Office Occupancy Losses Were Unprecedented in 2020

Office occupancy losses hit record lows in 2020. A new report from JLL calls the occupancy decline unprecedented with 84 million square feet in occupancy declines for the year. In the fourth quarter alone, occupancy losses totaled 40 million square feet.

More than half of the occupancy declines happened in CBD markets, and within CBDs, occupancy declines were greatest among commodity product. Class-B office buildings, for example, had occupancy decreases one-and-a-half times faster than class-A and trophy assets. Gateway markets have led the occupancy losses. Nearly 30 million square feet of give-backs occurred in New York and San Francisco. This is 2.2 times the national rate of national occupancy losses.