How US cities are reimagining the future as office vacancy rates soar to 30-year high

Throughout the country, once bustling business districts have turned into ghost towns. The pandemic has shown that many jobs can be done remotely. Now some major U.S. cities are breathing new life into empty office buildings by converting them into housing. Notable cities that are part of this trend include New York, Austin, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Boston.

The office vacancy rate is 20.1% in the U.S., according to Moody's. That's a 30-year high, with more than 900 million square feet of office space empty — enough to fill New York City's One World Trade Center 300 times.

Amazon, Citigroup, Walmart, and UPS are among the major companies now requiring employees to spend more time in the office. Some companies are pulling out all the stops to entice workers back. Amenities may include massage rooms, health care services, and on-site personal gyms.

However, most experts agree that hybrid and remote work is here to stay. "Companies don't need office space in the way that they needed office space 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 50 years ago," Evan Horowitz, executive director of The Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University, said. "Remote work has just transformed that landscape."

Major cities across the country, including Boston, Austin, and Chicago, are seeing office vacancies at or near record highs. In San Francisco, more than 22% of offices are currently empty, a significant increase from about 9% in 2019.

Some cities are now at risk of falling into what is known as the "economic doom loop." High vacancy rates can cause property values to plummet, decreasing tax revenue. This decrease in revenue affects funding for essential services such as schools, police and sanitation, ultimately making these cities less desirable places to live.

Horowitz says Boston is more vulnerable to falling into an "economic doom loop" than other major cities because of its unique tax structure.

"Boston is closer to crisis mode than other cities because it is so dependent on taxes from commercial real estate, twice as dependent as virtually any other city in the country," Horowitz said. The loss of commercial tenants is having a ripple effect on area businesses.

When Dave Savoie bought his favorite bar and grill, Silvertone, in 2016 he said it was like a dream come true.

The downtown Boston establishment was popular with the business crowd. Office workers made up 50% of Savoie's customers, but all that changed with the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I used to call them suits," Savoie said. "You know, the office guys, the finance guys. And this was their place. [Now] they work from home. If people come to the city now, they work a maximum three days a week."

It proved too much for Silvertone and, after 27 years, eight of them under Savoie's ownership, the bar announced "last call" in May.

Boston's Mayor Michelle Wu, who is up for reelection next year, is taking steps to address the situation. She is implementing tax breaks and zoning changes to transform unwanted office space into much-needed housing.

"We have about 500 housing units that are now in the pipeline to be converted out of formerly vacant office buildings," Wu told ABC News. "We're taking city buildings like libraries that need renovations and adding housing on top of that and making it faster than ever before through zoning and other city regulatory processes to get your building built and to get those shovels in the ground. The more that downtown is a residential, thriving, busy neighborhood, just like every other one of our neighborhoods, the more everyone benefits."

The idea is that business districts will be reimagined as vibrant 24/7 neighborhoods that seamlessly blend work, living, dining and entertainment. This holistic approach aims to create a dynamic community where daily life and work coexist, fostering a rich, interconnected lifestyle.

"There are lots of ways to build a vibrant downtown that doesn't involve the central role of office buildings," Horowitz said. "It could be apartments, it could be lab space. There are lots of other things you can do with land that makes people want to go downtown and enjoy themselves."

Many cities are already converting office space into housing, with Cleveland leading the way — 11% of its office inventory is currently undergoing this transformation. Similar projects are also taking place in Cincinnati, Houston, and New York, where the iconic Flatiron office building is set to be transformed into luxury condominiums. "This is a challenge that's affecting every city in America," Wu said. "And in Boston, we're showing that it's also an opportunity."

That "opportunity" is something David Greaney is seizing on. At a time when many real estate investors are looking to sell their office buildings, Greaney and his firm Synergy are buying them up, at a deep discount. Synergy currently owns 35 properties in the Greater Boston area - four of them were bought in just the past 12 months.

Greaney says the worst is over in terms of office vacancies, and he is positive about the future of cities. "The great thing about cities is that cities evolve, and I certainly think that our cities will evolve," Greaney said. "You may see more residential uses, more hospitality or institutional uses, but the office component of downtowns, I believe, will continue to be a very big factor."

Working out of one of the same buildings Greaney recently bought, small business owners and brothers Michael and Emilio Ruggeri are betting on a comeback for Boston's downtown.

For three decades they have been serving breakfast and lunch to the office crowd at their Archie's NY Deli. Office workers accounted for nearly 80% of their business pre-pandemic, but that number has since dwindled to about 50%.

"We've been doing more deliveries," said Emilio Ruggeri. "The construction guys have actually kept us going."

They've also reduced their staff, trimmed their menu and shortened their hours to make ends meet, confident that things will turn around.

"I'm an eternal optimist," said Michael Ruggeri. "The buildings are way too expensive to just stay empty. Someone's going to take over the space, so we're hopeful."