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I wondered this last time I went by the still in construction Advance Auto building in NH, which seemed nearly finished, and the less finished building going up right next to it (does anyone know what it is?).
I was wondering if AA were rethinking their real estate strategy, I don't know if they planned to occupy the whole building, and if the tenants in the newer building next door would be considering what this One West Palm project is doing.
I’m pretty sure the under construction building is residential and IIRC. Advance was taking a few floors but not half the building. More around 25%
I am a huge proponent of a WFH scheme. The only hinderance I see (beside old school "must be in the office" mentality) are taxes. WFH works if your employees stay in NC. If your employee works the summer in SC at his/her beach house, then they owe SC income tax. There will have to be some major overhauls to income taxes for this to work. Not holding my breath on that front since the sales tax issue was only recently "resolved".
My company has had some issues with people taking it upon themselves to work from states where we do not do business. One of my co workers was told you have one week to get to a state where we do business after she told a big boss she had moved to a state where we DON'T. This has always been well known company policy BTW.
As I said earlier - WFH is not working for everyone - it's become pretty clear there are people sitting around playing Xbox all day and not doing what they're supposed to do.
As we all know with the rona, the vast majority of office jobs have moved remote, and many companies claim that this will be a permanent change. I think when Covid is no longer a worry companies may change their tunes a bit, but for now RTP is pretty ghost-townish.
Assuming companies don't flip-flop, how will this affect RTP in the future, and will it affect the desirability of the area? So many move here for jobs, and if companies start shutting down their non-essential office locations due to remote work, there may be much fewer people that move to the area. Could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your views.
The big guys like Cisco, Netapp, Lenovo, etc, I think all have large labs and datacenters in RTP, so it seems unlikely that they would do away with ALL of those buildings. But on the larger campuses many buildings could literally sit empty. It could also be the end of the many small and medium sized satellite offices.
After 911 happened, the prediction was that most people would never fly again, and that most people would never live or work in tall buildings again. Years later, NYC responded by building many supertall pencil towers. No, office buildings are not obsolete due to covid-19 and WFH is not a long-term viable concept. Human beings are social creatures and have short memories. Once a vaccine is available, it will be business as usual. Back to the office (or lab) for most folks.
After 911 happened, the prediction was that most people would never fly again, and that most people would never live or work in tall buildings again. Years later, NYC responded by building many supertall pencil towers. No, office buildings are not obsolete due to covid-19 and WFH is not a long-term viable concept. Human beings are social creatures and have short memories. Once a vaccine is available, it will be business as usual. Back to the office (or lab) for most folks.
In some ways I agree and in others it's more still unknown, or at least with this analogy.
Back then the WFH capabilities were not what they are today, the impact was limited to select areas, and for most, for a comparatively shorter time, and there's a divide now that wasn't there, of those who want to vs. those who don't because the options and mindsets have changed.
But also, whatever short-term RE impact it has, it might eventually morph back to some percentage of office life BC. And I think these phases will be years not months. Many companies will reduce desk space and overall office capacity by introducing safe distance measures, some will reduce overall RE footprints which might eventually return to 50-60-70%. I think the interim phase will be strange.
But the technology isn't going away, and it's only going to get better, and there's a enhanced market for it. And those pluses about WFH are going to make full time in office as uncommon as WFH was only a short time ago.
Maybe former 5-days in office people will develop distinct 3 days at home / 2 days in office working habits.
The U’s made this area as well as RTP and local companies such as Quintiles now IQVIA.
Slow down. I'm a former faculty member at an ACC school not in NC, so I'm as sympathetic to universities as anyone. RTP was initially driven by the chemistry schools at the three universities. That's a fact. On the other hand, RTP was a niche and rather obscure player on the national scene until IBM came in. IBM didn't have or need any relationship with the chemistry departments. I'd argue the inverse... to some extent, IBM and the other big tenants in RTP actually made the universities stronger by creating a strong local market for top talent. In particular IBM and the other tenants fed the graduate school enrollments at UNC-CH and Duke, and to a lesser degree NC State. It's no coincidence how the MBA programs in Chapel Hill and Durham grew in proportion to the RTP workforce.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CardinalRed
Take away the U’s and this is a rural ghost town or another Chinese owned hog farm similar to Eastern Carolina.
Hyperbole. Raleigh would still be a state capital like Jefferson City with a quiet lifestyle. Might not be everyone's cup of tea... certainly not mine, but Raleigh wouldn't be Clinton or Rocky Mount.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CardinalRed
the area may suffer as we need talent from India and other Asian countries as very few STEM positions can be filled by natural born citizens?
The issue isn't so much the availability of native STEM graduates as it is the salaries that they expect to be paid when they hit the job market. I support the H1B program, and I've hired H1B people. But let's be honest. H1B is about cutting U.S. payroll expenses to preserve software jobs in the U.S. even if they're filled by non-natives. Otherwise the jobs will go to India and other outsourcing locales.
Last edited by wizard-xyzzy; 11-05-2020 at 05:49 AM..
Tax is not a problem for a lot of companies. My spouse works for a west coast company, and have been one of the few employees who've been allowed to fully WFH for the last 2-3 years. Now the company have decided to let its employees work from anywhere. A few will be working from Canada. They were able to iron out tax issues without any problems. The winners are those who'll be working from western states, there are a few laws that will apply only to those who work from CA, OR, WA and CO -- mostly some employee protection, PTO roll over, etc. Because CA recently passed certain laws that some other states also adopted.
I think large companies will have to re-think their on-site spaces. If everyone is going to be WFH, or having flex schedule, the actual physical space will have to be re-configured. Maybe it'll be a place where "decisions" happen. Maybe offices become for C-suite people only. So, if you go back to office, it'll mean you made it, lol. The worker ants will just have to continue slaving from home. I said it here before, I personally think that large companies will use WFH for their own advantage. They'll pay less for commercial RE, have their people use their OWN homes to work for them (I mean that's a major WIN for them), and then overload them with work -- because, hey, they way they see it "you are AT HOME." They can literally expect us work more. They probably think we should be working more, cause from our bed to our office, it's just a few steps. We;ll never be able to disengage from work, because it's literally in OUR HOME. There is no physical cut off, so there won't be mental one either. I think soon enough there we will need some laws to protect us from this BS.
Tax is not a problem for a lot of companies. My spouse works for a west coast company, and have been one of the few employees who've been allowed to fully WFH for the last 2-3 years. Now the company have decided to let its employees work from anywhere. A few will be working from Canada. They were able to iron out tax issues without any problems. The winners are those who'll be working from western states, there are a few laws that will apply only to those who work from CA, OR, WA and CO -- mostly some employee protection, PTO roll over, etc. Because CA recently passed certain laws that some other states also adopted.
I think large companies will have to re-think their on-site spaces. If everyone is going to be WFH, or having flex schedule, the actual physical space will have to be re-configured. Maybe it'll be a place where "decisions" happen. Maybe offices become for C-suite people only. So, if you go back to office, it'll mean you made it, lol. The worker ants will just have to continue slaving from home. I said it here before, I personally think that large companies will use WFH for their own advantage. They'll pay less for commercial RE, have their people use their OWN homes to work for them (I mean that's a major WIN for them), and then overload them with work -- because, hey, they way they see it "you are AT HOME." They can literally expect us work more. They probably think we should be working more, cause from our bed to our office, it's just a few steps. We;ll never be able to disengage from work, because it's literally in OUR HOME. There is no physical cut off, so there won't be mental one either. I think soon enough there we will need some laws to protect us from this BS.
I was super busy when we first started WFH, working 12 hour days. Now it has slowed down to normal workload and I still find I work more than required or asked of me only because it is easy to go to work early. I wake up and can't sleep so many times I will log on and start taking care of issues or emails. I have not been asked to do that, nor expected. I just do it because Im otherwise bored.
I was super busy when we first started WFH, working 12 hour days. Now it has slowed down to normal workload and I still find I work more than required or asked of me only because it is easy to go to work early. I wake up and can't sleep so many times I will log on and start taking care of issues or emails. I have not been asked to do that, nor expected. I just do it because Im otherwise bored.
That's the problem. We create it for ourselves. I have a co-worker who does this, he emails everyone at 6am, at 2am, and weekends. I do not know if he is trying to show that he is working a lot, or he is a just a miserable **** who never stops working, but it's creating an odd working environment. After he emails, some people feel obliged to respond, so you start seeing emails going back and forth in off hours. That is not good and it shouldn't be a new normal. Americans in general are workaholics; this will completely ruin the life/work balance and will create a generation of people who are simply burned out.
That's the problem. We create it for ourselves. I have a co-worker who does this, he emails everyone at 6am, at 2am, and weekends. I do not know if he is trying to show that he is working a lot, or he is a just a miserable **** who never stops working, but it's creating an odd working environment. After he emails, some people feel obliged to respond, so you start seeing emails going back and forth in off hours. That is not good and it shouldn't be a new normal. Americans in general are workaholics; this will completely ruin the life/work balance and will create a generation of people who are simply burned out.
I can see that happening to many people, but I really enjoy my job. I got out of the navy to do what I do now and like to fix problems.
For most of my career in the real world, almost all my colleagues and the markets I was responsible for were in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. For the last decade, my boss was in London. Either I worked from home or I traveled. But wherever I happened to be, the challenge was the same: getting the work done and accommodating my colleagues in a reasonable manner versus working 24 hours a day.
The trap was working a full day in Tokyo, Mumbai, or wherever I happened to be -- even in Raleigh -- and then having phone calls and email all night until sunrise. It took me a while to figure out how to handle this.
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