2020 was one of the most challenging years for businesses and families in recent history. The COVID-19 Pandemic altered the fundamentals of family life and corporate real estate through disruption. For those of us living and working in Texas, the catastrophic February winter storm caused personal suffering and yet to be totally determined and accounted for damage to commercial and residential real estate across the state. This disruption has reminded us again of the significance and costs associated with real estate and made it top-of-mind once again in 2021! As a result, a well-thought-out, proactive real estate change process is quickly becoming the new normal for companies!
Crisis Forcing Change
Many companies are reevaluating their real estate strategies and portfolios, dedicating critical management and oversight time to new strategic thinking and anticipation of business trends, challenges, and opportunities, closely monitoring and measuring corporate real estate related impacts and results, and taking dramatic, proactive action to ensure their corporate real estate footprint is aligned with their companies’ operational, financial, and productivity goals.
Among the realities facing companies in 2021 are digitizing operations, closing and/or repurposing physical facilities due to business economics, extensive lockdowns, remote, and flexible work requirements, and preparing for and reacting to evolving business guidelines and circumstances. All of this and more while maintaining focus on the financial and operational aspects of new and existing business environments and challenges along with the health and welfare of employees, partners, and customers.
The Corporate Office Is Not Going Away
The pandemic has changed the way companies and end users look at corporate real estate, and many of the ‘must-haves’ from previous years are no longer relevant and new, more demanding ones have taken center stage. However, despite remote and flexible work becoming a mainstream practice for most companies, the corporate office remains relevant as a space to impart brand culture, ensure employee engagement, and offer inclusive choice environments to users.
With economic recovery heavily dependent on vaccines and the impacts of political actions and outcomes in Washington, D.C. and across the Globe, the length of the economic and resulting corporate real estate downturn remains uncertain. Irrespective of those actions and outcomes, the disruption and dramatic changes in and around commercial real estate and the resulting transformation will mean that corporate real estate will be top-of-mind for executive management for years to come!
Divergence Amongst Categories
Industrial real estate, health care, data centers, and cell towers have been positively disrupted, while offices, hotels, and retail facilities have been negatively disrupted. With this dramatic divide existing in business disruption today among corporate real estate property types, the corporate real estate change process is becoming more complicated.
Distress & Disruption
In 2021, many property owners who have fallen behind on debt are going to have to put more money into their buildings, sell at distressed prices or hand the keys back to the bank. Additionally, their tenants are rethinking their real estate strategies depending upon how they are affected by disruption. Add to that the unique pressures being put on property types – their respective owners and tenants regionally, due to massive shifts in the way people live, work, play and shop, all of which directly impact the corporate real estate footprint of the companies serving and supporting them.
The Road Ahead
Given, the disruption and unknowns facing companies, and the reshaping of the corporate real estate landscape, it is imperative for companies to have a proactive corporate real estate change process and the support of best-in-class intelligence and advisors. This process, when aligned with the right strategic corporate real estate partner, can empower companies to maximize their opportunities through current and future transformation.
The Sidecar Difference – Beside You For Your Next Real Estate Adventure
One corporate real estate company, Sidecar Commercial Real Estate, LLC, headquartered in Frisco, TX, supports clients with this process via face-to-face representation, supported by a global team of expert real estate advisors utilizing the best technology, tools, strategies, and connections, to help take them from first contact through lifecycle management of their real estate portfolio. Through “The Sidecar Difference”, clients can benefit from a comprehensive corporate real estate change process that offers the following services:
- Market Research, Analysis & Strategic Planning
- Financial Analysis
- Space Needs Analysis & Facilities Planning
- Tenant/Buyer Representation, Brokerage & Transaction Management (Acquisitions, Dispositions, Sale-Leasebacks)
- Location Analysis & Site Selection
- Economic and Tax Incentives Research & Procurement
- Portfolio Management
To explore The Sidecar Difference, visit www.sidecarcre.com/the-difference/ or contact Ray Martin, Vice President, Corporate Real Estate Advisor via telephone at 469-387-7528 or via email at [email protected].
