Long Live the Hub: Central Offices Are Staging a Comeback

In the early days of the pandemic, experts across the commercial real estate industry consistently opined the market would see companies move toward a hub-and-spoke office-using model to accommodate employees that had moved away from central office locations. But according to a new JLL analysis, investment is increasingly moving back to the hub, less so the spokes.

The hub-and-spoke office model essentially conceived of a company’s headquarters as the hub, with other satellite offices spinning off that hub like spokes on a wheel. But “working patterns have evolved differently than some expected,” JLL analysts note. “For instance, asynchronous work has gained momentum. And employees are content with working at home or going to flexible workspaces to supplement their days in the corporate office…This has companies asking what role their central offices will play, and how to make it worth the commute.”