Ready for Reinvention: 2023 Trend Report, made with support from CBRE, is for all parties involved in the real estate ecosystem and urban place management, including but not limited to investors, property owners, tenants, consumers, and the public and non-profit sectors.
Traditionally, commercial districts with large office anchors offered a guaranteed customer base that supported an ecosystem of symbiotic uses. Post-pandemic, this has been upended due to office downsizing and increased vacancy. As office anchors downsize, former office and retail spaces are poised to be repurposed for alternative uses. If not used for office or retail, how can these assets be repurposed and rebalanced toward new demand drivers?
One alternative use that has caught our eye is life science-oriented businesses and enterprises. Location, funding, and access to a deep employee base are imperative for successful life science development. As talent bases or real estate opportunities improve in these areas, life science space will continue to grow outside of their traditional markets, fueling additional interest in aging office buildings, industrial/flex buildings, and even vacant retail anchors that can be converted to life science space. Learn more about how life science-oriented businesses fit the bill to fill vacancies in Ready for Reinvention.
The Place Consulting team works to identify, analyze, and solve real estate and place-based challenges from the perspectives of key stakeholders in the real estate ecosystem, including investors, property owners, tenants, and consumers. We take pride in our award-winning diagnostic methodology, one that begins with uncompromising research: identifying unmet potential and diagnosing the hurdles in the way to meeting it. Our diagnostic ensures we have defined and fully understood the challenges, while also educating our clients and setting us up for highly executable solutions and recommendations that support return on investment— however it is measured.
