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Not a surprise there. I was talking to a CEO friend of mine whose company had just leased a huge office right before the pandemic for five years. They closed

Not a surprise there. I was talking to a CEO friend of mine whose company had just leased a huge office right before the pandemic for five years. They closed all their small offices around town and moved everyone early during the pandemic, which means most people have never seen the new building. Their stuff is just in boxes on desks. They can't get out of the lease early, so for now the leadership shows up once a week for meetings and that's about it. But in about three years they will ditch the lease, as will many other companies in similar situations. This is just the beginning. On the plus side, here in Cupertino there has been an eternal debate what to do with the empty land the old mall used to sit on. They wanted to build 3M square feet of office space, but now they probably won't do that, which is a big win for the community who wants it to be retail or housing and not offices.

mortenjorck 4y ago
> They wanted to build 3M square feet of office space, but now they probably won't do that, which is a big win for the community who wants it to be retail or housing and not offices. This is the real point of opportunity. Rather than the well-meaning but economically unviable push to convert office buildings into housing, the most attainable goal right now is to prevent new offices from being built and build housing on that land instead.
- b112 4y ago
  This is the real point of opportunity. Is it though? If you take away the offices, and offices close, why do people need to live there? Where will they work? And if it is 100% remote, why not live where the cost of living, and housing, is 1/2 the cost already?
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Some people do choose to live in cities even though there's no work-related reason to do so--and even put up with incremental inconvenience to commute out to a suburban office park. But, still, when tallying up the pros and cons, taking easier commute off the plate certainly doesn't help the urban apartment side of the ledger.
    - b112 4y ago
      I wonder for a place like SanFran. There are many smaller cities, and cities without as many issues as SanFran too. So with remote, there is also the choice of "better managed city". I wonder if it will empty, or become some apocalyptic landscape, with endless abandoned empty office buildings, and the homeless living in them, and everyone else just gone. It seems, from the comments here, that SanFran is very poorly run. The robberies, the homeless, the filth on the street, and now, emptiness and presumably maybe budget problems soon. For example, what if some of the older office buildings are just cut+run? Property management corp X goes bankrupt, or, just decides that it's not worth paying property tax any more. Sure, the city can seize and sell off property for back tax reclamation, but what if no one even wants to buy? What if eventually 1/2 the office space is just owned by the city, decaying, no property tax, unmaintained? It could become Detroit, but worse.
kridsdale2 4y ago
Did they finally close the AMC in that zombie hellscape?
- jedberg 4y ago
  Oh many years ago sadly. It was my favorite theater because it was walkable. The mall is gone now, it's a literal hole in the ground while they fight multiple legal battles with the city about what to do with it.

mortenjorck 4y ago

> They wanted to build 3M square feet of office space, but now they probably won't do that, which is a big win for the community who wants it to be retail or housing and not offices. This is the real point of opportunity. Rather than the well-meaning but economically unviable push to convert office buildings into housing, the most attainable goal right now is to prevent new offices from being built and build housing on that land instead.

b112 4y ago
This is the real point of opportunity. Is it though? If you take away the offices, and offices close, why do people need to live there? Where will they work? And if it is 100% remote, why not live where the cost of living, and housing, is 1/2 the cost already?
- ghaff 4y ago
  Some people do choose to live in cities even though there's no work-related reason to do so--and even put up with incremental inconvenience to commute out to a suburban office park. But, still, when tallying up the pros and cons, taking easier commute off the plate certainly doesn't help the urban apartment side of the ledger.
  - b112 4y ago
    I wonder for a place like SanFran. There are many smaller cities, and cities without as many issues as SanFran too. So with remote, there is also the choice of "better managed city". I wonder if it will empty, or become some apocalyptic landscape, with endless abandoned empty office buildings, and the homeless living in them, and everyone else just gone. It seems, from the comments here, that SanFran is very poorly run. The robberies, the homeless, the filth on the street, and now, emptiness and presumably maybe budget problems soon. For example, what if some of the older office buildings are just cut+run? Property management corp X goes bankrupt, or, just decides that it's not worth paying property tax any more. Sure, the city can seize and sell off property for back tax reclamation, but what if no one even wants to buy? What if eventually 1/2 the office space is just owned by the city, decaying, no property tax, unmaintained? It could become Detroit, but worse.

kridsdale2 4y ago

Did they finally close the AMC in that zombie hellscape?

jedberg 4y ago
Oh many years ago sadly. It was my favorite theater because it was walkable. The mall is gone now, it's a literal hole in the ground while they fight multiple legal battles with the city about what to do with it.