The rise of the uber-luxurious office

It is lunchtime at One Vanderbilt, a new which juts out of midtown Manhattan. The building’s vast basement kitchen hums, as harried staff in chef’s whites leap in and out of swing doors. Upstairs, gourmet salads and soup are served in a lounge overlooking Grand Central Station; a sit-down restaurant offers, grilled scallops and other dishes from Daniel Boulud, a celebrity chef. There is not a soggy, al-desko sandwich in sight.Across the rich world, the commercial-property industry is in a grim state. Tenants have come to terms with the fact that working from home is here to stay, and are downsizing appropriately. In cities such as Hong Kong, London and Paris vacancy rates have hit record highs. Another indicator of the darkening mood is that global investment in offices last year fell by 42%, compared with a 28% drop for property as a whole. A recent paper by Arpit Gupta of New York University and Vrinda Mittal and Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh of Columbia University forecasts that in New York could lose almost 40% of their value between 2019 and 2029, equivalent to $453bn.