Is the Office ‘Really’ Dead? with Sheila Botting | EP119

Sheila Botting is Principal and President, Americas Professional Services at Avison Young that is an Umbrella for the Different Groups of Consulting, Valuation and Project Management.

In this episode we talked about:

• Changes in the Commercial Real Estate Market
• Office from the Investor’s Perspective
• Avison Young’s Vitality Index
• Reducing Space 
• Occupiers Liabilities
• Tenant Inducement Complex
• Sheila’s Returning to Office Forecast 
• Hybrid Model
• Workplace Strategy

Transcription:

Jesse (0s): Welcome to the working capital real estate podcast. My name's Jessica galley. And on this show, we discuss all things real estate with investors and experts in a variety of industries that impact real estate. Whether you're looking at your first investment or raising your first fund, join me and let's build that portfolio one square foot at a time. Ladies and gentlemen, my name's Jesse Regal, and you're listening to working capital the real estate podcast. My special returning guest today is Sheila botting. Sheila is the principal and president America's professional services at Avis and young.

 

That is the umbrella for the different groups of consulting valuation and project management. Sheila has a, has had a number of different roles in the commercial real estate space spanning from her roles in executive management at Deloitte Kushman and Wakefield and Royal LaPage. Sheila, how you doing today?

 

Sheila (54s): I'm great. Jessie, how are you doing?

 

Jesse (57s): Doing fantastic. So the conversation today, I thought it was topical because I think the last time we spoke was the beginning of 2021. And so much has changed in the office and commercial real estate market in general. And I thought it would be great to have you back on to discuss those aspects and have the, and how they have changed. And I know that you have, you know, made these type of discussions and, and presentations with various outlets, wall street, journal, Harvard business review. So I thought you could do the same for us here.

 

Sheila (1m 29s): Oh, terrific. Thanks so much. So it's all about return to office. You can tell my back background. I have returned to the office today and, you know, two to three days a week, along with everybody else across north America around the globe. And I think that for, for all of us, it's sorting through how do we deal with return to office? What does it look like? What are the key pieces? How do we make it work for our businesses for us personally? How do we embrace this so that it's, you know, dynamic for people and way forward, what we've learned from all of this is it's all changed.

 

It's not going back, whatever back was, we're not in the nine to five work environment that we once were. Now, it's all about flexibility. It's about building our ecosystem. It's about navigating what it is that we need to do and how we do it. It's understanding, you know, different roles that people have and making sure that they've got the right tools, technology and physical spaces in order to deliver. I thought what I would do today in talking is, is I know you know about this, but to share with all of your audience, something called the vitality index that Avis and young uses across north America.

 

In fact, the globe, what we do is we measure cell phone data usage in downtown for 26 north American city. So what I thought I'd do is first level s