Safe office, smart office

“The pandemic has accelerated the digital revolution in office buildings. But workers still expect their own space and desk. We will still need offices. The home office will not replace the conventional model of providing work, it will only become its complement” assess the authors of the report by technology company ABB.

“However, company headquarters in the new reality must be different – even more intelligent, even more eco-friendly. The pandemic has accelerated companies’ decision to use proptech tools,” ABB points out.

The coronavirus has hit the office market hard. Many companies have switched to remote or hybrid work mode. Some companies renegotiated contracts, some began to sublease space. “In our opinion, however, these were short-term actions,” says Szymon Jungiewicz, PMR’s chief construction market analyst, quoted in a recent report. “Already today, in the environment of a recovering economy, demand for traditional offices is growing,” he notes.

According to the analyst, the office market should return to high activity in the long term. This is indicated by recently started investments of such companies as Ghelamco, Cavatina, Echo Investment, Skanska. Also in the first quarter of 2021, there was a breath of optimism – office buildings were responsible for almost half of the transactions (about EUR 600 million) in the commercial real estate market.” he says.

Tomasz Zieliński from ABB in Poland comments that in a long-term perspective the pandemic will not have a major impact on the commercial real estate market itself: its size or demand for space. - However, it has led to increased awareness of such aspects like security, flexibility, comfort, monitoring functions, data analysis, and control, as well as prediction and effective management systems, he points out. - We all have to learn from this difficult lesson. The important thing is that the necessary technology is now available.

(rp.pl)