demolished.