Yeah, but many offices are likely to be converted to other uses, rather than persist with partial occupation. Hotel, residential etc
People often say it’s cost prohibitive, but it’s been done many times before, and valuations of Offices will get so depressed that conversions begin to look very lucrative
Large office buildings do not convert into hotels or residential all that well. Most of them have all of their plumbing and utilities in the central core. That's not easy to retrofit.
They may also not be up to code for residential use.
And plumbing and wiring a building is vastly cheaper than building a new one from scratch.
Most modern office buildings are already designed so their tenants can orient the space however they like, Including adding/removing walls and plumbing/electric
If you can buy office buildings at half the valuation of a similar square footage residential building, converting it will obviously be profitable. It was already profitable in many cases pre Covid before office became severely depressed. The valuation gap between residential and office has probably never been wider
People often say it’s cost prohibitive, but it’s been done many times before, and valuations of Offices will get so depressed that conversions begin to look very lucrative