[Golden Eagle]

Capitalism is being destroyed, by design. Next up, the collapse of all real estate prices. Just wait for the boomers to start dying, and their heirs to finish blowing through whatever was left to them.

[pnut22]

No longer needing space for offices and retail was easily predictable. Speeding up the process with a pandemic, not so easy to predict.

Even the need for housing space is shrinking. Young people seem to have little interest in “collectable stuff”. Just so they have a smart phone and internet.

[Angelino97]

The website in the OP takes its story (and links to) The Register.

[Ex gun maker.]

Well gee, just convert it all to “Loft space” and condos.
With communal bathrooms to make the neighbors feel cozy.

[montag813]

Blackstone will swoop in and grab these for a song, then convert them to rentals.

[Lockbox]

1. Building owners will start demanding lower property taxes due to lower rental which means the building’s earning power is much lower. Government will be impacted.

2. The plan to convert these office buildings into residential property will be expensive and time consuming which will also impact the buildings value.

3. The rents from residential is about 40% lower than office rental rates. So the government will need to subsidize in order to make this plan work.

[robowombat]

The statistics on Baltimore look bogus unless it includes Baltimore County and half of Howard County.

[P.O.E.]

Convert them to re-education centers.

Large conference rooms for lectures. Communal bathrooms. Individual cubicles for application of the Ludovico technique.

[Caipirabob]

This was inevitable. It was coming for years.

Of course much work can be done remotely. Good for business and those who can perform such tasks and remain competitive. Talent is no longer required to be local, and now the best talent can be sought out even if they are on the other side of the planet.

There are mechanisms to ensure that they are being productive, so that's not an issue.

As far as office spaces, they can be converted and rezoned. Certainly an expensive prospect but in many cases, doable.

Imagine the instant savings for businesses that go remote. Reduced electrical, the burden of utilities and resources can be placed on the employee. The employee saves on time, gas, clothes and a dozen other benefits.

Collaborative efforts are doing quite well via apps like MS Teams and others. Plus there's no chance of the flu taking down a department for a week, and no need to push vaccines on the employed.

Sure, not every job is suitable for this, and not everyone wants it. It's ideal for those who prefer it though. I think it's worked extremely well and is here to stay.

[Cen-Tejas]

...as someone who over the past 50 years has had hundreds of employees and who has tried “work at home”, this “work at home” fantasy is a stopgap (meaning ok if you have no choice when the next democratic party Covid type scam comes along) NOT a permanent solution. NOBODY really “wants” to work at home, they just think they do. Human nature is to “get up, get out and GO”.

[lurk]

It’s one of those large shifts in history, which just happen because things change. The laptop computer has turned the whole world into a mobile work space, making the downtown business district redundant.

We met a young business man who lives in a nice RV with his wife and kids. They travel all over and he works wherever they stop. They were headed for a three week stop in Yellowstone.

[StAnDeliver]

If some GOP Senator with b@lls would release a Schumer-style "Indy Mac" letter that Schuck used to intentionally unravel the residential real estate subprime market in 2008, not just to wipe out McCain's remote shot at the White House, but to cripple the GOP downticket. It worked.

You all hear me? IT WORKED. The market didn't crash, it cratered. The Great Recession ensued, and that yielded ... President Trump.

And it would work AGAIN, if some GOP Senator with b@lls would leverage this news -- the commercial investors now carrying empty skyscrapers, no back rent, and bad debt; and issue a new, 2023 "IndyMac" letter specifically to unwind the already-weakened global commercial real estate market -- just as Schumer did in 2008.

It's time now for the handful of conservatives left in the Senate to stop d---ing around and kick the stool out from under Xiden and his puppet-state cadre.

[Joe Brower]

Ping.

[FryingPan101]

Good read.

[central_va]

Easily converted to residential.

[Fledermaus]

As I predicted in April 2020. The ripple effect of this will be felt for decades

[Sgt_Schultze]

The scandemic converted many workers into work-from-homers. Now that the plague is receding, former commuter-workers don’t want to return to the democrat hunting grounds. So now the Bidet administration is proposing to relocate the hunter-class into suburban bedroom communities, reuniting the once prey, with their adversaries. Things will escalate.