Increase the budget. It's pretty simple. The deal is: If you provide a crappy work environment, there had better be other compensations (interesting projects,

Increase the budget. It's pretty simple. The deal is: If you provide a crappy work environment, there had better be other compensations (interesting projects, money, great cow-orkers, etc.) or I'm going to leave. And I have done this, with no regrets other than feeling bad for the people I left behind (some of whom I try to recruit). And at some point, when a project is done or someone really good bails for a better place, people "wake up" and realize they've been had, and the exodus will start. And you'll be left with cheap digs and the people that haven't left might not be the people that you actually want, and the decline will start. Being cheap is its own reward. I'm actually okay with cheap, cheap is great stuff when everyone is on board with being cheap, but I'm not okay with people telling me stuff like "This space is designed for collaboration and empowering communication" when the first design goal is actually cheap, and all that other stuff is just post-facto justification for a work environment that is noisy and sucks hard for people who need to think for a living. It really is simple.