21 ms·

Office vacancy rate in San Francisco just hit a new high

176 points by elsewhen 4y ago

dukeofdoom 4y ago
Being around other people in offices is becoming less and less appealing to many, respiratory viruses is a major downside.
nostromo 4y ago
Several US cities are in for a world of hurt now that there are no more trillion dollar COVID stimulus bills on the horizon and the cost of servicing debt has gone up very quickly. And yet they seem blissfully unaware.
grepLeigh 4y ago
I'm in San Francisco and would love to see vacant offices converted into live/work housing. The Clocktower lofts on Bryant & 2nd Street are a great example of live/work offices and condos for the luxury market. Let's do the mid-market next!
- RichardCNormos 4y ago
  Absolutely. Low-income housing is the perfect use for all this extra office space. San Francisco has a problem where the low-income people who work to serve high-income people can't afford to live in the city that they work in. Converting office space into affordable housing is a win for everyone, except the landlords, but I won't shed a tear for them ;-)
  - kasey_junk 4y ago
    Who do you expect will pay for the conversions if not landlords?
    - porcc 4y ago
      Obviously government subsidy..
      - HEmanZ 4y ago
        Meaning taxes
        mc32 4y ago
        Or, good old QE. Who wants to live in a city if you can work from home? If you are poor and need housing subsidies and there are no jobs for you, there is no reason to live in the city to begin with. People go live where the jobs are. Without "white collar" jobs producing demand for services, there is much less demand for "blue collar" jobs. If it's just cooping people up, there are cheaper ways to house people than maintaining expensive buildings that need financing and upkeep.
      - dahfizz 4y ago
        Subsidies.... to the landlords who own the buildings? Or are you saying this will be owned and operated by the government?
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    We've tried to convert offices to homes in the UK, and there's something particularly dystopian about the result. I think they have to make strange trade-offs to make the space useful, and its ends up being not very nice. I'm sure it's better than being on the street, but it isn't nice.
    - marcinzm 4y ago
      NYC has build a lot of dedicated public housing and even then dystopian is probably a good summary of the result.
      - grepLeigh 4y ago
        I grew up in the Sedgwick projects in the Bronx, and my grandma still lives there. She's been in the same rent-controlled apartment for 40+ years, which was affordable to her as a small business owner (hair/beauty salon). She's now living independently at age 86, thanks to a social security check and a community where she's everyone's abuela. Rent-controlled housing made it easier to divorce her abusive husband and start a business back in the 60s. How is that dystopian?
        achenet 4y ago
        not the person you are responding to, but I think they meant dystopian as in the "vibe" of the place. For example, many housing projects in France (where I live), tend to be basically large concrete rectangles, with very little green space. When compared to posher neighborhoods, with lots of trees everywhere, this can seem a little claustrophobic/totalitarian/dystopian. It feels like a less "human friendly" environment than you stereotypical suburb with front lawns.
        grepLeigh 4y ago
        I see where that's coming from, but to offer an alternate perspective the suburbs seemed "dystopian" to me at first - we moved upstate for middle/high school. The same 6-8 Stepford model homes on every street, strip malls filled with the same 10 stores (Walgreens/CVS, Costco/Walmart, etc), people dressed VERY similarly, and nobody walked anywhere. The teens in my suburban high school seemed way less happy and did more/harder drugs compared to the Bronx. I'm not saying the projects were lovely. The elevators smelled like piss. But public housing - even ugly public housing - was a huge part in enabling two generations of single moms (my mom + grandma) to raise their families, start businesses, and thrive.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    Theoretically, the wages should come up to make it possible to live there, assuming the service providers are actually having trouble hiring. It seems to me there might be some disconnect in demand and supply of various labor types (not many unskilled jobs compared to the number of unskilled workers, vs not many software devs but lots of openings). It seems these forces drag the bottom down while pushing the top higher. Edit: why disagree?
    - abeppu 4y ago
      > Theoretically, the wages should come up to make it possible to live there, assuming the service providers are actually having trouble hiring. Why, theoretically, would wages rise enough to make it possible for any worker to live in the city? I think the situation where workers with the worst alternatives and weakest negotiating position are stuck commuting into SF from outside is unfortunate but theoretically entirely understandable; SF wages aren't forced to rise to support someone living here, but only to be high enough relative to wages elsewhere to compensate for the cost of commuting.
      - giantg2 4y ago
        "but only to be high enough relative to wages elsewhere to compensate for the cost of commuting." True, but then the implied issues with not living in the city you work in become moot if truly compensating for the commute and cost of living outside the city.
        abeppu 4y ago
        I think maybe you mean something by "truly compensating" which isn't actually being achieved. But the lesser compensation we are achieving is still sufficient to impact people's behavior. Suppose you're able to get two part time jobs with relatively little predictability in your shift schedule. Both are minimum wage, but one is in SF where the minimum is $17/hr and another is in Concord at $14/hr (the state minimum for a company with <25 employees). Say you live in Antioch, and can get to the Concord job in around 35 minutes for $4 with BART, and get to the SF job with more than 1h and $7.30 on BART (one way). So for every shift in SF you pick up, you get a $3 premium per hour relative to the Concord job, but for the first 2 hours that just goes to cover your extra BART fare, _and_ you lose an extra hour in transit. In dollars you still come out ahead on an 8 hour shift in SF relative to in Concord, but I think it would be unreasonable to say that "the implied issues ... become moot".
  - dymk 4y ago
    You can't just convert office space into residential space. Completely different building codes. Just the retrofit for the plumbing makes it untenable.
    - throw8383833jj 4y ago
      I know this will get downvoted but, I say Throw the building codes out the window. Housing people is more important than regulations. If it made a difference to your ability to get shelter, which would you rather choose: have shelter or live in a illegal tent under a bridge resting assured with the knowledge that there's a big book of rules in place.
      - trentgreene 4y ago
        The problem is not all codes are meaningless regulation, and some of the important ones are indeed expensive (and vice versa). If you yolo it, you get cases like the Grenfell tower fire, and a lot of people literally die.
      - grepLeigh 4y ago
        This is how you get housing tenements, and SF has a history of over-paying for impermanent housing solutions (like tents in a parking lot, or cots in a navigation center). Not all buildings in SF are high-rise open-plans. If you're imagining converting Salesforce tower, I see how that would seem impractical. Most commercial office space in SOMA (old warehouse buildings) can be converted into live/work lofts.
      - dymk 4y ago
        Building codes were written in blood (and for much of the plumbing code, human feces and black mold).
        achenet 4y ago
        anyone up for a rewrite in Rust? :D
    - SoftTalker 4y ago
- MarkMarine 4y ago
  What do you think makes live/work housing more desirable than just live? I haven’t seen live work spaces and I’m not sure what the allure would be. I used to be in the city, in essentially a shoe box that cost 5k a month, but with a fancy gym and common area. I moved to Marin during COVID and while I miss the food and walking distance/public transit activities I could do, I don’t think I can go back to the extremely small for the money living area. I’m hopeful a glut of new housing, hopefully spacious, will change that calculus.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    This sort of setup would cross my mind while in college. The allure is that it would be similar to college - young people enthusiastic for learning but having fun too, no commuting, etc. As I got older it seems more like a nightmare since I hate my job and require more space/independence for my lifestyle/hobbies/family.
    - iancmceachern 4y ago
      It's all about what those hobbies lifestyle is. My wife and I made the opposite move. We had a house, a life, in the suburbs for more than a decade and now happily live in a 1 bedroom loft in SOMA. I would say that for our life, we live in a smaller (it's still pretty big, and not actually that expensive) in the city exactly because of the lifestyle/hobbies/family life we enjoy as a result. It's like the city is your living room.
      - giantg2 4y ago
        True about the hobby types. I still think it generally applies for the live-work setup though. Mostly because it seems most people don't like their jobs and want a disconnect between their spaces. Also because of professional appearances etc influencing your off-hours activities if your coworkers are watching. Even though work and housing aren't in the same buildings, military housing can provide a good lens into this.
        4y ago
- AdrianB1 4y ago
  One can only dream, but mid-market price expectations cannot be met. Just read in the article the price for the space, it is huge.
  - iancmceachern 4y ago
    But those aren't the choices. The choices are A - get a commercial tenant that pays the high price you mention, if there aren't any tenants your choices are B - leave it vacant C - rent it out to a lower paying customer (residental). Between B and C C is the clear winner.
    - marcinzm 4y ago
      Option C involves a large investment to convert the property into one that legally allows for residential usage and that people, with money to pay rent, would want to live in. It also blocks option A, without spending all the money to undo things, if the economic situation changes or there's a bailout. So not a clear winner versus simply waiting.
      - iancmceachern 4y ago
        My point is that many buildings, like the one I live in now, do not need changes. They intelligently designed and built it from the beginning to serve both uses well. I'm pointing out that this is a smart approach. If a building needs a ton of renovations to make it meet code for residential occupancy than its not a good building to consider for this. I would say this is a corner case, ignore those. Just convert the 25% easiest buildings that need minimal if any changes.
    - pclmulqdq 4y ago
      Not necessarily. B wins if you depend on the value of the property for some reason or another. Commercial properties are valued based on the net present value of the rents you can get. If you pretend that you can get a higher rate than the market will bear, you can keep the valuation of your building up during a downturn. If you accept the lower-paying tenant, you lower the perceived valuation of the building. This only matters if you have a commercial mortgage... which is every building these days. This is utterly stupid, but it is driving rental vacancies in NYC.
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  My building on SOMA did this. The owners were smart when they built it out and the apartments work well as offices or apartments. During the pandemic they pretty much went all residential. It's so efficient and smarter from the building owner perspective, you double your potential customer base.
  - robg 4y ago
    Full kitchen and bathroom and closets for the office suite?
    - iancmceachern 4y ago
      Yup, exactly. It's not that weird, every office I've worked at in the last 10 years has had a full kitchen and shower, it's almost a required perk in the bay area. The only weird thing IMO is it has a washer and dryer, I've not worked in an office that has those, that's the only difference from "normal" IMO.
      - merely-unlikely 4y ago
        > every office I've worked at in the last 10 years has had a full kitchen and shower Fantastic for bike commuting.
  - grepLeigh 4y ago
    This is such a great example, wish I could upvote this to the top. I think most people are imagining converting high-rises like Salesforce tower. Most commercial office space in SOMA is a converted warehouse. Live/work apartments and lofts have already been converted from the same buildings. Let's do more of these!
- tinalumfoil 4y ago
  > The current asking price is $2,395,000. Our experienced agents can help you determine whether that is a fair amount for the property. What's more, we'll help you strategize and submit a smart offer that will get accepted based on current market conditions. https://www.rubyhome.com/idx/461-2nd-street-san-francisco-ca-94107/21724066_spid/ https://www.rubyhome.com/idx/461-2nd-street-san-francisco-ca... The monthly HOA is $941 lol
  - hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
    FWIW I think a monthly HOA of $941 for a condo that costs $2,395,000 is low. I know places in Austin where (and this was years ago), HOA fees were $1100 for a condo in the $1.2 million range. And, to be clear, I'm not saying 941 is "cheap" on an absolute basis, just that it is for a condo that is already that expensive.
    - ericbarrett 4y ago
      I remember poking around Chicago real estate early last decade, and seeing condos for $500k with $2,000/mo HOA fees. Seems to vary wildly by area.
      - b112 4y ago
        I cannot even think, what is worth that HOA. You could literally hire a full time person, 40hrs per week + give them a room in your house, for that.
        addaon 4y ago
        Not sure how you figure? Minimum wage in Illinois comes to $2600/month for 40 hours/week. You're giving them a room in a place where the prevailing rent is clearly over $2000/month, which is hard to price at less than $1000/month (a "two roommates" situation)... so your proposed value package is well over twice the HOA fee.
        4y ago
- jeffbee 4y ago
  None of this office space is suitable for habitation.
  - tofuahdude 4y ago
    "convert" it to be habitable is the key message here.
    - jeffbee 4y ago
      Is far more difficult than scratch building. The housing opportunity in SF is in all the vacant and underutilized space in the Sunset. Downtown offices do not have the egress, plumbing, ventilation, electricity, or telecomm capacity to be economically converted to dwellings in anything other than a makeshift, emergency fashion.
      - grepLeigh 4y ago
        There's plenty of warehouse office space in SOMA that could meet residential coding requirements. I think most people in this thread are imagining converting high-rise open plans, like Salesforce tower - but most offices in SOMA are actually in warehouse space that's easier to convert. That's why I linked an example of live/work lofts. Which isn't to say we shouldn't utilize outer Sunset space too! There's already great public transport to the SOMA area though. It's a shame to let commercial real estate rot in forbearance, when it's surrounded by the infrastructure needed for excellent city living.
      - tofuahdude 4y ago
        Why not both? Let the market figure it out, just make the zoning permissive enough to allow the opportunity.
- jovial_cavalier 4y ago
  Your city needs homes for people who work at McDonald's. Not more luxury apartments.
  - shaburn 4y ago
    False. The city has too many McDonald's quality apartments at luxury prices. More supply solves this.
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    Build luxury apartments, people with luxury money will move there rather than buying and converting the McDonald workers' homes.
    - blablabla123 4y ago
      That's not how it works though. It just lowers the price for luxury apartments.
      - whimsicalism 4y ago
        It is literally how it works. There's plenty of evidence showing so.
  - tayo42 4y ago
    i was actually wondering about this. doesn't section 8 housing vouchers take care of this? it also seems like it could lead to increased rents, if you have the government guarantee rent will be paid, you can raise it by a lot and not worry about people not paying, or even not being able to afford it.
    - whimsicalism 4y ago
      > i was actually wondering about this. doesn't section 8 housing vouchers take care of this? not at all.
  - tofuahdude 4y ago
- MontyCarloHall 4y ago
  Not all office space is amenable to residential conversion, since the floor area to exterior wall ratio is often much too high for an apartment building (windowless offices are fine, windowless living rooms, not so much). An office/apartment hybrid might work. I could imagine dividing the building, with offices in the inner core and apartments surrounding the core. The core and surrounding apartments would be totally separated, with separate lobbies and elevators. Although the offices would be totally windowless hellscapes, at least the apartments would have lots of light.
  - shaburn 4y ago
    "(windowless offices are fine, windowless living rooms, not so much)"...*not for the homeless.
    - blablabla123 4y ago
      > windowless offices are fine I think that's a bold statement already
- 29athrowaway 4y ago
  Welcome to the fantastic world of zoning. The answer is no. Why? because the city collects more taxes from commercial zoned stuff.
- m0llusk 4y ago
  Clocktower lofts are also very unlike currently vacant offices. Old industrial buildings had large open spaces that turned out to be easy to reconfigure. Most empty buildings now are more like 100 Van Ness which stayed empty for many years until its value dropped to a fraction of what it had been. And that conversion was still expensive enough to be risky and force offerings to the high end to make the math work out. This is going to be a rough ride.
iancmceachern 4y ago
Anecdotally the city seems the most alive since the pandemic,things are mostly back in full swing.
- mrfox321 4y ago
  Visited SF recently. Did things always close early?
  - wmichelin 4y ago
    the city closes at 10 for the most part, yeah
  - alephnerd 4y ago
    Yep. SF wasn't really a late night city for most of my life growing up here.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Relatively cheap, abundant labor is required for businesses to be open late, and that is not something SF has.
    - diebeforei485 4y ago
      Housing shortage means low-paid workers commute in from (usually) the East Bay, so the lack of late-night transit plus safety concerns make it not worth it for most minimum wage workers to work late. Higher paid jobs like healthcare workers, no problem.
      - alephnerd 4y ago
        I dislike how transplants tend to broadly paint the East Bay. It isn't a cheap region either. Most blue collar labor types living in the East Bay are in the Alameda County flatlands (parts of Newark, parts of Fremont, inner city Oakland, Berkeley, El Cerrito, Albany) or North Contra Costa County (Pittsburg, Antioch, Richmond). But most of the unskillled labor underclass you see in the Bay Area cities tend to drive in/Bart in/ACE in from San Joaquin Country, Sonoma County, or Monterey County.
hirundo 4y ago
Which means that around 4.8 million square feet are now available for modification into desperately needed residential space, if only the city would permit it.
- cycrutchfield 4y ago
  Who pays for that?
  - hirundo 4y ago
    Owners of the vacant office space who like collecting rent more than they hate the expense, risk and hassle. Landlords pay for it, in the expectation of making it back from tenants.
    - dicomdan 4y ago
      Haven't you forgotten to ask the Board of Supervisors?
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Commercial properties are often owned by massive real estate conglomerates who don't have much incentive to convert a property unless they're going to immediately offload it afterwards. And the buildings that are owned by individuals/families may be owned outright so they don't have much loan pressure on them.
  - AdrianB1 4y ago
    The taxpayers, of course. Take from the people who have and give to the people who need or want. /s
- turtlebits 4y ago
  I wish it was a solution to housing, but it's going to be very expensive to try to retrofit the additional plumbing, HVAC and electricity load for residential space. It's also expensive to keep a building open, so I can imagine you'll need a high occupancy percentage to also make it work.
jimcavel888 4y ago
ciguy 4y ago
The city seems to be at it's most lively since covid, but the offices are still empty. Before covid SF actively did it's best to antagonize the companies who's tax revenue it relied on. Now that they've taken their ball to play elsewhere, I don't see what the city is going to do for revenue. I work in the financial district and the number of empty spaces that used to house cafes and restaurants is shocking. Unless they manage to pivot that office space to housing (Very difficult for multiple structural reasons), the downtown of SF is going to continue to look like Zombieland.
- RichardCNormos 4y ago
  - kasey_junk 4y ago
    Are you suggesting that an American city could socialize a large chunk of its private real estate with the stroke of a pen or that landlords are waiting for some legal change to turn their office/retail space into homeless shelters and needle exchanges?
    - AdrianB1 4y ago
      I'm not sure if that was sarcasm (especially the part with needle exchange), but it is San Francisco so yes, it could.
      - water554 4y ago
        I would rather free housing go to people in need who work for a living
    - whimsicalism 4y ago
      Boston has done it, I worked with an affordable housing group that worked on this stuff. The difference was these were largely undeveloped lots, not office buildings.
friedman23 4y ago
This will be a disaster for city tax revenues.
- dicomdan 4y ago
  Dems will keep Congress and bail them out again, at the expense of hitting lower and middle income Americans with higher inflation.
mercy_dude 4y ago
[flagged]
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  I always see people say this. I've lived all over the country, and these problems are not unique to California, large cities, or "Libral" areas. These are problems all over. Rather than fear monger it would be better to search for and then provide an example of a city that is doing it right, taking care of the problem, an example for the rest of us to follow. The problem (for your argument) is that there are plenty of examples of these, they're typically European amd Scandinavian cities with high taxes and "libral" or "communist" (in your view) leadership. So in doing so you would move past this stage to the next one and understand that these things are complex societal issues that need complex nuanced solutions and dialog surrounding them.
kaycebasques 4y ago
If anyone has a 5- or 10-year forecast on SF (i.e. general state of SF in 5 or 10 years) I would love to hear it
- xnx 4y ago
  Location, location, location. Being a dysfunctional city is a small factor compared to the climate and nearby natural beauty. There is no shortage of people who would live there if they could afford it.
  - boringg 4y ago
    Second this. What people outside the bay area miss is the location quality that is not possible to mimic. Unparalleled geologic features (Bay, Coastline, Hills) add on that you have many world class educational facilities that aren't going anywhere and an economy that has always ebbed and flowed but has a strong undercurrent of strength and resilience. Oh yeah and possibly the best food on the planet which has some value even if you don't really care about food. Will it be the same? No but cities never revert they always change and remain dynamic as us humans do.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Best food on the planet? Seriously? I mean SF is pretty good but I'm not going to choose it over New York or London. In addition while climate (though people will argue about the city itself as opposed to the South Bay) and natural beauty add to SF's appeal, I'm not sure how many it would draw absent the economy. Certainly there are many mostly East Coast plus Chicago cities that attract a lot of people without the climate or mostly the geography.
      - alephnerd 4y ago
        But if you're someone who values nature along with a solid food scene and a strong white collar job base (Software, Hardware, Biotech/Pharma, Healthcare, Accounting, West Coast IB) your only real option is the Bay Area (not just SF, San Jose is also a great city - especially as an Asian American). That's not to say NYC or London are bad, but if you value being able to bike in the mountains in 20 minutes or trail run at a 4,000 ft elevation in 30 minutes, it's hard to beat the Bay Area.
_fat_santa 4y ago
Just took a cursory look at SF rents and looks like they have come down quite a bit since 2019. Seeing a ton of studios for around 1700 with 1bd's at 2300, that's a-lot don't get me wrong but IIRC a studio was 2300 in 2019.
- yojo 4y ago
  My 1 bedroom in Cole Valley was $3,500 when I left it in 2019. It was big (800sq ft) and had parking, but should give you a comp point.
- SCUSKU 4y ago
  I had a friend in North Beach who rented a 1BR for 1900 and was 2700 before the pandemic
- laweijfmvo 4y ago
  Although the article seems to suggest that while office vacancies are double the historical average, prices have only fallen 10% from the highs in 2020. Seems like the market hasn't accepted the shift yet.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Commercial properties are notorious for never wanting to lower lease/sqft rates - going so far as to do all sorts of modifications/rebuilding "for free" to keep the lease rates high (even if empty). It has to do with the valuation of the properties and not needing to get the cashflow for a VERY long time.
tb_technical 4y ago
Why would people go work in an office, when you can just work from home? Can't put the genie back in the bottle.
- themitigating 4y ago
  Socializing with others A situation at home that is distracting The need for changing location for mental delimination of work
  - aaaaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
  - maxehmookau 4y ago
    I can agree with your second two points, in some circumstances. But... I don't go to work to socialise. I hate the idea that my social life is tied to my work. Since moving to work from home permanently, I've built social connections with people who actually live in my community which I far prefer.
    - mattbroekhuis 4y ago
      You can socialize at work without having it tied to your social life. I miss everyday banter and eating lunch with my co-workers.
  - lijogdfljk 4y ago
    I like some of those, maybe 10% of the time (because i'm reasonably anti-social), but man it has to be really good to put up with a commute. Wasting 1-2 hours of my day, with the potential to have it become a 4 hour drive once every week or two.. just way too rough. I honestly don't get how people put up with commutes. Like, honestly and really. It feels like i'm just destroying any chance i have for downtime during the weekdays. Throw in chores, and oof. Plus i don't have kids.. i can't imagine having kids on top of a commute.
    - 4y ago
alfor 4y ago
How is it in Austin? Is it possible that the exodus from California explain more than the pandemic and WFH
- rossdavidh 4y ago
  Lots of messed up things with Austin real estate, but office spaces are not this empty. In fact I have heard that it is one of the less empty metro areas right now, in terms of office space. There also seems to be a lot of traffic downtown, which is annoying but means someone must be working/living there. But again, lots of messed up things in the real estate market of Austin generally; the residential market has essentially frozen up, with sellers unwilling to admit how much things have dropped, and the buyers unwilling to pay for houses they know aren't going to be worth that much in a year's time or less.
- kjkjadksj 4y ago
  The exodus is overstated. Research has shown its actually a brain drain from texas while texas receives low skilled labor. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-10-17/california-texas-migration-why-people-move https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-10-17/california-...
yrgulation 4y ago
Wish this was happening in london uk, and ideally that space converted into housing. The less people having to commute to on site farms the better for the environment.
- dicomdan 4y ago
  Elect a socialist anti-business mayor and your wish will be granted.
  - yrgulation 4y ago
    There is one. If anything socialism wants more workers that think alike, look alike, and march into glass factories alike.
SSJPython 4y ago
I don't understand why working in an office isn't optional for certain jobs. If you want to go to the office, go in. If you want to work remote, then work remote. Why should either remote, hybrid, or on-site become a top-down policy imposed on all employees?
- lolinder 4y ago
  Having a team split between remote and on site isn't a great situation for anyone. A team that is entirely remote can adapt to remote, asynchronous ways of working. A team that is entirely on site just needs to do what they've always done. Collaborating effectively in a team that is split between the two is very difficult, because the communication methods that are natural to one half of the team are foreign to the other half. Remote employees in particular tend to get isolated from the rest of the team. If your company has enough employees that are interchangeable enough to organize teams based on the work preferences of the employees, you could probably make it work. But most companies don't have employees that are that interchangeable.
  - sharemywin 4y ago
    I use teams and jira. daily status meeting over teams. jira for tasks. teams for chat if I have questions.
  - kjkjadksj 4y ago
    If people are having a hard time with zoom still after the past three years then I don’t know what to say.
  - Spivak 4y ago
    > Collaborating effectively in a team that is split between the two is very difficult. I'm on a split team, it's the same as remote except you can send DMs and create groups chats with some of the team IRL and you have multiplayer rooms join video calls.
- downrightmike 4y ago
  Because "Office Vacancy Rate in San Francisco Just Hit a New High", That means property owners aren't making money. Workers aren't out spending to come in, stay and leave. All that is taxable, which is why government officials want people back in the office. In every city, the downtown core's tax revenue subsidizes the suburban sprawl all around it. Good overview of the research on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI
Hippocrates 4y ago
The idea, and economics, of converting office space to housing is fascinating to me. Once you think about it for more than a moment you realize there are some major difficulties. A modern office high rise, for example, may have windows only on the outer edge of a vast floor plan. There may be one or two large bathrooms per floor, with no plumbing or even walls to contain plumbing anywhere else. The HVAC may be zoned per-floor. Gas and electric is not metered separately. So depending on the building it could be a huge cost to turn into livable residences, much less desirable ones that would offset the expense. Not to say it can’t be done but it seems really hard.
gumby 4y ago
Come on SF, embrace commercial to residential conversion already!
shaburn 4y ago
San Francisco wants keep its completely asinine regulatory cake and eat its wishful thinking cost of living too. Reality will win on one side or the other.
mbgerring 4y ago
It would be great if all the giant warehouse spaces that got converted to “creative office space” could be put back to work as PDR space. You don’t need 20ft ceilings and 3-phase power to make CRUD apps for HR management or whatever

176 points by elsewhen 4y ago

Being around other people in offices is becoming less and less appealing to many, respiratory viruses is a major downside.

nostromo 4y ago

Several US cities are in for a world of hurt now that there are no more trillion dollar COVID stimulus bills on the horizon and the cost of servicing debt has gone up very quickly. And yet they seem blissfully unaware.

grepLeigh 4y ago

I'm in San Francisco and would love to see vacant offices converted into live/work housing. The Clocktower lofts on Bryant & 2nd Street are a great example of live/work offices and condos for the luxury market. Let's do the mid-market next!

RichardCNormos 4y ago
Absolutely. Low-income housing is the perfect use for all this extra office space. San Francisco has a problem where the low-income people who work to serve high-income people can't afford to live in the city that they work in. Converting office space into affordable housing is a win for everyone, except the landlords, but I won't shed a tear for them ;-)
- kasey_junk 4y ago
  Who do you expect will pay for the conversions if not landlords?
  - porcc 4y ago
    Obviously government subsidy..
    - HEmanZ 4y ago
      Meaning taxes
      - mc32 4y ago
        Or, good old QE. Who wants to live in a city if you can work from home? If you are poor and need housing subsidies and there are no jobs for you, there is no reason to live in the city to begin with. People go live where the jobs are. Without "white collar" jobs producing demand for services, there is much less demand for "blue collar" jobs. If it's just cooping people up, there are cheaper ways to house people than maintaining expensive buildings that need financing and upkeep.
    - dahfizz 4y ago
      Subsidies.... to the landlords who own the buildings? Or are you saying this will be owned and operated by the government?
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  We've tried to convert offices to homes in the UK, and there's something particularly dystopian about the result. I think they have to make strange trade-offs to make the space useful, and its ends up being not very nice. I'm sure it's better than being on the street, but it isn't nice.
  - marcinzm 4y ago
    NYC has build a lot of dedicated public housing and even then dystopian is probably a good summary of the result.
    - grepLeigh 4y ago
      I grew up in the Sedgwick projects in the Bronx, and my grandma still lives there. She's been in the same rent-controlled apartment for 40+ years, which was affordable to her as a small business owner (hair/beauty salon). She's now living independently at age 86, thanks to a social security check and a community where she's everyone's abuela. Rent-controlled housing made it easier to divorce her abusive husband and start a business back in the 60s. How is that dystopian?
      - achenet 4y ago
        not the person you are responding to, but I think they meant dystopian as in the "vibe" of the place. For example, many housing projects in France (where I live), tend to be basically large concrete rectangles, with very little green space. When compared to posher neighborhoods, with lots of trees everywhere, this can seem a little claustrophobic/totalitarian/dystopian. It feels like a less "human friendly" environment than you stereotypical suburb with front lawns.
        grepLeigh 4y ago
        I see where that's coming from, but to offer an alternate perspective the suburbs seemed "dystopian" to me at first - we moved upstate for middle/high school. The same 6-8 Stepford model homes on every street, strip malls filled with the same 10 stores (Walgreens/CVS, Costco/Walmart, etc), people dressed VERY similarly, and nobody walked anywhere. The teens in my suburban high school seemed way less happy and did more/harder drugs compared to the Bronx. I'm not saying the projects were lovely. The elevators smelled like piss. But public housing - even ugly public housing - was a huge part in enabling two generations of single moms (my mom + grandma) to raise their families, start businesses, and thrive.
- giantg2 4y ago
  Theoretically, the wages should come up to make it possible to live there, assuming the service providers are actually having trouble hiring. It seems to me there might be some disconnect in demand and supply of various labor types (not many unskilled jobs compared to the number of unskilled workers, vs not many software devs but lots of openings). It seems these forces drag the bottom down while pushing the top higher. Edit: why disagree?
  - abeppu 4y ago
    > Theoretically, the wages should come up to make it possible to live there, assuming the service providers are actually having trouble hiring. Why, theoretically, would wages rise enough to make it possible for any worker to live in the city? I think the situation where workers with the worst alternatives and weakest negotiating position are stuck commuting into SF from outside is unfortunate but theoretically entirely understandable; SF wages aren't forced to rise to support someone living here, but only to be high enough relative to wages elsewhere to compensate for the cost of commuting.
    - giantg2 4y ago
      "but only to be high enough relative to wages elsewhere to compensate for the cost of commuting." True, but then the implied issues with not living in the city you work in become moot if truly compensating for the commute and cost of living outside the city.
      - abeppu 4y ago
        I think maybe you mean something by "truly compensating" which isn't actually being achieved. But the lesser compensation we are achieving is still sufficient to impact people's behavior. Suppose you're able to get two part time jobs with relatively little predictability in your shift schedule. Both are minimum wage, but one is in SF where the minimum is $17/hr and another is in Concord at $14/hr (the state minimum for a company with <25 employees). Say you live in Antioch, and can get to the Concord job in around 35 minutes for $4 with BART, and get to the SF job with more than 1h and $7.30 on BART (one way). So for every shift in SF you pick up, you get a $3 premium per hour relative to the Concord job, but for the first 2 hours that just goes to cover your extra BART fare, _and_ you lose an extra hour in transit. In dollars you still come out ahead on an 8 hour shift in SF relative to in Concord, but I think it would be unreasonable to say that "the implied issues ... become moot".
- dymk 4y ago
  You can't just convert office space into residential space. Completely different building codes. Just the retrofit for the plumbing makes it untenable.
  - throw8383833jj 4y ago
    I know this will get downvoted but, I say Throw the building codes out the window. Housing people is more important than regulations. If it made a difference to your ability to get shelter, which would you rather choose: have shelter or live in a illegal tent under a bridge resting assured with the knowledge that there's a big book of rules in place.
    - trentgreene 4y ago
      The problem is not all codes are meaningless regulation, and some of the important ones are indeed expensive (and vice versa). If you yolo it, you get cases like the Grenfell tower fire, and a lot of people literally die.
    - grepLeigh 4y ago
      This is how you get housing tenements, and SF has a history of over-paying for impermanent housing solutions (like tents in a parking lot, or cots in a navigation center). Not all buildings in SF are high-rise open-plans. If you're imagining converting Salesforce tower, I see how that would seem impractical. Most commercial office space in SOMA (old warehouse buildings) can be converted into live/work lofts.
    - dymk 4y ago
      Building codes were written in blood (and for much of the plumbing code, human feces and black mold).
      - achenet 4y ago
        anyone up for a rewrite in Rust? :D
  - SoftTalker 4y ago
MarkMarine 4y ago
What do you think makes live/work housing more desirable than just live? I haven’t seen live work spaces and I’m not sure what the allure would be. I used to be in the city, in essentially a shoe box that cost 5k a month, but with a fancy gym and common area. I moved to Marin during COVID and while I miss the food and walking distance/public transit activities I could do, I don’t think I can go back to the extremely small for the money living area. I’m hopeful a glut of new housing, hopefully spacious, will change that calculus.
- giantg2 4y ago
  This sort of setup would cross my mind while in college. The allure is that it would be similar to college - young people enthusiastic for learning but having fun too, no commuting, etc. As I got older it seems more like a nightmare since I hate my job and require more space/independence for my lifestyle/hobbies/family.
  - iancmceachern 4y ago
    It's all about what those hobbies lifestyle is. My wife and I made the opposite move. We had a house, a life, in the suburbs for more than a decade and now happily live in a 1 bedroom loft in SOMA. I would say that for our life, we live in a smaller (it's still pretty big, and not actually that expensive) in the city exactly because of the lifestyle/hobbies/family life we enjoy as a result. It's like the city is your living room.
    - giantg2 4y ago
      True about the hobby types. I still think it generally applies for the live-work setup though. Mostly because it seems most people don't like their jobs and want a disconnect between their spaces. Also because of professional appearances etc influencing your off-hours activities if your coworkers are watching. Even though work and housing aren't in the same buildings, military housing can provide a good lens into this.
      - 4y ago
AdrianB1 4y ago
One can only dream, but mid-market price expectations cannot be met. Just read in the article the price for the space, it is huge.
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  But those aren't the choices. The choices are A - get a commercial tenant that pays the high price you mention, if there aren't any tenants your choices are B - leave it vacant C - rent it out to a lower paying customer (residental). Between B and C C is the clear winner.
  - marcinzm 4y ago
    Option C involves a large investment to convert the property into one that legally allows for residential usage and that people, with money to pay rent, would want to live in. It also blocks option A, without spending all the money to undo things, if the economic situation changes or there's a bailout. So not a clear winner versus simply waiting.
    - iancmceachern 4y ago
      My point is that many buildings, like the one I live in now, do not need changes. They intelligently designed and built it from the beginning to serve both uses well. I'm pointing out that this is a smart approach. If a building needs a ton of renovations to make it meet code for residential occupancy than its not a good building to consider for this. I would say this is a corner case, ignore those. Just convert the 25% easiest buildings that need minimal if any changes.
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    Not necessarily. B wins if you depend on the value of the property for some reason or another. Commercial properties are valued based on the net present value of the rents you can get. If you pretend that you can get a higher rate than the market will bear, you can keep the valuation of your building up during a downturn. If you accept the lower-paying tenant, you lower the perceived valuation of the building. This only matters if you have a commercial mortgage... which is every building these days. This is utterly stupid, but it is driving rental vacancies in NYC.
iancmceachern 4y ago
My building on SOMA did this. The owners were smart when they built it out and the apartments work well as offices or apartments. During the pandemic they pretty much went all residential. It's so efficient and smarter from the building owner perspective, you double your potential customer base.
- robg 4y ago
  Full kitchen and bathroom and closets for the office suite?
  - iancmceachern 4y ago
    Yup, exactly. It's not that weird, every office I've worked at in the last 10 years has had a full kitchen and shower, it's almost a required perk in the bay area. The only weird thing IMO is it has a washer and dryer, I've not worked in an office that has those, that's the only difference from "normal" IMO.
    - merely-unlikely 4y ago
      > every office I've worked at in the last 10 years has had a full kitchen and shower Fantastic for bike commuting.
- grepLeigh 4y ago
  This is such a great example, wish I could upvote this to the top. I think most people are imagining converting high-rises like Salesforce tower. Most commercial office space in SOMA is a converted warehouse. Live/work apartments and lofts have already been converted from the same buildings. Let's do more of these!
tinalumfoil 4y ago
> The current asking price is $2,395,000. Our experienced agents can help you determine whether that is a fair amount for the property. What's more, we'll help you strategize and submit a smart offer that will get accepted based on current market conditions. https://www.rubyhome.com/idx/461-2nd-street-san-francisco-ca-94107/21724066_spid/ https://www.rubyhome.com/idx/461-2nd-street-san-francisco-ca... The monthly HOA is $941 lol
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  FWIW I think a monthly HOA of $941 for a condo that costs $2,395,000 is low. I know places in Austin where (and this was years ago), HOA fees were $1100 for a condo in the $1.2 million range. And, to be clear, I'm not saying 941 is "cheap" on an absolute basis, just that it is for a condo that is already that expensive.
  - ericbarrett 4y ago
    I remember poking around Chicago real estate early last decade, and seeing condos for $500k with $2,000/mo HOA fees. Seems to vary wildly by area.
    - b112 4y ago
      I cannot even think, what is worth that HOA. You could literally hire a full time person, 40hrs per week + give them a room in your house, for that.
      - addaon 4y ago
        Not sure how you figure? Minimum wage in Illinois comes to $2600/month for 40 hours/week. You're giving them a room in a place where the prevailing rent is clearly over $2000/month, which is hard to price at less than $1000/month (a "two roommates" situation)... so your proposed value package is well over twice the HOA fee.
        4y ago
jeffbee 4y ago
None of this office space is suitable for habitation.
- tofuahdude 4y ago
  "convert" it to be habitable is the key message here.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    Is far more difficult than scratch building. The housing opportunity in SF is in all the vacant and underutilized space in the Sunset. Downtown offices do not have the egress, plumbing, ventilation, electricity, or telecomm capacity to be economically converted to dwellings in anything other than a makeshift, emergency fashion.
    - grepLeigh 4y ago
      There's plenty of warehouse office space in SOMA that could meet residential coding requirements. I think most people in this thread are imagining converting high-rise open plans, like Salesforce tower - but most offices in SOMA are actually in warehouse space that's easier to convert. That's why I linked an example of live/work lofts. Which isn't to say we shouldn't utilize outer Sunset space too! There's already great public transport to the SOMA area though. It's a shame to let commercial real estate rot in forbearance, when it's surrounded by the infrastructure needed for excellent city living.
    - tofuahdude 4y ago
      Why not both? Let the market figure it out, just make the zoning permissive enough to allow the opportunity.
jovial_cavalier 4y ago
Your city needs homes for people who work at McDonald's. Not more luxury apartments.
- shaburn 4y ago
  False. The city has too many McDonald's quality apartments at luxury prices. More supply solves this.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  Build luxury apartments, people with luxury money will move there rather than buying and converting the McDonald workers' homes.
  - blablabla123 4y ago
    That's not how it works though. It just lowers the price for luxury apartments.
    - whimsicalism 4y ago
      It is literally how it works. There's plenty of evidence showing so.
- tayo42 4y ago
  i was actually wondering about this. doesn't section 8 housing vouchers take care of this? it also seems like it could lead to increased rents, if you have the government guarantee rent will be paid, you can raise it by a lot and not worry about people not paying, or even not being able to afford it.
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    > i was actually wondering about this. doesn't section 8 housing vouchers take care of this? not at all.
- tofuahdude 4y ago
MontyCarloHall 4y ago
Not all office space is amenable to residential conversion, since the floor area to exterior wall ratio is often much too high for an apartment building (windowless offices are fine, windowless living rooms, not so much). An office/apartment hybrid might work. I could imagine dividing the building, with offices in the inner core and apartments surrounding the core. The core and surrounding apartments would be totally separated, with separate lobbies and elevators. Although the offices would be totally windowless hellscapes, at least the apartments would have lots of light.
- shaburn 4y ago
  "(windowless offices are fine, windowless living rooms, not so much)"...*not for the homeless.
  - blablabla123 4y ago
    > windowless offices are fine I think that's a bold statement already
29athrowaway 4y ago
Welcome to the fantastic world of zoning. The answer is no. Why? because the city collects more taxes from commercial zoned stuff.
m0llusk 4y ago
Clocktower lofts are also very unlike currently vacant offices. Old industrial buildings had large open spaces that turned out to be easy to reconfigure. Most empty buildings now are more like 100 Van Ness which stayed empty for many years until its value dropped to a fraction of what it had been. And that conversion was still expensive enough to be risky and force offerings to the high end to make the math work out. This is going to be a rough ride.

iancmceachern 4y ago

Anecdotally the city seems the most alive since the pandemic,things are mostly back in full swing.

mrfox321 4y ago
Visited SF recently. Did things always close early?
- wmichelin 4y ago
  the city closes at 10 for the most part, yeah
- alephnerd 4y ago
  Yep. SF wasn't really a late night city for most of my life growing up here.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Relatively cheap, abundant labor is required for businesses to be open late, and that is not something SF has.
  - diebeforei485 4y ago
    Housing shortage means low-paid workers commute in from (usually) the East Bay, so the lack of late-night transit plus safety concerns make it not worth it for most minimum wage workers to work late. Higher paid jobs like healthcare workers, no problem.
    - alephnerd 4y ago
      I dislike how transplants tend to broadly paint the East Bay. It isn't a cheap region either. Most blue collar labor types living in the East Bay are in the Alameda County flatlands (parts of Newark, parts of Fremont, inner city Oakland, Berkeley, El Cerrito, Albany) or North Contra Costa County (Pittsburg, Antioch, Richmond). But most of the unskillled labor underclass you see in the Bay Area cities tend to drive in/Bart in/ACE in from San Joaquin Country, Sonoma County, or Monterey County.

hirundo 4y ago

Which means that around 4.8 million square feet are now available for modification into desperately needed residential space, if only the city would permit it.

cycrutchfield 4y ago
Who pays for that?
- hirundo 4y ago
  Owners of the vacant office space who like collecting rent more than they hate the expense, risk and hassle. Landlords pay for it, in the expectation of making it back from tenants.
  - dicomdan 4y ago
    Haven't you forgotten to ask the Board of Supervisors?
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Commercial properties are often owned by massive real estate conglomerates who don't have much incentive to convert a property unless they're going to immediately offload it afterwards. And the buildings that are owned by individuals/families may be owned outright so they don't have much loan pressure on them.
- AdrianB1 4y ago
  The taxpayers, of course. Take from the people who have and give to the people who need or want. /s
turtlebits 4y ago
I wish it was a solution to housing, but it's going to be very expensive to try to retrofit the additional plumbing, HVAC and electricity load for residential space. It's also expensive to keep a building open, so I can imagine you'll need a high occupancy percentage to also make it work.

jimcavel888 4y ago

ciguy 4y ago

The city seems to be at it's most lively since covid, but the offices are still empty. Before covid SF actively did it's best to antagonize the companies who's tax revenue it relied on. Now that they've taken their ball to play elsewhere, I don't see what the city is going to do for revenue. I work in the financial district and the number of empty spaces that used to house cafes and restaurants is shocking. Unless they manage to pivot that office space to housing (Very difficult for multiple structural reasons), the downtown of SF is going to continue to look like Zombieland.

RichardCNormos 4y ago
- kasey_junk 4y ago
  Are you suggesting that an American city could socialize a large chunk of its private real estate with the stroke of a pen or that landlords are waiting for some legal change to turn their office/retail space into homeless shelters and needle exchanges?
  - AdrianB1 4y ago
    I'm not sure if that was sarcasm (especially the part with needle exchange), but it is San Francisco so yes, it could.
    - water554 4y ago
      I would rather free housing go to people in need who work for a living
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    Boston has done it, I worked with an affordable housing group that worked on this stuff. The difference was these were largely undeveloped lots, not office buildings.

friedman23 4y ago

This will be a disaster for city tax revenues.

dicomdan 4y ago
Dems will keep Congress and bail them out again, at the expense of hitting lower and middle income Americans with higher inflation.

mercy_dude 4y ago

[flagged]

iancmceachern 4y ago
I always see people say this. I've lived all over the country, and these problems are not unique to California, large cities, or "Libral" areas. These are problems all over. Rather than fear monger it would be better to search for and then provide an example of a city that is doing it right, taking care of the problem, an example for the rest of us to follow. The problem (for your argument) is that there are plenty of examples of these, they're typically European amd Scandinavian cities with high taxes and "libral" or "communist" (in your view) leadership. So in doing so you would move past this stage to the next one and understand that these things are complex societal issues that need complex nuanced solutions and dialog surrounding them.

kaycebasques 4y ago

If anyone has a 5- or 10-year forecast on SF (i.e. general state of SF in 5 or 10 years) I would love to hear it

xnx 4y ago
Location, location, location. Being a dysfunctional city is a small factor compared to the climate and nearby natural beauty. There is no shortage of people who would live there if they could afford it.
- boringg 4y ago
  Second this. What people outside the bay area miss is the location quality that is not possible to mimic. Unparalleled geologic features (Bay, Coastline, Hills) add on that you have many world class educational facilities that aren't going anywhere and an economy that has always ebbed and flowed but has a strong undercurrent of strength and resilience. Oh yeah and possibly the best food on the planet which has some value even if you don't really care about food. Will it be the same? No but cities never revert they always change and remain dynamic as us humans do.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Best food on the planet? Seriously? I mean SF is pretty good but I'm not going to choose it over New York or London. In addition while climate (though people will argue about the city itself as opposed to the South Bay) and natural beauty add to SF's appeal, I'm not sure how many it would draw absent the economy. Certainly there are many mostly East Coast plus Chicago cities that attract a lot of people without the climate or mostly the geography.
    - alephnerd 4y ago
      But if you're someone who values nature along with a solid food scene and a strong white collar job base (Software, Hardware, Biotech/Pharma, Healthcare, Accounting, West Coast IB) your only real option is the Bay Area (not just SF, San Jose is also a great city - especially as an Asian American). That's not to say NYC or London are bad, but if you value being able to bike in the mountains in 20 minutes or trail run at a 4,000 ft elevation in 30 minutes, it's hard to beat the Bay Area.

_fat_santa 4y ago

Just took a cursory look at SF rents and looks like they have come down quite a bit since 2019. Seeing a ton of studios for around 1700 with 1bd's at 2300, that's a-lot don't get me wrong but IIRC a studio was 2300 in 2019.

yojo 4y ago
My 1 bedroom in Cole Valley was $3,500 when I left it in 2019. It was big (800sq ft) and had parking, but should give you a comp point.
SCUSKU 4y ago
I had a friend in North Beach who rented a 1BR for 1900 and was 2700 before the pandemic
laweijfmvo 4y ago
Although the article seems to suggest that while office vacancies are double the historical average, prices have only fallen 10% from the highs in 2020. Seems like the market hasn't accepted the shift yet.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Commercial properties are notorious for never wanting to lower lease/sqft rates - going so far as to do all sorts of modifications/rebuilding "for free" to keep the lease rates high (even if empty). It has to do with the valuation of the properties and not needing to get the cashflow for a VERY long time.

tb_technical 4y ago

Why would people go work in an office, when you can just work from home? Can't put the genie back in the bottle.

themitigating 4y ago
Socializing with others A situation at home that is distracting The need for changing location for mental delimination of work
- aaaaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
- maxehmookau 4y ago
  I can agree with your second two points, in some circumstances. But... I don't go to work to socialise. I hate the idea that my social life is tied to my work. Since moving to work from home permanently, I've built social connections with people who actually live in my community which I far prefer.
  - mattbroekhuis 4y ago
    You can socialize at work without having it tied to your social life. I miss everyday banter and eating lunch with my co-workers.
- lijogdfljk 4y ago
  I like some of those, maybe 10% of the time (because i'm reasonably anti-social), but man it has to be really good to put up with a commute. Wasting 1-2 hours of my day, with the potential to have it become a 4 hour drive once every week or two.. just way too rough. I honestly don't get how people put up with commutes. Like, honestly and really. It feels like i'm just destroying any chance i have for downtime during the weekdays. Throw in chores, and oof. Plus i don't have kids.. i can't imagine having kids on top of a commute.
  - 4y ago

alfor 4y ago

How is it in Austin? Is it possible that the exodus from California explain more than the pandemic and WFH

rossdavidh 4y ago
Lots of messed up things with Austin real estate, but office spaces are not this empty. In fact I have heard that it is one of the less empty metro areas right now, in terms of office space. There also seems to be a lot of traffic downtown, which is annoying but means someone must be working/living there. But again, lots of messed up things in the real estate market of Austin generally; the residential market has essentially frozen up, with sellers unwilling to admit how much things have dropped, and the buyers unwilling to pay for houses they know aren't going to be worth that much in a year's time or less.
kjkjadksj 4y ago
The exodus is overstated. Research has shown its actually a brain drain from texas while texas receives low skilled labor. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-10-17/california-texas-migration-why-people-move https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-10-17/california-...

yrgulation 4y ago

Wish this was happening in london uk, and ideally that space converted into housing. The less people having to commute to on site farms the better for the environment.

dicomdan 4y ago
Elect a socialist anti-business mayor and your wish will be granted.
- yrgulation 4y ago
  There is one. If anything socialism wants more workers that think alike, look alike, and march into glass factories alike.

SSJPython 4y ago

I don't understand why working in an office isn't optional for certain jobs. If you want to go to the office, go in. If you want to work remote, then work remote. Why should either remote, hybrid, or on-site become a top-down policy imposed on all employees?

lolinder 4y ago
Having a team split between remote and on site isn't a great situation for anyone. A team that is entirely remote can adapt to remote, asynchronous ways of working. A team that is entirely on site just needs to do what they've always done. Collaborating effectively in a team that is split between the two is very difficult, because the communication methods that are natural to one half of the team are foreign to the other half. Remote employees in particular tend to get isolated from the rest of the team. If your company has enough employees that are interchangeable enough to organize teams based on the work preferences of the employees, you could probably make it work. But most companies don't have employees that are that interchangeable.
- sharemywin 4y ago
  I use teams and jira. daily status meeting over teams. jira for tasks. teams for chat if I have questions.
- kjkjadksj 4y ago
  If people are having a hard time with zoom still after the past three years then I don’t know what to say.
- Spivak 4y ago
  > Collaborating effectively in a team that is split between the two is very difficult. I'm on a split team, it's the same as remote except you can send DMs and create groups chats with some of the team IRL and you have multiplayer rooms join video calls.
downrightmike 4y ago
Because "Office Vacancy Rate in San Francisco Just Hit a New High", That means property owners aren't making money. Workers aren't out spending to come in, stay and leave. All that is taxable, which is why government officials want people back in the office. In every city, the downtown core's tax revenue subsidizes the suburban sprawl all around it. Good overview of the research on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI

Hippocrates 4y ago

The idea, and economics, of converting office space to housing is fascinating to me. Once you think about it for more than a moment you realize there are some major difficulties. A modern office high rise, for example, may have windows only on the outer edge of a vast floor plan. There may be one or two large bathrooms per floor, with no plumbing or even walls to contain plumbing anywhere else. The HVAC may be zoned per-floor. Gas and electric is not metered separately. So depending on the building it could be a huge cost to turn into livable residences, much less desirable ones that would offset the expense. Not to say it can’t be done but it seems really hard.

gumby 4y ago

Come on SF, embrace commercial to residential conversion already!

shaburn 4y ago

San Francisco wants keep its completely asinine regulatory cake and eat its wishful thinking cost of living too. Reality will win on one side or the other.

mbgerring 4y ago

It would be great if all the giant warehouse spaces that got converted to “creative office space” could be put back to work as PDR space. You don’t need 20ft ceilings and 3-phase power to make CRUD apps for HR management or whatever