Page 16 - RE-NJ May 2020

14 MAY 2020
Andrew Judd
Reid Brockmeier
BUILDING A BLUEPRINT
Brokers, architects focus on workplace safety as office workers return post-COVID
Prior to entering the commercial real estate industry, Andrew Judd recalled his time with an
engineering and architectural firm whose clients included the region’s major transit agencies.
Those clients shared a common mantra.
“They said the main goal of each of those transit
— safety is first, reliability is second, convenience is third.”
He expects to see similar principles in play as office building owners and occupiers help employees return
to work in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis.
“The first thing you have to get to is that it’s got to be safe and people have to feel that way,” Judd said. “Then you have to figure out the reliability of it going forward. And then the convenience will be what works for each individual business.”
Such is the focus for a host of real estate services firms, architects and other professionals who are now advising landlords and tenants on the process of re-entry. There is likely
no one-size-fits-all approach, but
they point to several key strategies that should be common threads
in the near term: de-densification, ramped up cleaning and sanitizing and communication to help keep workers informed and ensure social distancing.
“Everybody is learning from each other and there’s a lot of considerations
that are being
investment initially.
“If it’s going to make a big difference in terms of how people feel comfortable, yes, but there’s a lot of things that relate more to protocols and procedures that they’re realizing tenants are really concerned about right now.”
For instance, corporate occupiers are almost universally thinking about staggered schedules and allowing only a percentage of their employees to return to work as part of a phased approach. Landlords will also
have a hand in controlling elevator traffic, sanitizing common areas and providing directional signage for spaces such as stairwells.
Other changes, including those that alter individual tenant spaces, may be longer-term in nature. But experts say they could come at the expense of some recent design trends:
higher headcounts per square foot, unassigned workstations and a focus on collaborative spaces, to name a few.
“(With) all of these spaces, because they were catering to collaboration, they’re now
going to have to
figure out a way to either monitor that in terms
of the amount
of use — and
who’s using it
over time — or
capture that
space as part of the spread-out, if you will,” said Cammy Bailey, director
of interiors with Rotwein+Blake in Livingston. “It will be interesting to see going forward how some of these companies address those issues.”
Anderson said she believes open office layouts will remain largely intact because they provide the benefit of natural light, circulation and ventilation. But that may not stop tenants from modifying their
Wakefield’s managing principal in New Jersey. “And that was the order
By Joshua Burd
agencies when serving the public is to provide safe, reliable, convenient service,”
said Judd, Cushman &
discussed,”
said Reid
Brockmeier, a
principal and
co-managing
director of
Gensler’s New
Jersey office.
He noted that those discussions don’t necessarily call for a large capital
Brokers, architects and other commercial real estate professionals are now advising office landlords and tenants on the process of returning to the workplace, outlining strategies such as de-densification, ramped up cleaning and sanitizing and communication to help keep workers informed and ensure social distancing.
Cammy Bailey