Foyer fights: How top-tier towers are trying to get you back – or keep you
Foyers in top-tier office towers are getting million-dollar facelifts as landlords focus efforts on keeping workers in their buildings or luring them back from remote work locations.
The ground floor entrances of skyscraper towers in Sydney and Melbourne are being remodelled with hotel-style concierge desks, restaurants, cafés and uber-cool lounge settings, a trend driven by landlords vying to retain key tenants and stubbornly high office vacancy rates in both cities.
The Property Council of Australia's last January survey of Sydney and Melbourne CBDs shows office vacancy rates were at 12.8 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively.
The high rates plaguing some office towers are a legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic, when leasing activity slowed dramatically as workers stayed at home. After COVID, as economic activity picked up, the slump in rents encouraged companies to negotiate new leases, moving up the property ladder into better digs in a more desirable location.
'It's very much a buyer's market,' said Elizabeth Carpenter, the NSW chapter president of the Australian Institute of Architects and a managing principal of architecture firm FJC Studio. 'Owners are trying to keep their big tenants.'
'They're not building big towers at the moment. It's highly competitive out there. You can get some very good rates for rents, so they [landlords] have to work out how to attract people,' she said.
'It's about making people's lives easier when they're in the building, and also making it easier for them to connect.'
Bronwyn McColl, a principal at Woods Bagot
Property giant Mirvac has just finished a $25 million lavish reboot of the lobby, facade and end-of-trip facilities at 55 Collins Street, one of two towers it manages in Melbourne's Collins Place.
Architecture firms Grimshaw and Norman Disney & Young installed elegant wood-toned finishes and tied in the new foyer's design to its twin tower at 35 Collins Street, which was refurbished five years ago when the popular Dame eatery was added.
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