Among its most valuable assets are a company’s trade secrets, staff and customers. But protecting these can be much more difficult than protecting equipment or inventory. With the right.
Welcome to Pullman & Comley s Real Estate Newsletter,
Groundbreaking News. Written by our team of attorneys, you ll find articles that highlight hot topics and developments spanning the fields of real estate, land use and property valuation.
In this Spring 2021 Issue:
One Year On, How Has Commercial Office Space Changed?
Repurposing Connecticut s Commercial Real Estate Market in the Wake of COVID-19
The Use of Electronic Signatures in Real Estate Documents
One Year On, How Has Commercial Office Space Changed?
Last spring, the commercial real estate world was awash in predictions about the future of commercial real estate. How offices would change in the long-term was of particular interest for landlords and companies alike. Now more than a year since COVID-19 sent most office workers home, some predictions from last spring have come to pass, while others have surprised experts. As employees come back to the office, the situation is continuing to evolve.
Do I Still Need to Wear a Mask? What the CDC s Recent Guidance and the Governor s Recent Announcements Concerning Fully Vaccinated People Mean for Connecticut Employers | Pullman & Comley - Labor, Employment and Employee Benefits Law jdsupra.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from jdsupra.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Downtown Hartford’s major office buildings remain relatively deserted compared to pre-pandemic times, which creates potential problems for building owners.
“It makes it harder to lease additional space because it looks like a ghost town,” said Gary B. O’Connor, a commercial real estate attorney at Pullman & Comley. “[Owners] want the tenants to come back.”
Image
Gary B. O’Connor
Hartford’s largest office landlord, Shelbourne Global Solutions, certainly wants its tenants to start beckoning workers back to the workplace as soon as possible, said Benjamin Schlossberg, managing member of the New York-based realty company.
“We need to keep our buildings full, occupied and vibrant and it’s hard to do if people aren’t at work,” Schlossberg said. “For us it’s a real urgency.”
At State House Square, one of downtown Hartford’s major Class A office properties, David Jakubowski keeps a close eye on parking garage traffic reports, eager to see concrete signs of greater employee activity as COVID-19 vaccination rates rise.
However, Jakubowski, who manages the three-building property on behalf of its owners, has observed only a slight increase over the past few months. Inside, there’s still just a sliver of normal employee activity levels.
“We were hoping at this point we might have 25% of the normal population back to work,” Jakubowski said. “I see a few more people I haven’t seen in the last year, maybe one or two days a week.”