Working full-time from home may be a thing of the past: ‘It’s time’

TAMPA, Fla. - The days of working next to your pup, or in your pajamas, may be coming to an end as more companies require employees to report in person. 

A few years post-pandemic, there’s a huge push by companies to get their employees back in the office, for either a hybrid schedule, or for the full five-day work week.

FOX 13 spoke with commercial real estate brokers who say this is a trend taking place across the Bay Area. 

Office space rent has grown 3% since just last year and there is now only around 9% vacancy in Tampa office buildings -- which is a big bump.

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"One of the predominate things we hear now is, how do we treat our employees well and have them back into the office so that we can have synergy face to face," explained John Hotchkiss, with Vantix Commercial Real Estate. "We had 330,000 sq ft more space leased at the end of 2023 than we did in 2022…that is a little surprising."

File: Office workers

A business executive, who is the second-largest office landlord in the Bay Area says, "It’s time."

"We kept hearing chatter about wanting to get people back four days, dare I say it, five days a week. And literally, in the last few weeks, we’ve seen a jump up in our parking counts. More cars in the parking garage on a Monday," Kyle Burd, a Tampa office landlord, said.

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He says more people are coming to work on Mondays and Fridays in his building, which is something he hasn't seen since 2019. He also says office designs are changing to welcome people back to a better environment.

File: Office worker

"In general, we are not seeing that total work remote thing now. It’s very rare," Burd shared. "When the world is coming back to work, its learning how to congregate, it might be big open tables or a more open lounge areas."

With this post-COVID reversal back towards traditional office work, how many of Tampa’s downtown buildings are really being used?

"Immediately post-COVID, buildings were 10 percent full…10 percent of employees were coming in. A year ago, it was 60 percent…now, were at 61 percent," said Bill Reeves, the Vice President of Colliers Real Estate in Tampa.

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