As conditions continue to worsen in the country’s office market, another major office tenant is giving up space due to remote work. The home improvement giant Home Depot has closed one of its offices in Austin, Texas, placing it on the sublease market. A company representative said they let go of the space due to the fact that its office employees work remotely and the space is no longer needed, adding that the decision to give up the space was made at the end of last year. Home Depot is still operating another office location in the city. The move by Home Depot comes on the heels of other major Austin office occupiers putting space on the market recently, including TikTok, Meta, and 3M. Unsurprisingly, sublease space in Austin has shot up in recent months, increasing 30 percent from the fourth quarter of 2022 to the first quarter of this year, according to JLL.
The prevalence of remote work has been the driving cause behind a lot of companies in the U.S. downsizing their office footprints, though worsening economic conditions have been a reason too. Last summer, Yelp made headlines when company leaders announced they were closing three of its offices around the country. Around the same time, the San Francisco tech firm TaskRabbit closed all four of its global offices and went fully remote. Companies shuttering space was something office landlords began to fear since the beginning of the pandemic. While the trend of going fully remote has caught on with companies both big and small, a lot of firms are still very committed to the office, in fact, some are even requiring workers to be in the office more often. Remote work is here to stay but the physical office is still an important part of many firms’ innovation strategy.
