No more traditional offices in big cities?

FM newsroom – office trends. There are rumours that a new era is coming to the metropolitan office market, and that the traditional office building boom is over. 

At a recent Corvinus Real Estate Management alumni event, experts argued that the question is no longer what kind of office space, but what kind of cities will be needed in the future. Five- to ten-year office leases are already out of date, as tenants expect more flexibility than that – fmbusiness.hu reports.

What will the offices of the future look like?

Future offices will be influenced by generational differences and changing needs. In terms of the defining trends in the Budapest office market, participants agreed that traditional office building in the Hungarian capital, just like in most major cities in the developed world – is over. They stressed that sustainability expectations are largely shaping the thinking of developers.

Experts highlighted that today people come to work for the experience, i.e. the importance of the workplace experience and its provision “comes before everything else”. Office buildings alone are no longer attractive enough, the future lies in mixed-use buildings. 

Market needs and developer logic are clearly pointing towards more compact office space and more efficient buildings offering more complex services, which can be operated in a carbon-neutral and low-cost way, according to experts.

Build new or renovate?

As vg.hu reports, the average age of office buildings in Budapest is around 14 years, and almost a quarter of the 4.3 million sqm stock was built before 2004. It is interesting to note that category A buildings are in the most trouble, with 63.4 percent of vacant space.

The experts agreed that the majority of office buildings in the capital could use energy modernisation. For category C office buildings, opinions differed: demolish and build a new one or renovate in an environmentally friendly way?

Of course, the (near) future poses more complex questions beyond office buildings: what kind of cities will we need in the future?

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