Flexible Building Use: The Answer to the Pandemic’s Property Vacancies?
Abandoned buildings and deserted streets are hardly an unusual site thanks to COVID lockdowns. Shut-downs across the globe have left some buildings vacant, without hope of tenants breathing life into these structures any time soon. The UK and Europe’s solution to vacant properties has been ‘meanwhile space’ – transforming temporarily redundant spaces into useful office, creative or even housing space for a short period of time. Not COVID-specific, this strategy has been used on London for more than a decade.
While the solution enables dormant buildings a new lease of life, it doesn’t come without it’s own unique challenges. By flexing the use of a building from simple dormancy or long waits for redevelopment to active workspaces, shops or even housing, cheap licences and flexible leases become available along with increased precariousness of tenancies.
Meanwhile spaces make use of dormant buildings (Photo by Hennie Stander on Unsplash)
Some argue the solution is perfect for start-up businesses and creatives who are unable to afford inner city rents and commercial leasing. Flexible building use or ‘meanwhile schemes’ attract a different kind of tenant and require careful management to be successful.
The combination of legal, social and design issues can be complex and challenging in and of themselves. Different types of use can be more straightforward than others. Flexing warehouse space to workshop or office use, for example, is a far simpler conversion than using a factory for temporary housing.
The limits of meanwhile space
Although the ‘meanwhile movement’ may be helping London neighbourhoods regenerate vacant and forgotten areas, it’s certainly not a one size fits all solution for the problems of vacant buildings and unaffordable rents elsewhere.
Short term leases and notices to vacate within 28 days can leave tenants without anywhere to move to. Unlike traditional rental tenants in both the commercial and residential property sectors, protection from eviction throughout the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to be non-existent.
For this reason alone, many flexible leases focus on just commercial space or require tenants to nominate an alternative home address, hold full-time employment, and be over 21 years of age before taking on a short-term flexible lease of a meanwhile space.
Add to this problems such as building condition or the need for upgrades that are simply not attended to by landlords, and you may end up with costly legal disputes at best, or death of tenants at worst.
An increasing demand for flexible office space provides an opportunity for landlords. (Photo by Eloise Ambursley on Unsplash)
A different approach to flexible building use.
Rather than temporarily changing the use of vacant spaces, landlords can meet a wider range of occupiers’ demands by preparing their properties for flexible office use. This provides more security to tenants while also enabling increased profitability for their portfolio. By catering to a wider range of tenant target markets, revenue options are increased and new profit streams can be generated.
Utilizing amenity platforms and new technologies can facilitate the speedy adaption of landlord’s otherwise vacant space. Working with a managed workplace partner is an ideal way to ensure the flexibility of your property is managed optimally for both you and potential tenants.
Multi-purpose properties can include shared workplaces, private office spaces and carefully curated tenant experiences. Demand for adaptable and flexible spaces is growing. The attractiveness of these options for potential tenants often outstrips that of ‘meanwhile spaces’. Flexible in-demand amenities can add value for landlords and their tenants while safeguarding the interests of both.
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