The Omicron Variant May Not Be The Last, Yet Business Is Optimistic In Spite Of These Fears

I stuck my neck out a few weeks ago and predicted that the commercial real estate market, and specifically the office market had finally hit bottom and would slowly work its way back up. This was before the Omicron variant hitting the scene, and this probably won’t be the last scary variant we encounter. Fortunately science is at a point where we can fairly quickly modify vaccines, most folks have a supply of masks, and at least in my region a sizable majority of the population is vaccinated and most are boosted. A number of very significant and positive news items these past few days. Bayer just received Berkeley city approvals for a 30-year one million square foot expansion project which will eventually expand it’s campus to 1.7 million square feet of life sciences and related buildings. And, according the Bloomberg News December 1. 2021, “The social networking company, now known as Meta Platforms Inc., will occupy the 719,000 square-foot site of the former headquarters of NetApp Inc. in Sunnyvale, California. It also signed a lease in nearby Burlingame – bring the total new space to more than 1 million square feet.” Short-term, Google and others are delaying the return to the office temporarily,