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buzzworthy office space will entice employees to return “and not feel like they’re forced to come back.”
“That’s the dialogue we’re having with a lot of companies: If the executive culture and your work type says that you need to collaborate with your colleagues at least three days a week, and you’re going to make a lease investment, do it in something that will really get those employees excited about coming back to work.”
Deloitte’s commitment to Morristown came before the COVID-19 crisis took hold in the U.S., with a formal announcement coming in January 2020. But the firm stayed on course as SJP and partner Scotto Properties forged ahead with construction, paving the way for some 660 Deloitte employees to move into M Station East this past July.
Along the way, several other companies have inked leases for high-profile locations in northern and central New Jersey. The largest among them was PTC Therapeutics, which took more than 360,000 square feet
for a new headquarters, collaboration and research hub at Warren Corporate Center, under a deal announced in June with Vision Real Estate Partners and Rubenstein Partners. Meantime, banking giant Morgan Stanley committed to nearly 120,000 square feet at Onyx Equities’ newly renovated campus at 340 Mount Kemble Ave.
in Morris Township, as did Cellares Corp., a biotechnology firm, at 95 Corporate Drive in Bridgewater.
Other tenants are on the hunt. According to Steve Jenco, JLL’s director of New Jersey office research, three
sectors — life sciences, tech and information and banking and financial services — each accounted
for about 20
percent of the
requirements in the market as of late August. Some of those needs exceeded 50,000 and 100,000 square feet, he said.
Jenco described the demand as more of a “slow turn of the faucet,” rather than a sudden flood of requirements, but said it comes after a series of false starts by tenants about how to reopen their office and move ahead with a new lease. Long-term plans come with “a tremendous investment,” but the
past two years have been rife with concerns about new COVID variants, managing hybrid schedules and how much space they would even need.
“We were in that period of the unknown, where you saw tenants
that were previously in the market looking for space that simply put the brakes on things and said, ‘You know what, we’re going to hold off and see where things play out,’” Jenco said. “It seems that there is more momentum in the market now that companies are feeling a little more positive that we’re ready to make some decisions here, just based on what we’ve experienced
the past couple of years.”
What’s more, employees are now truly feeling the effects of two years of work from home or work from anywhere, according to Kimberly Smith, JLL’s vice president of workplace strategy, who noted that companies are “losing a sense of culture.” That has caused feelings of isolation among remote workers and helped fuel what’s been known as the Great Resignation, she said, prompting employers to rethink their workplaces.
She pointed to a key question that JLL asks in its workplace research: “Is
your office commute-worthy?”
“People are starting to think about that in terms of the big picture of, fundamentally, what is the purpose
Kimberly Smith
of the office?” Smith said. “And, really, it’s the cultural center to connect employees
and drive the mission of the organization.
So that’s really
what’s happening in terms of why people are investing and creating a
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Steve Jenco