The pandemic has catalyzed an undeniable change in office use, but many companies still have questions and uncertainties about how these changes will take shape and how to plan workplace strategy for the future. Urban centers have, perhaps, been the most disrupted by these changes, with the majority of office space located in the urban core. Data from Dr. Tracy Loh, a fellow with the Brookings Institution, shows that 71% of US office space is located in a downtown market. This is going to be among the biggest challenges for office users and office owners going forward.

"That represents a lot of eggs in one basket for a CRE industry that's adapting to greater telework and hybrid work environments.  The question that this raised for me is how resilient is a city center that is dominated by one form of real estate that is vulnerable to disruption," Jamie Henderson, head of commercial real estate at Capital One, tells GlobeSt.com.

First, companies will need to outline the true meaning of "hybrid" work, according to Henderson, but this can mean different things based on the industry and geography. "The trend line may be different in New York where the industrial composition of the sub-markets is dominated by finance (a sector with high remote viability) than it might be in a place like Washington, D.C., where the industry composition is primarily dominated by the public sector, wherein more workers would historically go to the office more often," Dr. Loh says, adding that other jobs might find that the benefits of flexibility outweigh better productivity of an in-house environment.