Changes to NYC

Over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal reported on how low rents in Manhattan could be the savior the city needs. (WSJ)

After a year of economic shutdowns and other changes brought on by Covid-19, rents for Manhattan storefronts, apartments and workspaces have been marked down to their lowest prices in years. That is already bringing in new small businesses and residents, and has the potential to change the character of the city’s most-exclusive borough.

Today, Matthew Haag at The New York Times writes that New York is going to have to adapt to this new world of work. (NYT)

A year after the coronavirus sparked an extraordinary exodus of workers from office buildings, what had seemed like a short-term inconvenience is now clearly becoming a permanent and tectonic shift in how and where people work…But no city in the United States, and perhaps the world, must reckon with this transformation more than New York, and in particular Manhattan, an island whose economy has been sustained, from the corner hot dog vendor to Broadway theaters, by more than 1.6 million commuters every day.

However, as the saying goes one man’s loss is another man’s gain. Haag reports that some unused commercial space could be converted into much-needed residential space, “The sharp declines have prompted developers to rally behind an idea that seemed unthinkable before the pandemic: converting distressed office buildings in Manhattan into low-income housing.”

• Of course, nobody believes all work will go remote or that the current rate is likely to remain. Daniel Pinto, JPMorgan’s co-president and chief operating officer, said in an interview in February on CNBC, “Going back to the office with 100 percent of the people 100 percent of the time, I think there is zero chance of that…As for everyone working from home all the time, there is also zero chance of that.’’

It’s hard to know the long-term impact COVID will have on our personal and business interactions. However, we do know that a city’s ability to adapt to this new environment will be a good indicator of future growth.