With almost 30% of downtown LA office space available for lease or sublease, the value of the 62-story Aon Center plummeted.
Good. Fuck em.
Gotta start turning these spaces into housing. I know they’re not all easily converted, or it might have to be large high-end units, but more available homes in any category brings the prices down for all the categories.
This concept / discussion is going mainstream in the designer community. There was a prominent article in a recent magazine the serves the commercial steel association discussing the ins and outs of conversion. There are technical barriers, but they’re trivial compared to the political and capitalist ones.
This started happening in Canary Wharf a long time before covid. Businesses started consolidating offices by forcing hot desking and work from home days. The outer office buildings started converting to super expensive homes.
Its funny because as someone renting a tiny room in a shared flat with no space for a desk, and tbh just thinking its normal to be in the office 5 days, I was livid that I lost my desk, so hated it. Now, I live much further out and just took a job that is 2 days mandatory in the office which I had to really think if it was worth it compared to my 1 day optional!
I looked at the prices back then out of interest and they were insane, and rental prices were ridiculous too as a result. I have a feeling that they were all bought by “investors" (ie money laundering, especially by Russians) but no proof or anything to back it up, although seen lots of news article suggesting that is the case.
You’re on to something but it isn’t money laundering. It’s the Chinese government and Chinese investors looking to offload their money into another market and in goods that the Chinese government can’t easy take from them. I guess maybe that could be considered money laundering, even though it isn’t illegal. I started noticing it a handful of years ago, right before covid. China itself is also investing into other underdeveloped countries hoping to have a hand on them when they start developing more. Particularly Africa.
The whole commercial market has been inflated for decades. Not just offices but shops too. Companies who refuse to lower rents, because it would lower the value of their property, despite it being empty for months or even years.
It’ll be interesting to see if it finally crashes.
I do hope they don’t simply deregulate and turn these properties into overpriced housing. They’re often unsuitable for that purpose.
Part of the problem is that their mortgage usually sets a minimum price per square foot. That means that if the market crashes, the landlords can’t lease for market price without getting their investors to approve. That’s part of the reason why there’s so much empty space, because prices haven’t come down much.
More discussion can be found at the OP:
Also I’d imagine because downtown LA is seriously dangerous
What are you talking about? Cool it with the imbibing of scum-quality news.
Your mom’s seriously dangerous
Do you live in LA? Of all the issues this area has, downtown where this tower is located isn’t the biggest concern…
Judging from their brand new account probably not. The city astroturfing accounts have found their way to lemmy.
