Deserted skyscrapers, depopulated offices, closed restaurants… New York devitalized by remote working

2023-07-20 19:14:06

By Maurin Picard

Posted yesterday at 6:28 PM, Updated yesterday at 7:14 PM

Buildings in Lower Manhattan, New York, in April 2021. About 40% of the area dedicated to the private sector in the city center would be abandoned. SPENCER PLATT/Getty Images via AFP

REPORT – teleworking has become a lasting success across the Atlantic. With irreparable consequences for business real estate.

Manhattan, ghost town: the memory of spring 2020 remains etched in New York memories. Deserted skyscrapers, depopulated offices, restaurants double-locked, their doors barred with plywood, silent macadam. “The Big Apple” ended up emerging from this forced sleep, but the curse launched by the Covid-19 pandemic still lurks: three years later, telework has established itself on the long term across the Atlantic. The consequences for business real estate are irremediable: approximately 40% of the surface area dedicated to the private sector in the city center would be abandoned. According to a joint study by the universities of New York and Columbia, based on the database of the firm Kastle Systems, which aggregates the performance of 2,600 buildings in 138 American cities, and published in May by The Real Deal, commercial premises are expected to lose 44% of their overall value by 2029. The same report, darkly titled “Telecommuting and the apocalypse of business real estate”…

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