Advice, Tips, and Resources to Help You Reopen Your Spaces Amid the Pandemic
Whether it’s taking temperatures in the lobby, moving seating outdoors, or laying out duct tape to mark six-foot distances, landlords and tenants alike are focused on identifying the most effective steps to take in their office, retail, multifamily and restaurant spaces to mitigate the spread of coronavirus. With businesses and buildings fully or partially reopening, owners and operators want people to have confidence in the efforts carried out to ensure their safety when they return to these locations for the first time in months.
For client-facing businesses especially, operations have become about much more than providing a service or delivering a good. In this COVID-19 environment, customers are also looking closely at the practices of a business and the seriousness with which employees and other customers take the safety precautions. During this relatively early phase, first impressions are lasting. If a customer or building user has a safe and seamless experience when they first revisit a venue, chances are they will return.
Below, you’ll find a compilation of articles and resources to help business owners and landlords manage commercial real estate spaces — including office, retail, multifamily and restaurants — as they reopen and operate during the pandemic.
Office
While it still remains to be seen what the long-term impact of the pandemic will mean for office buildings, there are numerous changes that need to be made in order to bring employees back to the office safely and in a way that mitigates the risk of spreading coronavirus before a vaccine is developed.
When workers return in-person to their companies’ offices, which has already begun in some cases throughout the country, it will no doubt be to an environment that operates very differently than the one they left several months ago. Companies that have already welcomed workers back or that are strategically preparing return-to-office plans are going to rely on various temporary and permanent modifications to workspaces, increased disinfection processes, restricting numbers of employees at any given time and other new operational procedures in the efforts of keeping their workers safe.
Below you’ll find information for how to reopen your office, from the specific modifications you’ll need to make and how much they cost to resources that will guide you in answering some of your lingering questions.
Sneeze Guards, Air Filters, and Other Quick Fixes for Reopening Offices
These modifications are aimed at keeping costs low.
Sustainable Building Groups Add New Health and Safety Ratings as Businesses Return from Pandemic
These programs are aimed at helping reduce the spread of COVID-19 through sanitation and social distancing practices.
Here’s How Much It Costs to Modify Your Office Amid the Coronavirus Pandemic
Use these figures to estimate what you might spend on making adjustments to your office for reopening.
As Employees Return to Offices, Temperature Checks — and Legal Questions — May Await
Consider some of these legal implications as you reopen your space.
The Post Pandemic Office, and other Ways Coronavirus Will Drive Future Office Development
Architects are speculating about what some of the more long-term workplace changes may be.
Resources
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
COVID-19 Employer Information for Office Buildings
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Guidance on Preparing Workplaces for COVID-19
Cushman & Wakefield
“6 Feet Office” Report
Hines
Office Tenant Checklists and Guidelines
JLL
Workplace Reentry Checklist
Workplace Operator Readiness Council’s (WORC)
Coworking Playbook
Retail
Brick and mortar retail, deemed nonessential in all but a small niche of the segment, has been among the hardest hit of all commercial real estate sectors as almost all physical store locations were forced to close throughout the country.
Furthermore, as states begin lifting lockdown restrictions going into the summer shopping season, the various phased approaches mostly put retail as one of the last categories to be allowed to reopen. Although many retailers have found some solace in e-commerce avenues and curb-side pickup options to drive revenue, the loss of physical locations’ benefits to sales, such as branding elements and customer experiential factors, coupled with inflexible leases resulting in ongoing rent and other overhead costs, has no doubt impacted retail enterprises’ bottom line in a drastic way. E-commerce had, for a long time, also been putting pressure on brick and mortar locations’ profitability anyway.
The result of all these factors combined is that many retail businesses will not make it through this economic crisis, with one April report from Swiss firm UBS predicting that at least 100,000 stores could close nationwide by 2025.
But for those able to reopen this year, operators will need to focus foremost on capacity limitations and enforcing face mask requirements. Below are some additional articles and resources that will help guide the process of reopening retail stores.
Reopening Retail: 5 Ways to Make Customers Feel Safe
How store owners can put workers and shoppers at ease.
Who’s Going Back to Retail Stores? 77% of Respondents to ICSC Survey Say They Are
Comfort level is expected to kick in two months after stay-at-home mandates are lifted.
Rent Forgiveness and Coronavirus: How to Keep Tenants and Stay Afloat
Practical solutions for tenants who can’t pay rent may be necessary even after the lockdown lifts.
How Landlords Can Work with Tenants to Get Through the Coronavirus Crisis
Many tenants simply don’t have the revenue to make rent even as the economy ‘reopens.’
Resources
National Retail Federation
Operation Open Doors: Guidance for retailers on safely reopening stores
The International Council of Shopping Centers
COVID-19 Re-Opening Best Practices
Retail Industry Leaders Association
Open For Business — A Blueprint for Shopping Safe
ULI (Urban Land Institute) Europe
Reshaping Retail Report
Restaurant
Reopening and operating during the COVID-19 pandemic is especially challenging for restaurant owners and operators as they battle to stay afloat, financially. The challenges of operating at roughly 50% capacity — as cleaning costs increase and customers largely stay home — are daunting. Below are some of the approaches restaurant operators are taking to mitigate the spread of germs for staff and customers, while still delivering a positive dining experience.
Guidelines for Reopening Restaurants: Masks, Disposable Menus and Social Distancing
These guidelines from Arizona, California, Oregon, and Washington focus on how to safely bring back diners.
Devastated US Restaurants Look to Landlords For Rescue
The food and beverage industry is seeking new rent structures and partnerships to survive COVID-19.
Future of Restaurants Heads to the Curb As Cities Pave Way for Outdoor Dining
City officials expedite regulations to allow for more outside seating as eateries reel from the pandemic.
Restaurants Could Adapt to Coronavirus Era as Food Halls, Parisian Parlors
Large common spaces give patrons a sense of safety amid the outbreak.
Ghost Kitchens Grow As Eat-In Restaurants Close Their Doors
Virtual kitchens are seeing an opportunity as demand for food delivery increases.
Resources
The National Restaurant Association
Best practices for welcoming your staff back to your restaurant
The International Council of Shopping Centers
COVID-19 Re-Opening Best Practices
National Retail Federation
Operation Open Doors: Guidance for retailers on safely reopening stores
Multifamily
Multifamily is the one segment that has ubiquitously had to deal with factors such as entry and exit traffic and lobby and elevator usage throughout the entirety of the lockdown thus far. Therefore, operators had to adapt immediately to some of the key precautions that will be ongoing when they reopen the areas that closed during this time, such as gyms, business centers, patios and other clubhouse spaces.
Experts say that sanitation and capacity restrictions will be the most crucial mitigation imperatives for landlords, meaning operators will have to monitor and govern how many residents use those spaces at any given time. Apps may be the best way to do this, and that model may prove indispensable in the long run as well, according to Amy Groff, Senior Vice President of Industry Operations for the Arlington, Virginia-based National Apartment Association.
Instead of relying on physical management of packages, apps will also be increasingly used to help shepherd deliveries and visitors through access doors safely and ensure packages are being dropped off in the right place, she says.
Designers have also already begun adding more touchless elements into multifamily common spaces to factor in smart building technology and keyless doors and entryways, which will create an “interesting balancing act between security and privacy,” according to Tom Steidl, Firmwide Residential Practice Area Leader at global architecture firm Gensler.
In the meantime, touchless retrofits will be increasingly demanded, but the costs could be especially prohibitive to operators that have had issues collecting rent. So as apartment dwellers demand more access to the amenities they are already paying for, operators will have to walk the line between allowing access to those spaces and keeping their residents safe. Below are some ideas on the best ways to do that.
How Apartment Owners Responded to The Coronavirus Pandemic
Starting in March, MAA, Greystar and other major owners shut down amenities to keep residents safe.
Tenants Under Quarantine: 5 Key Questions to Answer
Managers will have to focus on disinfection and enforcing social distancing, especially in regard to amenity spaces.
7 Handy Apps for Rental Property Owners
Apps will become increasingly important as ways to facilitate contactless transactions and interactions.
Resources
National Apartment Association
Re-Opening Office and Amenity Spaces
National Multifamily Housing Council
Reopening Resources