New trends caused by the coronavirus could have a long-term negative impact on Atlanta’s metro office market.

With physical distancing guidelines expected to be in place, Colliers International anticipates that privacy and separation will become mainstream again and the years of breaking down walls to encourage collaboration will be gone.

Coworking has also taken a hit as millions of workers opt to work from home rather than in a shared workspace. Losing major coworking companies like WeWork could be detrimental to certain areas that will no longer have an anchor tenant.

Companies across the board have seen a drop in revenue, so cost effectiveness is on their minds when evaluating the types of workspaces they wish to adopt. This could lead them to continue using remote working arrangements.

Additionally, during March, April and May of this year, 634,000 square feet of subleased space had been added to the office market. This equates a big drop in revenue for office operations from the beginning of this year.

Telecommuting will emerge as the victor throughout this pandemic, with research from Colliers revealing that four out of five workers would want the ability to work remotely at least one day a week.

“The validation, and success, of telecommuting during the pandemic suggests a permanent change to the work environment in Atlanta,” Colliers stated.