On January 18, 2021 Victoria began a staged return to the office with most workplaces in the private sector set to return to 50% capacity. By the beginning of March, offices were expected to be mostly full, with new measures put in place to make workers feel safe and supported. The media reported a steady rise in foot traffic in the CBD as companies were interviewed about their staff’s excitement over a return to in-person meetings.
 
In reality, things look a little different. In fact, the big return to the office has not exactly met expectations, particularly among landlords and business leaders.

Click here For most commercial tenants approaching the end of their lease, a “Stay Vs Go” decision will be faced. Many important factors go into this decision and in 2020/2021, there will be even more to consider. COVID has led to a sudden and rapid change in the workplace landscape. There are new behaviours among tenants and their workers – some which will outlive the health crisis and influence “Stay vs Go” decisions for years to come. In addition, the need for most businesses to cut occupancy costs has led them to re-visit their property strategy. Landlords have responded to these changes quickly, adopting new flexibilities in their lease terms in order to hang on to good quality tenants and a steady income from their assets. 

As a certified Bcorp, BRM is dedicated to using our business as a force for good. Across all services we deliver, from design, to project management and property strategy, BRM places the wellbeing of our clients at the centre of what we do. While wellbeing and commercial property haven’t always been closely associated, now, particularly with the Coronavirus outbreak, commercial property owners and tenants are taking unprecedented measures to ensure their buildings are healthy enough for the people within them. So what are the elements that make a building healthy or unhealthy?

​Office vacancy rates remain low for Melbourne in the first quarter of 2020, with the key drivers being competitive rents and a great city lifestyle.
 
The city continues to prepare for future growth with over 600,000 sqm being supplied by 2022. Over 400,000 sqm of this will come to market in 2020. *
 
The latest data from the Property Council of Australia reveals that, as of January 2020, Melbourne’s vacancy rate is the lowest in the country, with only 3.2%, compared to Sydney, which has a vacancy rate of 3.9%. This makes our city the tightest leasing market in the country.

*This article is based on data from The Property Council Of Australia 2020 Office Market Report

As with last year, people are the central focus in commercial property. Bricks and mortar matter less as the experience of the worker becomes everything. With tech disruption, political upheaval and climate anxiety on the rise, commercial landlords are beginning to hear what people want. Read on to see the key workplace elements that landlords have started to deliver.

Curating the right mix of tenants as a commercial property owner can transform a great space into a valuable cultural experience for the people within that space. The centrality of people to the workplace has become a much talked about topic within the commercial real estate industry. Savvy property owners, in a bid to stand out in the real estate landscape,  are filling their buildings with likeminded businesses that can leverage each other at a business level, together with the right blend of retail and hospitality amenities.

The result is a space that not only provides the day to day services tenants require, from food outlets to dry cleaning services, but also a carefully curated mix of office tenants that can provide professional services to each other. 

​For BRM, our services have always aimed to reach beyond the transaction itself. We put people at the centre of everything we do, from workplace consulting, to project management, workplace design, and in this case, property advisory.
 
Yes, property is about “closing the deal”, but many are quick to forget that the “deal” involves people, from the people who are making the deal, right down to the people who will be occupying and working in the actual space. For this reason, we see relationships as paramount to commercial property. Without stable and trustworthy relationships, a company facing a change in location, organisational structure or even the layout of its office desks, will encounter great difficulty.
 

BRM’s design, property and project management team came together to assist law firm Kalus Kenny Intelex in their recent move from the Como Centre to 4 Riverside Quay in Southbank. 

​BRM’s multidisciplined skills meant that the firm’s entire move from initial property search, right through to the design of the new office and handover of their previous space was overseen by the one property service provider. The result was a smooth transition to a new workplace in a brilliant location, with different corners of the BRM team across every facet of the move. KKI was able to settle in and enjoy freshly designed new offices with peace of mind, knowing that BRM’s property team was taking care of the handover of the previous space. 

It is quite commonly known that Landlords are responsible for costs and maintenance of safety requirements in retail premises in Victoria.  This is the case under both the Building Act 1993 (Vic) and the Retail Leases Act 2003 (Vic).

There has been some contention about how the two acts operate, which both apply in the case of retail premises.  The main question most landlords ask is: Can such obligations can be contracted out of or passed on to the tenant?

A recent Advisory Opinion in 2015 has helped to clarify the position of the law in regards to these issues.  While Advisory Opinions are not legally binding, they are highly persuasive to Tribunals and Courts in hearing such decisions, especially given that there are many cases in support of the conclusions reached.

​In today’s workplace landscape, the opinion of the worker counts for a lot. In fact, organisations are increasingly involving their staff in decisions that were once reserved for leadership. The workforce is largely made up of millennial workers who are used to having significant influence in the way they work, rather than being dictated to by archaic organisational structures.