If you’re wondering how office environments might change moving forward because of COVID-19, you’re not alone.
Even commercial property experts aren’t exactly sure, but a downtown Hartford-based brokerage firm recently placed its bet.
Mark Duclos, president of Sentry Commercial, relocated his commercial property brokerage in November, moving just a stone’s throw away to a larger fourth-floor space at 160 Trumbull St.
Despite the extremely short-distance move — Sentry’s old office was at 190 Trumbull St. — Duclos said his firm took a long road to get there.
Sentry began to search for a new home before the pandemic in preparation of its lease expiring in late 2020. He was pretty sure back then that he wanted something larger and “hip,” perhaps in a renovated Class C space with exposed brick and wood floors.
When March brought the novel coronavirus, Duclos was ready to scrap his wish list and prioritize space where his 12 to 14 brokers and other employees could remain in separate offices.
“The pandemic hit and it all became about private offices,” he recalled.
He also had bigger concerns, as he expected at the outset of the crisis that the office and overall commercial real estate market would be badly damaged.
“When we shut our doors on March 12, I can tell you I looked at the future of the commercial real estate market as a big zero,” he said. “I didn’t think we’d ever do another deal and I didn’t know if my accounts receivable were any good. It was just ‘oh my goodness this is a whole new territory.’ ”
Thankfully, it’s turned out to be mostly the opposite, with industrial properties — Duclos’ specialty — going especially strong and Hartford’s downtown office market holding its own. Vacancies are even down from a year ago, according to CoStar, though some area realty experts think there could be major corporate leasing or office-downsizing decisions in 2021 that change the picture.
In the end, Duclos said he went full circle on his office vision, returning to the open-space concept, which is what he has in his new 4,500 square feet of space at 160 Trumbull, which has a Santander bank branch on the ground level.
The space, which Sentry is renting for $14.75 per square foot, features the exposed brick, wood floors and open floor plan Duclos desired. Brokers are still going to work remotely a fair amount of the time, but when socially distanced in-person collaboration is needed, Duclos wanted to have an environment to facilitate it.
“We had to pick a horse,” Duclos said. “We’re betting on the fact that, that type of environment, which is more collaborative and fits our style much better is probably what is going to win out over spaces with a whole bunch of offices in them.”
“I’m a big believer that coming out of the COVID crisis, this is probably what offices should have looked like going into it,” he added.
A friendly vision
Another consideration for Duclos in Sentry’s recent move is that he wanted the right space for creating a more friendly real estate community.
“I’ve always envisioned having a space in downtown Hartford that’s a more collaborative space, a space that would be open even to non-Sentry brokers and employees,” he said.
Duclos sees an opportunity to create closer ties, even between competing firms.
He wants Sentry’s new space to be a place for networking, programming and informal interactions too, open to brokers and related professionals like attorneys, accountants, environmental consultants and others.
The pandemic has made gatherings more difficult, so the plans aren’t fully fleshed out yet, but Duclos has already settled on a name: The REC, which stands for Real Estate Center.
“I would like to be in a more collaborative environment,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we’re not competing against each other, we absolutely are, but we also can leverage our skill sets and ideas by collaborating.”
