The Dichotomy of Creative Office Development

Michael McCormick is the president and CEO of McCormick Construction.

LOS ANGELES—There is no doubt that creative office is dominating the office market, but creative office is becoming a dichotomy. It is both adaptive reuse redevelopment and sparkling new construction all in one. McCormick Construction is well versed in both the new and the reimagined versions of the newly beloved office design. In an effort to compare and contrast the two, we sat down with the company’s president and CEO, Michael McCormick. Here, he talks about the differences in budgets, logistics and development of adaptive resuse and new development in creative office.

GlobeSt.com: Creative office is clearly dominating the office market. As a contractor, are you seeing a trend toward adaptive reuse or new construction creative office projects, and why do you think the trend leans one way more than another? Michael McCormick: Overall, the changing workforce demographics in addition to the tech companies and content providers looking to draw from a young, creative talent pool are the drivers of this trend. Adaptive reuse is extremely popular with this tenant type, both for the vintage architectural charm of older buildings and the potential to be more cost effective. For this reason, spaces that are primed for this type of conversion are becoming harder to find. While there still is a lot of underutilized existing product out there, the assets with the better bones and centralized locations are the ones that are getting converted first. As the inventory of convertible, historic buildings begins to decrease, we’re seeing an increased demand for ground-up construction of creative office space.