Top Insights from the SIOR New England Real Estate Year-End Review
The SIOR New England Chapter held its annual Year-End Market Update this week. The panelists included the VP of Real Estate from Hasbro, the EVP of BXP, the VP of Biomed Realty, and the EVP at Dacon Construction.
The event focused on innovation and the future of commercial real estate as we look to 2026. Here are the key takeaways from the event:
- Amenities Are Winning Tenants, But Not the Traditional “Cookie Cutter” Amenities: Landlords can no longer just “check the box” by adding in simple amenities. Amenities need to be thoughtful to your existing tenants’ needs and solve problems for your prospective tenants. Time is an amenity – so figure out how your building uniquely solves everyone’s issue: the lack of time. Including tenants in the amenity discussion and development gets buy in and stickiness.
- Want To See an Increase in Space Utilization? Validate the Commute for Your Employees: A big focus for Hasbro as they work on their new HQ in the Seaport (relocating from RI) is “validating the Commute” for their employees. They are making major changes to their employees’ work environment, so they are hyper focused on making the relocation a change that gets people excited to come to the office. BXP concurred with this statement, mentioning that their tenants who have the highest space utilization are the ones who have made their employees feel appreciated for coming in – even with simple decisions like assigned seats rather than hoteling so employees know they are valued enough to have a specific place in the office.
- Landlords Who Run Their Buildings as Operators, Not as Financial Vehicles Are Seeing The Most Success: As tenants focus more on getting their employees back into the office, the landlords who work as long-term partners are the ones seeing the highest occupancy and stickiness with tenants. Landlords who can offer a unique experience and allow their tenants to thrive in the office are getting noticed. This shift requires a long-term approach and sometimes making capital investments now that won’t have an immediate pay off – something that isn’t possible for all owners in the current environment.
- Tough Tech Isn’t One Size Fits All, Get Educated on Your Client’s Specific Needs: Tough Tech is still driving much of the industrial demand in today’s market. But the term “Tough Tech” encompasses a broad variety of industries, so landlords and brokers need to stop trying to fit tenants into simple buckets. Even tenants within the same industry (ex: Quantum Computing) will have widely different building requirements – so it’s important for brokers and landlords to become intimately knowledgeable on these specific requirements in order to solve their space needs. This is especially true for the number of tough tech clients who have demanding power needs. The success of the Massachusetts innovation ecosystem relies heavily on the availability of power.
- Companies with High Office Utilization Have Evolved Their Real Estate Strategy: Executives need to rethink their “real estate playbook”. The same strategies from 5+ years ago aren’t working with today’s office utilization. Updating your real estate strategy to focus on your company’s unique needs, the reason for coming in the office, and what amenities/workplace amplify your company culture are critical for higher space utilization. In some cases, companies may have to have unique workplace strategies by department so that the space is providing maximum value to your employees. Real Estate strategies need to be custom for each company, not following trends of other companies.