The Avenue of the Americas Association recently hosted Flex and the City: How Modern Flex Office Technology is Transforming the In-Building Experience on Wednesday, October 27, 2021. The panel, featuring moderator Natalie Sachmechi, Real Estate Reporter for Crain’s New York Business and speakers Jeremy Bernard, CEO of North America for essensys, Michael Caracciolo, Senior Director of Studio by Tishman Speyer, and Evan Fain, General Manager of Strategic Projects for Industrious, explored the acceleration of flex office trends during the pandemic.
As landlords respond to tenant demands for flexibility, services, technology and amenities in the workplace, technology firms and flex providers are providing the means for owners to deliver flex footprints that are helping to keep the commercial environment vibrant. Particularly amid the office market’s flight to quality, flexible infrastructure and offerings are increasingly essential to staying relevant in the market.
Bernard explained how flex workspace solutions are in high and growing demand from landlords, stating, “We’re getting requests from landlords from a technology standpoint to make sure all of those spaces work and it’s a seamless experience for those employees to jump around from those locations.” In other words, all owners are becoming in the business of technology—and finding partners with the expertise and scale to implement it is a growing differentiator.
Caracciolo went on to explain how the use of flex workspace options result in a better use of space over time, stating, “When you’re negotiating a contraction and expansion option in traditional leasing, there’s a lot of lost value in that. The nature of the flex product allows you to cycle people in and out. You can get a better ultimate use of the space over time, and couple that with traditional leasing to give them the ability to scale, where they otherwise would have to negotiate and pay for essentially vacant space.”
Fain explored how these spaces bring enormous opportunities and future strategic potential between owners and tenants that historically have a complex relationship, saying, “This is going to mean there will be significant complexity in how these buildings operate, but it also means there will be significant opportunity for others to move from being space providers that provide four walls in and a box to being strategic partners to their tenants. I think the others that make that shift successfully will see tremendous upside.”
About Avenue of the Americas Association
The Avenue of the Americas Association is a civic improvement corporation that promotes the commercial welfare of “America’s Corporate Corridor” and New York City. The Avenue of Americas, a thoroughfare of approximately four miles long, is one of the City’s most exciting locations, boasting impressive architecture, corporate headquarters, restaurants, entertainment, cultural attractions, parks, plazas and business districts. The Association acts as an intermediary with government agencies and officials, and provides its membership with information on proposed laws and actions that will affect them. Issues such as transportation, physical improvements, signage, public safety, economic growth and homelessness are some of the challenges addressed by the Association in recent years. For more information, please visit www.aveoftheamericas.org.
