
The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town - chwolfe
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-old-suburban-office-park-is-the-new-american-ghost-town/2015/07/20/b8e7653a-1f6e-11e5-bf41-c23f5d3face1_story.html
======
pmorici
I think this article perhaps misses the real story. That being, office parks
first built in 25+ years ago are reaching an age where their long term leases
are expiring and they need to be renovated for the first time since being
constructed to attract new tenants.

While it makes sense to renovate an old factory and turn it into trendy office
space with exposed brick and vintage architectural details from decades past
you have to wonder what the fate of more recently constructed buildings will
be. It's hard to see any situation where the 90's office park building will
ever be valued for it's structural appeal to the extent that people will want
to gut and remodel it instead of bulldozing.

~~~
Shivetya
One common occurrence where I live is that county and cities are buying up the
old office parks and even strip malls to convert them into government
buildings. Most are ideally located as well as being offered up for sale
cheaply. Seen even a few charitable organizations buy up parts of a strip mall
for the cheap space by square foot.

Besides the age a lot of REITs cashed out awhile ago and I am not sure the
market is there. Plus people are even further out and those who tended to move
had the means to do so and their spending went with them.

Suburbia certainly isn't dieing.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Unfortunately for some zoning prevents you from living in those spaces. A
friend of mine tried to get a zone variance to turn an office building into
essentially a multifamily dwelling and the city turned him down flat. They
suggested he could buy the property, tear down the building, get it rezoned,
and then build dwellings there. But not go in and convert a perfectly usable
space into a livable space. Sigh.

~~~
brudgers
Taking your description literally, there is no legal way under any reasonable
zoning code that a zoning department could issue a variance to allow a
prohibited residential use on a property zoned and currently occupied by an
office building. The variance is a mechanism for relieving a hardship that
runs with the land by allowing limited non-conformity (e.g. setbacks on a non-
conforming lot or the continuation of a previously legal but currently non-
conforming use).

On the other hand, though local regulations can vary, it is unlikely that
tearing down the building would be a prerequisite for a rezoning application.
It sounds more like just ordinary planners doing their job and seeing what
they can get a developer to do...their job is a bit like a cop trying to get a
confession: they're allowed to mislead to maximize results. In fairness, an
office building probably puts more money into the city coffers [the term of
art is "highest and best use"] than a residential development and thus
discouraging downzoning is not unreasonable.

Finally, planning departments are a bit like compilers: using the right or
wrong terms to describe something is often the difference between being able
to do something by right and flat out denial. Every city seems to have their
pitbull real-estate attorney who gets stuff through the planning commission
via their craft where out of towners and novices will fail. The public access
channel makes them easy to identify.

~~~
gregpilling
Agreed. I spent two years getting a piece of property split in an unusual way.
It was totally legal, just weird enough that it encountered friction at every
imaginable level. Everyone at the city, county level, even attorneys that
should have understood reacted with "whoa, wait a minute" at each stage.

At the end it was worth it, a nice return for the time spent. But not easy,
and certainly not clearly understood.

~~~
girvo
I'd love to know more about what you did, if you'd be willing to share the
story? Sounds fascinating.

~~~
gregpilling
I had a 6.2 acre lot in an area that was zoned for 3.3 acre lots. I could not
get a variance, so I purchased a tiny sliver of useless land from a neighbor.
It was a strip of land on a gas line easement and thus totally unusable. It
only connected to my property for 10 feet of property line, but I was able to
purchase the neighbors unusable land (he had 4.5 acres to start with, losing
.4 left him with 4.1 and still over the 3.3 minimum). So I combined the 6.2
and .4 acre lots into one and then re-split them.

So the order of operations was: 1 Buy 6.2 acre lot 2 buy .4 acre slice of
easement 3 get lots surveyed and combined 4 survey lots again for split 5
apply to county for split 6 get split but have to sell both halves on the same
day because mortgage company would not release the lien on only one half of
original property. 7 $$Profit$$

about 2 years and made about $100,000 net. Total sale was $440,000 of both
properties and one house.

------
bunderbunder
I think suburbia might be a victim of its own success.

As people moved out to more widely-dispersed communities, that caused
commuting all the way downtown for work to be increasingly problematic. So of
course that encouraged demand for business to also move out to the suburbs.

Eventually things got so dispersed that people had to start driving
everywhere. Roads got congested. It became increasingly common for people to
spend 1/5 or more of their free time behind the wheel. Attempts to relieve the
congestion inevitably require frequent road construction projects, which only
increases everyone's sense of frustration.

I think it's pretty plain to see that nobody actually _likes_ this state of
affairs, and also that continuing the suburbanization trend would only
continue to make it worse. Maybe there was a period back during the baby boom
when the suburban lifestyle worked out really well (from a happiness
perspective; let's forget about the economic and environmental cost for the
sake of argument) for the first people to adopt it, but it's a lot harder to
see the attraction now that the wide open spaces have become crowded with cars
and parking lots.

~~~
fixxer
I live an hour outside of Chicago and mostly work from home; I'm in the city
maybe 1 day per week. I fought moving out of the city for a while, but I have
really come to love it, especially when it comes to raising kids. When I have
to head into Chicago, I take the train. It is weird how quickly you can go
from yuppie to suburbanite. My property taxes are high, but my overall cost
(and quality) of living is better than if I was living in Chicago.

The housing market by me has been stable with small (tiny) growth and
consistent demand. Turnover for new construction has been solid.

Retail & office space, however, is suffering. If you're close to small
downtowns with character, the story is different, but strip malls and shopping
centers are amazingly screwed. Great example is the Charlestowne Mall in St.
Charles. Just the anchors and a movie theater remain.

That said, I look at that excess capacity and see opportunity more than peril.
And, it is worth noting, that excess capacity for office/retail space is an
issue in city centers as well. This phenomenon is as much a result of changes
in consumer behavior as it is subprime aftershocks. It is reductionist to
claim otherwise.

~~~
biomcgary
I think changes in reproduction (and expectations to reproduce) may be driving
a lot of the shift. Millenials have a relatively low birth rate compared to
the Gen Xers at the same age, due, perhaps, to the economic situation. If you
are not raising kids, you have a lot more free time and energy to pour into
other things.

~~~
ashark
You also don't care about being in a good school district if you don't have
and don't plan to soon have kids.

~~~
liotier
Yes - School quality and mass transportation were the defining variables in my
apartment acquisition. Had I not had to worry about schooling, there are
plenty of lively "bad" places where I would have been very happy for much less
money - and the potential for speculative gain would have been greater.

------
macNchz
My girlfriend worked for a 'beltway bandit' in Rockville Maryland for a while
after college, exactly in the midst of the office parks described in this
article. Everything about the environment of metro-DC suburban Maryland was
absolutely repellent to me. Miles and miles of office parks, housing
developments and strip malls, over and over and over.

I couldn't stand the idea of having a daily routine of sitting in 8 lanes of
traffic, finding a spot in a sea of parked cars and spending the day in a
faceless office building, surrounded by other faceless office buildings yet
entirely isolated in a corporate campus. I definitely see the appeal of
suburbs for certain lifestyles, but I think that a suburban home with a
commute into an urban office would be very preferable to working in an office
park.

The only redeeming feature of my girlfriend's office park workplace was that
she, as a very junior employee, had a private office to herself. I've dealt
with the frustration of a number of loud open offices at NYC tech companies,
but I'd never give up a downtown office space explicitly for a private space
in a giant soulless office building in the suburbs.

~~~
chucknelson
I'd argue that the "faceless office building" portion isn't really an issue.
They're nice enough on the inside, and when you're deep in work you probably
don't notice too often.

The worst part is probably the typical lack of anything around those office
parks except for...more office parks. At least if you're downtown or in some
more commercial-heavy area, there are places to go and eat! :)

~~~
robotresearcher
> there are places to go and eat!

And visit the dentist, buy a shirt, get a gift for a kid's birthday party: all
the things that are hard to do on a weekday if you are stranded out of town.

~~~
cakeface
And go to the cobbler. I didn't even realize cobblers still existed until I
worked in downtown Boston. Yes, you can still get your shoes fixed! And it's
cheap and easy and you can do it on your lunch break.

------
dade_
Thomas Jefferson is to blame and not one mention of taxes? I would be really
surprised that some research wouldn't find that many of these office parks are
built outside of the borders of major cities to avoid paying taxes, or were
provided incentives by neighbouring municipalities to build further out and
pay lower tax. The lower cost is attractive and allows the company to operate
in a big shiny building that immediately lends credibility to the company.
Further, there is no mention of ample amounts of free parking. I think this
article is very lacking, the for lease signs on suburban office parks across
much of North America isn't really a mystery.

~~~
api
You can also blame subsidies and zoning laws. Free highway and road
construction counted as a massive subsidy for sprawl, and zoning laws force
sprawl in many cases by outright prohibiting the location of any place of
business where people live or any mixed-use development.

Excessive sprawl is _not_ a result of pure free market activity. The 'burbs
are heavily subsidized, legally encouraged, and heavily regulated. My personal
hypothesis is that the 'burbs served (intentionally or not) as a massive post-
WWII work project to employ vast numbers of people in construction and real
estate.

(Not necessarily a free market fundamentalist ideologue, but this is one thing
you can't blame on them.)

I do agree with the article to a point though. America certainly has a
nostalgic preoccupation with agrarian and rural life that has been used to
sell the faux-ruralism pastiche of suburbia. It's a contributing factor in
that it makes these ridiculous wastelands marketable.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I agree with part of your post, but not all of it. Subsidies and zoning laws?
Definitely. Suburban land was cheap, automobiles and fuel were cheap, hence
Suburbia. The post-war US economy was booming, so you had families with
higher-than-now purchasing power.

Are people moving to cities because fuel and automobiles are more expensive
compared to stagnant incomes? In some cases. It probably also helps that
people value their time more (commute time/distance to services and social
venues) and that there are more opportunities for work in cities than suburban
and rural areas.

I am curious to see what happens with remote work; I see a big push happening
right now, at least in the tech sector. Not everything can be done remotely,
but if the advantages are truly great enough, companies will compete against
each other to hire quality remote workers (who can live anywhere its
convenient for them).

~~~
Semiapies
I look forward to this industry realizing everything doesn't have to happen in
SF.

~~~
api
Network effects are powerful. Silicon Valley largely runs (today) on
monetizing network effects, and network effects are also why Silicon Valley is
all concentrated in the Bay Area.

The primary factor is concentration of capital: it is exponentially easier to
raise money in the Bay. The second is concentration of talent and peers --
early customers, beta testers, development partners.

The Internet was supposed to make place less relevant, but as far as I can
tell it's had a paradoxically opposite effect. When I was younger, I didn't
have such a strong sense that you must be in one of maybe ten urban areas (but
preferably SF) to do _anything_. Today it feels a bit like things happen in
one of maybe ten cities, and everywhere else doesn't exist. Americans have
always joked about the "flyover country," but I've distinctly noticed a
massive increase in this effect since circa 2000.

~~~
cyco
Really? I've seen the opposite. The downtowns of places like Indianpolis,
Cleveland, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Charlotte, Atlanta, Nashville, etc. were
underinvested wastelands not too long ago. Now a lot of young people want to
live in these places. Not to mention the hipster paradises of Portland,
Austin, etc.

SF, Seattle, NYC, DC, Boston, etc., are still the major magnets, but "hip"
urban living isn't as confined to the coasts as it used to be IMO.

~~~
bkjelden
Those cities are becoming great places to live, but if you work in tech the
opportunities in the bay area still dwarf everything else.

Some industries are very centralized in one city - tech in the bay area,
finance in NYC, entertainment in LA, etc.

------
stephengillie
> _There are 71.5 million square feet of vacant office space in the Washington
> region, much of it piled in office parks._

> _Last year, federal agencies vacated 7,315 buildings, abandoning 47 million
> square feet of office and warehouse space, Federal News Radio says._

So the amount of vacant space in the area tripled last year, going from 24
million SQFT to 71.5 million SQFT?

\---

> _Another 1 million square feet of office space will flow onto the market
> over the next seven years, as Marriott International moves out of its
> Bethesda office park_

Where are these companies moving to? Are they moving out of these office parks
and into city centers? This article only tells half of the story.

\---

> _With its space-hungry bureaucracies and contractors, Washington became a
> colossal hive of office parks, especially during years of government
> expansion — most recently the post-Sept. 11, 2001 period, when the military
> ramped up and the national-security apparatus spread along the Dulles
> Corridor._

> _The U.S. government hasn’t signed any major leases this year, ... but it
> maintains 98 million square feet in the District alone (411 million if you
> throw in Maryland and Virginia)._

Is the government portion of this solely from governmental contraction and
shrinking of programs?

~~~
jobu
The article doesn't have any concrete numbers for where companies are moving,
but it does offer this:

 _" People telecommute. People move into the city or into faux-urban areas
that are friendlier to pedestrians, that aren’t barnacled on a highway.
Younger generations don’t want to be stranded in a “Dilbert” cartoon. They
want cozy nooks and nap spaces, walkable commutes, the tastes and conveniences
of the city."_

~~~
stephengillie
The article does suggest that more people are telecommuting, but given the
amount of resistance that all employers have to telecommuting, I'm hesitant to
believe. I really doubt that, all of a sudden, tens of thousands of federal
employees are working from home.

~~~
monknomo
Actually, teleworking is definitely pushed as an option in the federal
government. Not least of which through the "Telework Enhancement Act of 2010"

The current administration is big on it, partly for office space savings,
partly to apologize for the paycut most government workers take over the
private sector (I suspect, anyhow).

In practice, it looks a lot like hot desking, because you have to show up in
the office once a week, and teleworkers usually end up sharing a desk amongst
themselves. It allows workers in the DC area to live in affordable West
Virginia :D or Fredricksburg or wherever and not kill themselves commuting

------
roneesh
Don't try and ascribe a single reason here. Architecture, urban planning, the
rise of the creative class, high-speed internet, remote work and America's
burgeoning reckoning with it's awful racial history are all at play here. The
life and death of an American city can have no single story, because a city is
only a composite of American stories

------
Tiktaalik
I'm curious amongst urbanite hackers here:

How many would turn down a job at Facebook, Google, Apple or any other company
primarily due to their suburban office park nature?

Could you see yourself choosing a poorer quality job from an urban company
over a better suburban company?

Right now I'm a 15 minute bike ride away from my downtown employer. It'd be
pretty hard to convince me to give that up. I've done a 30 minute bus commute
to the suburbs and that wasn't very fun. I can't imagine doing a 1 hour plus
commute.

~~~
potatolicious
Urbanite here (Manhattan),

Have turned down offers/interviews at many companies because of non-urban
location. FB/GOOG at least have urban offices, Apple does not, as much as I
admire their products and would like to work on them.

Even when I lived in SF I'd routinely turn down interviews for peninsula/south
bay companies because of the location. Fortunately there is no shortage of
good quality jobs in my specialty in both SF proper and NYC, so I don't think
I've ever been in the position of choosing a poor job in an urban area vs. a
great job in a suburb.

The fact that it's in a suburb is less of a factor than the commute. Even with
fancy-schmancy shuttle buses delivering you from the city it's still a giant
pain in the ass. Right now my commute is a 15-minute walk where I can pick up
coffee along the way, or drop into the gym which is midway between work and
home. Spending 1+ hrs cooped up on a bus, even a nice bus, sounds downright
nightmarish.

I already work full-time, I want the remainder of my time to be my own to do
with as my please, as much as humanly possible, and long commutes are the
antithesis of this (and yes, save the "but I'm productive on my laptop on the
bus!" or "podcasts! audio books!" arguments, I've heard them all).

~~~
mlrtime
Forget the suburbs, people turn down jobs in Jersey City and Brooklyn to stay
in Manhattan (avoiding reverse commute).

~~~
potatolicious
> _" people turn down jobs in Jersey City and Brooklyn to stay in Manhattan
> (avoiding reverse commute)."_

Sometimes, but also sometimes to avoid a double-commute.

I used to work in Brooklyn (Dumbo) while living in Manhattan, the reverse
commute was actually really nice. The trains were mostly empty every single
day, both going to work and leaving!

But it was also very restrictive in terms of where you can live to get a
decent commute - for Dumbo you _had_ to live along the F train, otherwise it's
multiple transfers to get where you need to go. Not fun.

Coworkers from Queens had it worst - they had a regular old commute _into_
Manhattan, and then a second commute _out_ of it into Brooklyn.

There is an unfortunately pretty good reason for companies to stay in
Manhattan, the transit infrastructure just isn't set up well for anything
else.

------
swalsh
My ideal would be a house on a lake, it would have a sufficient space for my
son to play outside, and It would also have a high speed internet connection,
which I could use to work etc.

Before there was telecommuting, there was commuting. What people with families
ultimately want is more space. Grilling out, kids in the sandbox, etc. It's
all focused on spending time with kids.

Commuting enabled this "country like lifestyle", while keeping the "city
benefits" of a good job, and easy access to decent restaurants. As traffic
grew though, the definition of commuting changed. This is where office parts
came from, and it's also where chain restaurants came from. Going downtown was
not an option any more for shopping (parking!? argh). But there's this mall
just a mile up the road. Of course with a limited audience of families (the
single people still saw the benefit of living in a city), with limited time
and money. Chains are great answers.

------
Dirlewanger
Nice article, but the jab at Jefferson is completely inane. Soooo many other
nascent societal/cultural forces at work in the 1800s/early 1900s that
coalesced into the suburban office park. Without knowing the context of the
quote, it seems even Jefferson was off in directly equating corruption with
the centerpiece of human civilization. It's also a seemingly colloquial letter
to a friend. I'm also probably reading too much into this now.

~~~
colkassad
It's just a framing device for the article. Office parks are a very American
thing so why not work in a founding father somehow. You could swap out the
whole bit with a quote and vignette from the life and work of Henry Ford.
Perhaps it could have been related to the lingering notion of Manifest
Destiny. I could go on and on.

------
Bostonian
I see lots of suburb-bashing on this thread. Lots of people like having their
own yards, where they can garden, have a barbecue, put a swimming pool, or
simply have some space of their own. When you have little kids it's a relief
to have your own home and not have complaints from your neighbor downstairs
that your kids are making too much noise.

~~~
jkestner
Speaking as a former Bostonian, it's also nice to have a fenced yard to let
your dog out in the winter instead of bundling up to walk him around icy
sidewalks.

------
20years
I would love to see stats on where these companies are moving to. Are many of
them transitioning into remote teams? Did some go out of business? Are they
moving elsewhere?

Does anyone have stats on this?

New business formations are on the decline
([http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/009854.html](http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/009854.html))
and more businesses are closing shop each year than are forming
([http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/05/05/u...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/05/05/u-s-
businesses-are-being-destroyed-faster-than-theyre-being-created)).

Are these some of the reasons we are seeing vacant commercial buildings in a
lot of areas?

"I think, as with many other things, our younger folks are more inclined to be
Metro-accessible and more urban"

I do believe that to be true. I wonder if some of these can be turned into
more modern co-working spaces that can be rented by the desk. Add a coffee
shop, gym, etc into them and I think they would appeal to the younger
generation, smaller service type businesses and start-ups. Just a thought.

~~~
acveilleux
You have to get there. Which means jumping in a car and driving on the freeway
for a while. I really can't see myself doing that ever.

My employer ran out of space in our downtown office and we bought a building
out in a suburban area and I flat out told my boss that I'll quit if forced to
move there. The quality of life issue for me would've been overwhelming. An
extra 2 hours of commute every day so my employer can pay 40% of the rent I
cost them downtown? No! I liked my 20 minutes subway and walk commute.

In fact, the only people I work with that moved to that boring office park all
lived within a 15 minutes drive of it and used to drive in to the downtown
office. It's kind of a white elephant, there's room for all the Montreal
employees in there but there's really like 60. Quite a few of them hired after
the purchase of the building and not given the choice.

~~~
xigency
Where do you live?

~~~
acveilleux
Now? I remote work, then, Montreal (hochelaga to be precise.)

------
patmcguire
Saw an article a while ago that about how one of the big retail/office
buildings in St Louis has emptied out almost completely, and now there's just
a tech incubator sitting on 12 abandoned floors:

[http://www.urbanreviewstl.com/2013/07/lots-of-
entrepreneursh...](http://www.urbanreviewstl.com/2013/07/lots-of-
entrepreneurship-happening-in-st-louis-railway-exchange-building/)

Never can build where there's demand, though.

------
tosseraccount
Then how come office vacancy rates are way down and rents way up?

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/01/property-usa-
offic...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/01/property-usa-office-
idUSL3N0WX5AU20150401)

 _U.S. office vacancy rate fell to 16.6 percent in the first quarter from 16.7
in the fourth, the lowest since the third quarter of 2009_

 _Washington D.C. remained the tightest market, with a vacancy rate of 9.3
percent. New York followed at 9.6 percent._

What happened at 6116 Executive Blvd in Rockville, MD is that the big fat
Federal client moved even farther outside the beltway to new digs in
Gaithersburg, Maryland (to another, newer office complex.)

New place is one of those "faux green" buildings where everything like the
light switches, blinds, faucets and toilets don't work intuitively if they
even work at all. They have to mow the roof so at least you can feel Eco-
conscious as you flush 3 times.

Old place was close to Whole Foods and walkable to the metro(subway). New
place is close to Subway(sandwich shop).

If the Washington Press wants to bemoan the old office space situation at NIH
(National Institutes of Health), then they should ask about having NIH tear
down the fortified walls they built around their beautiful Bethesda campus
because of "9-11 terrorist threats". The old NIH used to look like a friendly
college campus. Now it looks like a gated community with TSA style security
theater.

------
pappyo
I see this as a buy low opportunity for those that could afford such a thing.
Let me paint a picture of the future:

\- In five to ten years, 20 and 30 somethings of today who have mostly flocked
to metropolitan areas don't leave when they are at the age of starting a
family. The lack of space is still trumped by the a near zero commute and the
cultural landscape that surrounds them.

\- Right around that time, self-driving car services (Uber sans drivers) have
started making serious headway in metropolitan areas. Traffic within the
cities have drastically reduced due to less cars on the road and less need for
parking. (So that cab ride across town that once took 35 minutes, now takes
nine).

\- With the reduction in traffic, corporations never changing urn to save a
buck, and the next crop of 20 and 30 somethings that want to create their own
identity, businesses start snatching up these industrial park cemetaries. More
space, less money, room to grow. They no longer have to worry about employee
parking. The commute out to the building is only 15 minutes (where it used to
be a full hour +). AND YOU GET YOUR OWN OFFICE!!!!

In a sea of community work spaces, "YOUR OWN OFFICE" is the shiney fish.

\- And of course, once one business successfully implements this strategy, the
rest of sure to follow.

Brass tacks, these office parks are dying because of increasing traffic and
fuel costs...and that's really it. If we do wind up living in a world where
people don't own cars and the self-driving car startups of today eliminate
tomorrow's traffic, no doubt these cemeteries will see a second coming. If I
had the funds, I'd wait for the industrial park real estate market to bottom
and then start snatching up property.

~~~
s73v3r
The office parks are still out in the middle of nowhere with nothing around
them for errand running or stuff to eat at lunch besides a McDonalds.

~~~
blueatlas
But that will change too. Within miles - actually within about 1500 feet
([http://www.pikeandrose.com/](http://www.pikeandrose.com/)) of the property
mentioned in the article, trendy new town centers are cropping up. Let's face
it, those office parks are just recycle material. Some are in very good
locations, particularly Executive Blvd, and they will be torn down or
redeveloped for these new "life-style" communities.

------
mschuster91
Bit unrelated, but this website crashes Chrome on my Android phone, crashes
the WebView inside my HN reader app, and brings my aged netbook to its knees.
Oh, and my company MBP's fans blast on full until I close the page.

What the fucking fuck is this thing doing with the RAM/CPU of my system? For
heaven's sake, it's a load of text with a couple of pictures.

~~~
Shounak
Huh, it works fine for me on Android Chrome (Nexus 5) and on PC (Dell
Inspiron/Windows 8.1/Chrome).

------
ChrisNorstrom
I work at one. A nice one. Honestly it's all because of the drive and
location.

\- Office parks are usually built away from people and this creates a "long
drive to work". Americans are tired of driving and traffic. Office parks are
not usually built near busy residential areas, they're built farther out on
empty or industrial or rezoned land. No one is going to pay $30-75 million
dollars to buy up 120-300 homes (average going price is $250,000 offered per
every $190,000 home to get the owners out), then pay millions to bulldoze the
homes, then pay millions to build the office park. No. They will go out in the
middle of no-where and offer $5-10 million to a farmer and build on his land
instead. It's cheaper but this creates quite a drive.

I also used to work as a courier and I -> HATED <\- industrial/office park
runs. They used up a ton of gas, a lot of cul de sacs, endless stop signs, and
made me drive out in the middle of no-where. Most industrial/office parks of
them are like that. It can't be helped due to regulations and zoning. Office
parks aren't as bad and usually closer to civilization.

\- The cost, how does $7,000 a month sound for an office space smaller than a
2 bedroom house?

\- The US recession shut down a lot of businesses in premium locations and
this opens up opportunities for new tenants to replace them and start their
business closer to their homes, instead of paying exuberant prices to rent
space in an office park.

\- They are soulless. Bland. Grey. Corporate. You will feel like a drone
working in one. They do not allow the type of customization and construction
that people take on when they own a building.

===== Office parks are great if... =====

\- The city expands and engulfs the office park, surrounding it with
residential areas, apartments, and hotels.

\- They're located near a highway AND near a residential area. This makes them
accessible to both local residents and distant workers..

------
astrocyte
All of this works in cycles. There once was a time when people were flocking
to the suburbs. Now, it is fashionable to live in the city. This too will pass
when people (a generation maybe) comes to understand the little value obtained
from all the chaos and activity.

What are people chasing? Technology has made it easier to be in touch and
socialize w/ people beyond physical geography. Transportation is getting
better. Yet, people are centered on cramming into cities. The concrete
jungle... Living among all the action but having no time to enjoy it because
you're too busy busting your ass to pay for the insane cost of the
'privilege'.

I used to live in Mountain View, CA and knew more about San Francisco and the
cool things than most of my friends who lived in the city. Many times, I could
get to places in the city faster than friends living in it.

What's the allure? When I think of California, I think of the beautiful
outdoors and geography... Not cramming into a concrete jungle.

Hey look, I live in the city. I don't have a car. I pay a company to clean my
place. I pay a company to do my laundry. There is no parking available for
friends visiting me. I can't host anything at my place because its so small. I
have to do all of my get together events 'out'.

The city generally provides the illusion that you are part of something that's
bigger than you really are. Young people haven't formed a clear definition of
this. So, they flock to the city which provides it in 'instant' form. This
changes when a generation after realizes the cons of one thing and seeks out
the pros in another. Or, when you get older and wiser.

As the saying goes, a smart investor is selling when everyone is buying and
buying when everyone is selling. With all of the distractions of technology
around me, I desire peace and quiet when i am at home. When I want noise and
chaos, I go to the city. The big thing is, I have a choice in the matter and
live by the beat of my own drum.

When you are young, you have no sense of this 'beat'. The city provides a
steady one. Will the youth be able to maintain affordability of the city? How
long will this cycle last?

[https://resilienceeconomics.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/40-y...](https://resilienceeconomics.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/40-year.gif)

Arcade Fire - Album (The Suburbs) 2010

Choice song (Suburban war)

~~~
untog
_When I think of California, I think of the beautiful outdoors and
geography..._

Which an office park isn't, either.

Of course the outdoors and mountains are very attractive but they're not a
viable workplace. While many of your city complaints are valid, it's not as if
the suburbs solves all of them.

"There is no parking available for friends visiting me."

Sure, and if you live in the suburbs there is plenty of parking but nothing to
_do_.

~~~
astrocyte
Taking the bay area as an example, living further towards south bay allows me
to shoot out to the outdoors much quicker than being in the city. Office park?
When I'm at work, I want to be focused on my work .. Not distracted by the
noise of a city.

As for the city, when I want to go there and enjoy something in particular,
that's what I do. You can list off every music venue, club, restaurant,
cultural event, park event in the city .. I've probably been to the majority
of them. It's called getting off your bum, and going to where you want to be.
I can jump on 280 and can get to many places in the city (40-45 min) a lot
faster than my friends who live in it.

Weekend in the city? Jump on BART and go explore. Bike around the city? Jump
on BART and bike around the city. Uber/public transportation are there for me
just like it is for people in the city.

The thing is : When i want peace and quiet I can get it. When I want to focus
in my own space, I can have it....

The noise/chaos is attractive when you're young and have not found your own
sound. When you have, the city becomes a lot less attractive. More
interestingly, the city doesn't necessarily help you find yourself any faster.

~~~
untog
_The noise /chaos is attractive when you're young and have not found your own
sound. When you have, the city becomes a lot less attractive. More
interestingly, the city doesn't necessarily help you find yourself any faster.
_

Absolutes like this don't really help. That may be true for you, but it isn't
for all of us.

------
jamespitts
These emptying office parks presents an opportunity. Certainly the larger ones
contain infrastructure that can be repurposed, and the asking prices is
decreasing. In the next downturn, the cost of purchasing a park will go down
even more.

Perhaps the larger parks can be repurposed into something akin to a village.
Reformat the buildings into something more traditional, apartments on the
upper floors, offices and stores in the bottom, etc. Add more buildings to
create more continuity. Let people be creative, let the fabric emerge.

Now in any given area, each of these potential villages is quite isolated from
another. Still, pedestrian connections can be forged and inter-village
transportation arranged.

Over time, we can heal this anomaly.

~~~
normloman
This is the right answer. Instead of letting suburbs rot, we select some for
renovation and reuse. With a little work, we can make suburbs more walkable,
bikeable, and environmentally friendly.

A book on the subject:
[http://www.sprawlrepair.com/index.html](http://www.sprawlrepair.com/index.html)

Great Illustrations: [http://inhabitat.com/urban-sprawl-repair-kit-offers-
simple-p...](http://inhabitat.com/urban-sprawl-repair-kit-offers-simple-plans-
to-fix-suburbia/)

~~~
jamespitts
Those illustrations are great!

Stuart Brand's "How Buildings Learn" also provides some theoretical background
on buildings as infrastructure and can inform how a property may be improved
with an eye to the future.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Buildings_Learn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Buildings_Learn)

[http://www.amazon.com/How-Buildings-Learn-Happens-
Theyre/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Buildings-Learn-Happens-
Theyre/dp/0140139966)

There's a whole video series as well, this segment discusses the advantages of
loose zoning at the docks in Sausalito:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuKPknFLHno](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuKPknFLHno)

------
akgerber
The building featured here seems like a false example of blight, since it's in
an area that's seeing major redevelopment. The same is true of the mall
alongside it, which has been reckoned as a 'dead mall' in other articles, but
only because it's being rebuilt into a urban neighborhood:
[https://b256ec319b64095c3d1d-e19f06f73efdb5028989d1916204cd7...](https://b256ec319b64095c3d1d-e19f06f73efdb5028989d1916204cd71.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/71885_1426520209_White-
Flint-Mall-Redevelopment-large.png)

I would guess that the owners of the office buildings in question here are
warehousing it until the area becomes more desirable.

------
Scuds
The only walkable food options in an office park might be a cafeteria, which I
find to be depressing, more often than not.

The only option is to get in your car and drive somewhere, just like everyone
else does, which means the lunch rush is just more sitting in traffic.

------
forthwall
Even Silicon Valley has these abandoned SOPs, just look at South San Jose.
Most of these offices have been vacant for years.

~~~
Apocryphon
After the IBM factory in south SJ closed down, the whole area just seems so
sleepy, new shopping complex or not
([http://preservation.org/projects/ibm25/ibm25_background.html](http://preservation.org/projects/ibm25/ibm25_background.html)).

------
norea-armozel
It's articles like these that make me wonder if the current paradigm of
centralized production in general is a fluke. Before the industrial revolution
there were a handful of cities that were big and mostly for political (cities
where the sovereign reigned) or economic reasons (trading). But now, we seem
to be overbuilding because that's what we're use to. The suburbs are just an
extension of the same phenomenon where the ability to subsidize transportation
costs via centralization of production has made this possible. Obviously, the
steadily rising price of oil is slowing the growth, but in many ways if the
societies before the industrial revolution could have kept the same inventions
of production at the local level perhaps things wouldn't be as disjointed as
they are. Imagine smaller towns and cities with the same tools of production,
but not to the current scale as we experience. Only a handful of modern
situations would warrant a big foot print (datacenters and certain factories
come to mind), but those would exist in the regions and cities that make
economic sense. Today, it just seems like everyone wants to go
Stalinist/Soviet big with everything.

------
cestes
Hah! I had a gig in that building (6116 Executive) when I was a consultant...
writing billing systems for a phone company right after the Bell breakup.

------
chromium73
I apologize for a bit of a rambling response here - this article struck a
chord with me.

I hardly think there is a universal trend away from the suburbs. Its a matter
of personal preference. Washington DC is highly unique however in the sense
that one can easily commute from the suburbs into _most_ parts of the city
with a minimal drive to the Metro station. So you can have it both ways with a
house/yard and an urban lifestyle when you need it. Old office parks out in MD
are unnecessary, particularly because more of DC is safe than 5-10 years ago.
My wife worked on U Street and I worked in Gallery Place, two areas you
wouldn't be caught dead in 10-15 years ago.

But... not all cities unfortunately offer this type of luxury. Having grown up
and lived in NYC for almost 30 years, I see people wrestling with the
following:

1) People want to "escape" the city either because costs are prohibitively
high for a reasonable amount of square footage or simply to have the chance to
decompress away from the people/activity/etc. As for costs, you only really
begin to save when you get further and further away from the city, and your
commute becomes soul-sucking. Parents of my friends growing up spent 3 hours
in a car each day to be able to provide a good day in a safe community. That
is a death sentence literally and psychically. If costs are less of an issue
but you don't like the city, the added commute just makes you less productive.
NJ Transit/LIRR are not quite at the point where people can be fully
productive and extend the workday.

2)People who love the city and never want to leave: to make this possible, you
have to prioritize the energy and conveniences of the city over your own
personal comfort except in a few rare circumstances.

I hope these unnecessary offices parks are replaced by more modern co-working
spaces in smaller cities that provide employees optionality. NYC and SF are
bursting at the seams and the sprawl will just continue.

------
jonknee
A little more about Marriott's move:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/digger/wp/2015/03/01/marr...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/digger/wp/2015/03/01/marriott-
ceo-we-will-move-our-headquarters/)

> “I think it’s essential we be accessible to Metro and that limits the
> options. I think as with many other things our younger folks are more
> inclined to be Metro-accessible and more urban. That doesn’t necessarily
> mean we will move to downtown Washington, but we will move someplace.”

Sounds like the trick is to try and get a sweetheart incentive package by a
town that is close to the Metro.

------
matt_s
I wonder if any of the real estate owners have considered applying for a dual-
zone - residential and commerical. Then rehab the building into part offices
for smaller businesses and apartments of some kind.

If you get enough of these clustered together then you start to have little
urban-like communities instead of miles of office parks. Sprinkle in
restaurants, dry cleaner, gym, etc. and you might attract enough tenants to
turn it around. Better than being vacant.

------
JosephHatfield
Those buildings may be practically abandoned, but the new Pike & Rose
development only two blocks away appears to be doing quite nicely, and work
has already begun on a new development project near what used to be White
Flint mall. I live right on the edge of this area, and it seems far from being
a ghost town.

------
michaelvkpdx
The Valley will be the next great ghost town. 30 years from now, most of the
current offices in SJ, Mountain View, and Palo Alto will be abandoned because
people will be sick of the suburban lifestyle.

Plus earthquakes.

I'm looking forward to random shots of wildlife from the marshes infesting
FB's abandoned old Sun campus in 2050.

~~~
ghaff
Where will they live? Legitimate question; there's no room in SF. Are they
going to build some new mega-metropolis and get the water from... somewhere?

------
Animats
US manufacturing employment peaked in 1977. When do we hit "peak office"? With
all this IT technology, office employment ought to start declining at some
point.

------
MindTooth
Crashes Safari on my iPhone 6 Plus (iOS 9.0). But have experienced it on more
site recently. Is it all the JavaScript libraries?

Sad when I wanted to read it..

~~~
mschuster91
Same for Chrome on Android and on an old-ish netbook. Doesn't anyone test
their websites with hardware below $2K?!

~~~
keithpeter
Oddly enough, this page was gobbling up around 900Mb of RAM under Firefox 39.0
on Linux on a laptop with 1Gb. Firefox quit. Reloading with noscript active
allowed the page to load but I was seeing something like 650Mb of RAM which is
a record!

What has the page got in it?

(I resorted to elinks in a terminal to be able to read the text until I
installed noscript).

EDIT: Swapped another Gb of RAM in and still crashes Firefox with noscript
disabled. Can read with noscript on.

------
cletus
So I have an anecdote here.

I work for Google in the New York office. For those of you that don't know,
several years ago Google bought the former Port Authority building in Chelsea
for ~$1.9B. It is I believe the second largest office building in Manhattan by
square footage of usable area.

Google's presence here has steadily grown in the almost 5 years I've been here
at least tripling in size. I live in the area and honestly it's amazing.
Having no commute of any kind (unless you count a 5 minute walk a commute) is
life-changing. Being in a dynamic, interesting area is a gift.

For those that want more suburban lifestyles, there are a plethora of options
<1 hour from the office in Long Island, New Jersey and Westchester. Most
people I know who are married and do this have just one car since public
transit is sufficient to get to and from work (only a madman would choose to
drive into Manhattan).

Contrast this with our headquarters in Mountain View. Actually, it's not even
accurate to say that anymore as it now encompasses some of Sunnyvale and I
believe we have or will have a presence in Redwood City and other places.

All of this is essentially low-to-medium density office parks surrounded by a
sea of parking space.

Some commute in on Google buses. Those who want a more urban lifestyle life in
SF and spend as many as 3 hours a day _or more_ on the bus for the privilege.

Living near campus is expensive and, well, boring. There are no cheap options.
Compare this to NYC where you could buy a cheap (<$200k) apartment in say
Jackson Heights or Sunnyside (in Queens) and be 30-40 minutes from the office.

Because there are thousands of people in the NYC office, certain things become
possible. You get a wider range of cafes (there are more in MTV but they're
far more spread apart). Certain social activities can thrive within the office
that seem to falter in MTV due to the much lower density.

So it's actually an amazing office to work in and honestly I'd probably have
to kill myself if I were forced to relocate to MTV (well OK, maybe I'd just
quit...).

My point here though is that office parks are a depressing and unsatisfying
experience for any company or employee. They're not desirable in any way, even
the high end tech campuses of Silicon Valley are just glorified office parks
when it comes down to it.

Honestly I don't know how any in the Valley does it. Maybe it's different if
you get to work in SF but even then you have to contend with finding and
paying for a place in SF. And if you need a bigger place (eg you have a
family) then you just don't have the options you do in NYC.

As for the lower end of office parks, technology has to be a factor here. With
the ever-cheapening cost of bandwidth it becomes even easier to chase ever-
cheaper real estate with ever-more-mobile low-paid office jobs doesn't it?

------
nickbauman
One of the worst working experiences I've had in recent years was working in a
first ring suburb in one of those office parks. Everything was falling apart.
Even the nicer parts of the building had a strong "faux-opulence" feel. The
firm was a publicly traded tech company. About a year after I left their
biggest customer left and eventually they were delisted. Coincidence?

------
bingobob
anyone else notice this page is 12MB because the two thumbnails images are 6MB
each

------
JulianMorrison
Needs more vertical farms.

------
michaelochurch
On Silicon Valley:

 _Yet Facebook, Apple and Google — companies that brag about their forward
thinking — are trying to reinvent this template of the past. They have
commissioned high-profile architects to design versions of the ultimate office
park in Silicon Valley, an hour-plus shuttle ride from San Francisco. [...]
They will be movable, lightweight structures instead of blocky concrete
buildings. Anything to attract brilliant minds and assure employees that
they’re living in the future, not a glorified version of the past._

