Name: The post-COVID-19 office: one-way stairwells, extra cleaning, no deli spreads
Brand: crainsdetroit.com
SKU: crainsdetroit-com-5
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

The post-COVID-19 office: one-way stairwells, extra cleaning, no deli spreads

preview

Elevator space will be at a premium as social distancing measures remain the normExpect buildings to become less crowded over timeDetroit area has 77.8 million square feet of office spaceWhen office workers start returning to their desks — whenever that may be — the office environment will look and feel much different.Elevator space will be at a premium as social distancing measures remain the norm, making life on the upper floors of high-rises and skyscrapers somewhat of a nightmare.Stairwells will be converted to one-way only. Turbocharged cleaning by janitors and day porters will be instituted, as will limited use of gym and kitchen space in some buildings that provide those. And you can probably kiss goodbye those shared deli spreads, for now at least, out of an abundance of caution.Some companies will stagger their workforce so half works in the office a few days, followed by a day of deep cleaning, then the other half of the staff works in the office the other few days."Almost the country club technique where it's shut down on Mondays for cleaning," said Timothy Gawel, leader of the workplace sector for Southfield-based architecture and design firm HED&nbsp;(formerly Harley Ellis Devereaux&nbsp;Corp.)In short, at least for the time being, nothing will be as it was prior to the first confirmed COVID-19 cases in Michigan March 10. The Detroit area has 77.8 million square feet of office space, according to the local office of brokerage house Newmark Knight Frank, and very little of it will look as it did three months ago, before more than 5,000 Michigan residents lost their lives to the virus. Some of the requirements are spelled out in , including dedicated entry points for employees to reduce main entrance congestion, visual indicators of social-distancing spacing, face mask requirements in shared spaces and increasing employee distancing by spacing out desks and staggering start times. Water fountains also must be turned off.Andrew Hayman, president of the Southfield-based real estate ownership and management firm Hayman Co., said his company is putting up plexiglass partitions 2 feet high at its cubicles.He also said some landlords are instituting mandatory temperature checks before entering buildings, although his company is not."We don't want our receptionist having to be a nurse," he said.Detroit-based Quicken Loans Inc. is with health screening questions for all employees in the Rock Ventures LLC portfolio of companies, which has north of 18,000 workers.You can expect buildings to become less crowded over time, as well. Over the years, office buildings have become more densely packed, going from an average of approximately 250 square feet for every employee down to 150 square feet now or even less. Expect that pendulum to start swinging back."Density of offices will look differently," Colin Scarlett, executive vice president for Colliers International Inc. in Vancouver wrote last month in . "Expect companies to give employees more room, such as larger workstations with higher partitions. We'll also see a trend to more private offices (albeit smaller) and the ability to create space between people."In addition to the more obvious and visible modifications to everyday work space, expect less visible but equally important changes to building systems."There's things that are contextually surface driven, and then I think there's things that are infrastructurally driven," Gawel said.Among those: using ultraviolet light to disinfect and clean mechanical system filters and changing air purification systems, Gawel said.Global real estate firm CBRE Inc., which is based in Los Angeles, said in a report earlier this month that things like replaceable plastic sheet coverings on elevator buttons may become commonplace. Hand sanitizing stations and disinfectant wipes are likely going to be rife throughout buildings. Touchless soap dispensers and bathroom sinks are likely to be more common, as are automated urinals and lighting control systems for landlords investing in their properties.In addition, shared spaces will be approached differently in the years following the pandemic, Gawel said."Meeting space will look different in the future," he said. "Shared spaces will look different in the future. As we program new environments with our clients, we're gonna be thinking differently about space."When — and if — some of these new realities of office life begin to ease is an open-ended question."What I've learned through this whole process is, nobody knows," Hayman said.RECOMMENDED FOR YOUMost Popular12345

Elevator space will be at a premium as social distancing measures remain the normExpect buildings to become less crowded over timeDetroit area has 77.8 million square feet of office spaceWhen office workers start returning to their desks — whenever that may be — the office environment will look and feel much different.Elevator space will be at a premium as social distancing measures remain the norm, making life on the upper floors of high-rises and skyscrapers somewhat of a nightmare.Stairwells will be converted to one-way only. Turbocharged cleaning by janitors and day porters will be...

The post-COVID-19 office: one-way stairwells, extra cleaning, no deli spreads

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS