The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated trends that were already taking place in the world of work, including a shift toward greater flexibility and a decline in the share of workers who go to an office five days a week. However, this does not mean that downtown office buildings will become obsolete. There are several reasons why:

Location: Downtown office buildings are often located in dense areas with proximity to important amenities like financial services, public transportation, and restaurants.

Centralization: Businesses often find it beneficial to have many departments in close proximity to streamline communications.

Talent: Large businesses need access to diverse pools of talent to remain competitive; urban downtown areas generally offer diverse labor force due to population density as well as public transportation that is typically stronger in big cities than the suburbs.

Although many companies have become flexible and may implement a “Work from Home model” the office remains critically important. There has to be places for professionals to work together efficiently and meet in collaboration and that is something not all home-office configurations are equipped to achieve regularly; also many do not provide a safe/quiet location in order to concentrate and be effective during one’s work shift.

Overall, while the nature of work has certainly changed and technology allows new models of office operations, they key for most companies, for most roles; remains to be the option to utilize one; however that office should best reflect its employee’s requirements, from technology capabilities, accessibility as well as layout so it promotes collaboration. Therefore; downtown office buildings remain a key component for large scale organizations.