REBNY: Full Office Recovery Is Not 100% Occupancy

This week, the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) released the results of an analysis using what it said is a proprietary Placer.ai algorithm that identifies when a “mobile device visit” to an office building is coming from an office employee.

The algorithm also can track when the same device visits an office building but goes to other parts of the building, including “retail, hospitals, schools, etc. that are also contained within Manhattan’s office buildings”—public areas of buildings.

The key finding of the analysis, called the Manhattan Office Building Visitation Report (Visits by Weekday) is that while workplace visits are tracking heavily on Tuesday through Thursday of each week—and drop off on Mondays and Fridays—this not a fully accurate appraisal of the total activity in that building.

“Step into any given office space on a Monday or a Friday, and the changes that have come with new hybrid workplace flexibility are on full display. Step out of that office on a Monday or a Friday, and the drop off in street activity is not as stark, even in prime office districts like Grand Central,” the report finds.

“This reality begs the question: how many people are working in the office on any given day and what else are they doing at the office building if they are not working in the office?”

According to the REBNY analysis, office employee workplace visits average 68% compared to 2019 data on mid-week days (Tuesday through Thursday), 56% on Monday, and 37% on Friday.

When total building visitation rates are factored in, the mid-week comparison rises to 73% and the Friday number rises to 43%, the report found.

According to REBNY, it also is inaccurate to define a full recovery of the office market as 100% occupancy. “Prior to the pandemic, offices were typically occupied by employees for 80% of their total capacity for around four days a week,” the analysis said.

Last month, NYC’s Department of City Planning launched a two-year study into the impact of hybrid work patterns on the local economy, contracting with Placer Labs to develop methodology that would include the collection and analysis of cell phone data.

Starting this month, cell phone data will be deployed to analyze consumer spending habits in business and office districts. City Planning also will be hiring a full-time analyst and consulting contractors to study the impact of hybrid work with $500K in funding from the Federal Highway Administration.