T

hink twice before you blithely predict the end of offices.

True, San Antonio companies sent thousands upon thousands of employees home in March and April, pushing them into a new world of Zoom meetings and home schooling — and overall it’s worked out. Frost Bank loan officers, for example, processed a record volume of loans through the federal Paycheck Protection Program in April while, presumably, working in their jammies.

Months later, many employees are still clocking in at their kitchen tables, couches and spare bedrooms.

Employers are struggling with plans to bring them back to the office, a complex task made even harder by the recent spike in COVID-19 cases. Return them in phases? Starting when? And do you have enough little bottles of hand sanitizer and bleach wipes?

Nobody wants to turn their workplace into a petri dish for a virus that threatens to be with us for a long time.

So loose talk about the obsolescence of offices is inevitable. Working remotely looks to be the next wave.

Clare Flesher, managing director at commercial real estate firm NAI Partners, isn’t buying it.

He said he’s been hearing offices are doomed for the 22 years he’s been in the industry.

“People still need a place to go,” he said. “They need a place to collaborate with colleagues and interact with clients.”

The majority of his office’s transactions are still moving forward, albeit with concessions to the pandemic. A few clients are reassessing their office space, looking at whether they need less square footage or need to reconfigure their layouts to reduce density.

The office vacancy rate in San Antonio stands at about 10.5 percent year-to-date, barely changed from 10.8 percent during the same stretch last year, according to a June report by NAI Partners. A vacancy rate of 10 percent or lower is healthy, Flesher said.

The number of completed projects is down, and the area posted a negative net absorption — a clunky phrase that means more office space is available than has been rented — of 191,201 square feet, compared with 103,569 square feet over the same period last year. That could be because newly completed office space has not been leased yet, creating more vacancies, Flesher said.

The area is transitioning to a market where tenants hold the advantage, he added. Some businesses might be considering relocating, or their lease might be expiring soon.

“There’s an opportunity for tenants who foresee they will need office space to restructure their leases,” Flesher said.

Speaking of offices not going away, Worth & Associates is building a 135,000-square-foot, twobuilding office project at the corner of Wurzbach Parkway and

West Avenue in North San Antonio.

One of the buildings, at 58,000 square feet, will include suites ranging from 1,500 to 3,500 square feet and a break room, conference rooms and outdoor areas, according to a news release. The other structure, a 78,000-square-foot flex office building, also will have outdoor break spaces and other perks.

The project, called Walker Ranch Business Park, is expected to be finished next year.

The city’s Historic and Design Review Commission gave the green light recently to plans to

Many retailers were struggling to adapt to customers’ changing habits, including the shift to online shopping. And they were grappling with hefty debt loads. That was before the pandemic.

The outbreak has accelerated their problems and pushed some big names — including Neiman Marcus, Pier 1 and Stage Stores — into bankruptcy.

The delinquency rate for commercial mortgage loans was roughly 18 percent in June, an increase of nearly 8 percentage points from May, according to a report by Trepp.

The data and research firm attributed the spike to retailers pulling out of leases, emptying spaces and closing stores, which is squeezing property cash flows. But “retail was a laggard even before COVID,” the report notes.

One potential reason: oodles of spaces. The U.S. has about 8.5 billion square feet of retail space, or about 24.5 square feet per person, according to the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. That’s five times the average per person in Europe.

“That, coupled with an overall shift in consumer demand away from brick and mortar stores towards online shopping, has amplified the effect of the COVID-19 crisis,” Trepp’s researchers said.

madison.iszler@express-news.net