office building lit up and seen from side showing offices (Photo: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg)

Early data shows that office users favored smaller footprints in 2020. The trend supports theories that office demand would shrink in response to widespread remote work policies that sprouted during the pandemic.

Last year, the 100 largest office lease transactions totaled 29 million square feet, 32% lower than in 2019, according to research from CBRE. These deals accounted for 19% of total office leasing activity. Lease renewals accounted for 43% of the top lease transactions. This was increase over renewals in 2019, which is likely due to tenants taking a pausing on office leasing decisions during the pandemic. Overall, office leasing decreased 36% last year.

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Kelsi Maree Borland

Kelsi Maree Borland is a freelance journalist and magazine writer based in Los Angeles, California. For more than 5 years, she has extensively reported on the commercial real estate industry, covering major deals across all commercial asset classes, investment strategy and capital markets trends, market commentary, economic trends and new technologies disrupting and revolutionizing the industry. Her work appears daily on GlobeSt.com and regularly in Real Estate Forum Magazine. As a magazine writer, she covers lifestyle and travel trends. Her work has appeared in Angeleno, Los Angeles Magazine, Travel and Leisure and more.

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