While many Denver office tenants went remote or fled to Cherry Creek or the ’burbs in recent years, law firm Ballard Spahr did the opposite.
It stayed downtown, though it swapped out its old headquarters for a newer spot a block away at 1800 Larimer in August.
“It was more about the amenities,” said Damon O. Barry, office manager partner, as he listed features like a full gym with towel service, a green space on the second floor, proximity to Union Station and lobby security. “My goal was to have a space that folks want to come into.”
But a sign of the times was that the company opted for leasing less space. Its new 19,000-square-foot office is one-third smaller than its prior home at 17th Street Plaza. No, the 60-person company isn’t shrinking, Barry said. It’s growing. There’s hybrid options and “hoteling” desks, available to whomever is in the office that day. This is about efficiency.
“Lawyers work differently today than they did when we started in our space 40-plus years ago,” Barry said. “It accommodates workspace for collaboration. We shrunk the size of the offices. We were just able to be more efficient with our space.”
Commercial real estate agency CBRE was already moving to a hybrid office environment before the pandemic. On site, the office offered “hoteling” desks so anyone could pop in for the day and park themselves at an available desk. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
Such trends were predicted after the office market collapsed during COVID. That continued into last quarter with software company Freshworks vacated 44,000 square feet in favor of coworking space, and the state labor department reducing its offices by one-third when it moved across the street to 707 17th St. for 131,100 square feet. Mobile app developer Ibotta bucked the trend, and expanded when it moved to 16th Street.
But no one quite foretold how long reimaging the office would take. Five years after hordes of office workers were sent home to work remotely, the amount of available office space downtown is up, though it may be peaking.
“In terms of where vacancy sits today, yes — downtown Denver is undeniably in a deep hole, and there’s no way around that,” Thomas Jaroszewski, research director for the mountain region at Jones Lang LaSalle, said in an email. “What’s surprised many of us isn’t just how sharp the initial reset was, but how long the adjustment has taken. This has behaved less like a typical downturn and more like a structural reset tied to how office space is actually used.”
Could this be the office market floor?
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