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A new report says more workers in Dallas are returning to the office than in any other major U.S. city.
The Dallas area, excluding Fort Worth, ranked No. 1 in the Placer.ai report, which analyzed February pedestrian data for office properties across 11 major U.S. metropolitan areas. The number of visitors to regional offices in February 2024 increased by 25% from February 2023. Visitor numbers to Dallas also exceeded the national average increase of 18.6% and far exceeded the region's 7.2% increase in January.
The study covered commercial office buildings, some with ground floor retail, but not buildings with both residential and commercial uses.
Placer.ai used cell phone data to identify walking patterns in nearly 1,000 office buildings across the country, so the study was able to measure the number of people actually visiting an office rather than looking at the market's leasable area. This may be a better indicator. Up.
Many employers continue to rent out space that workers do not physically occupy, especially now that so many people are working from home. Dallas' office vacancy rate has hovered around 26% in recent quarters, the highest level since the real estate recession of the late 1980s, according to real estate brokerage Avison Young.
“Even if office visitor numbers are stable to increasing, occupancy remains “The rate has been slow to rise.”
Dallas was followed by San Francisco in the survey, which saw a 24% year-over-year increase in office visits, but a long road to pre-pandemic recovery with visitor numbers down 46% from 2020. , which is more than any other market surveyed.
Visits to offices in Dallas are down 21.4% from February 2020, the third lowest rate of decline of any metropolitan area reported, and higher than the national average decline of 31.3%. Masu.
This comes as major financial institutions with large corporate offices in Dallas-Fort Worth, including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America, are strictly enforcing return-to-work mandates nationwide. This comes in response to reports that
“As the labor market continues to cool, power will inevitably return to employers, who may become more bold in their obligations.” [return-to-office] Policy,” Villa wrote.