More Landlords Getting Into Amenities Game

Chris Kelly, co-founder of NYC-based Convene, addressed JLL’s Chicago 2025 event, held last week on the city’s Near West Side.

CHICAGO—The office environment has undergone some profound changes in the last decade. What we think of as the traditional workspace has in many locations given way to collaborative arrangements that allow employees to work together in a variety of ways. Furthermore, amenities have assumed far greater importance for firms competing for talent. The rooftop decks and fitness clubs in today’s office spaces would astonish people from the not-so-distant past. But these transformations are not yet finished, and in some ways are just getting started.

“We believe the largest landlords in the world are about to get into this game,” Chris Kelly, president and co-founder of Convene, which creates amenity centers for entire buildings and portfolios, said last week at JLL’s Chicago 2025 forecast event. That is, some now recognize they can help even their smallest tenants compete for talent by providing an array of amenities and on-demand, flexible services. In a way, landlords will aim to become a true brand, a name familiar not just to those that sign leases, but also the employees that work in their buildings.