Page 39 - BusinessWest January 24, 2022

of the manufacturing sector, which has also con- tributed to the white-hot market for industrial spaces (more on that later), to the continued growth of delivery and warehousing opera- tions, which has created ever more demand for those spaces. There’s has also been a noticeable increase in the amount of entrepreneurial activ- ity in the region, inspired in part by COVID-19, which has created interest in retail space and
sus that things won’t be like they were before the pandemic.
And this means that some office space — just how much comprises one of those question marks — must be repurposed.
“There is going to be some creative reuse of office space, and retail space, in this region,” said Ken Vincunas, president of Agawam-based Development Associates. “I don’t know want it’s going to be or who is going to do it, but the malls and some office buildings are going to turn into something that no one foresaw, something they weren’t designed for.”
Paul Stelzer, president of Holyoke-based Appleton Corp., which currently manages more than 2 million square feet of property in the region, agreed.
Citing a movement to convert large amounts of office space to lab facilities in Boston, Cam- bridge, and Worcester to feed a biotech sector ravenously hungry for space, he said this might be one possible course for Western Mass. ... if it can attract workers for that sector.
“We need to look at how we can maybe take two floors of a building that might never be leased again and convert to some type of bio, some type of medical, some type of related spaces,” he said, “because when you talk about quality of life, we have an incredible quality of life here in Western Mass., and I think there’s some desire for people not to be going up and down a 30-story elevator every day or taking the subway to work.”
For this issue, BusnessWest talked at length with area brokers and property managers about the current scene and what they project for the future, both short- and long-term.
NAI Plotkin, agreed, noting that some of the movement on the retail side and office side has been as a result of COVID and its ill effects, but there has been positive movement as well, espe- cially on the industrial and multi-family residen- tial sides of the ledger, where the laws of supply and demand have forced prices higher as compe- tition for available properties escalates.
There has even been some movement in the
“We need to look at how we can maybe take two floors of a building that might never be leased again and convert to some type of bio, some type of medical, some type of related spaces, because when you talk about quality of life, we have an incredible quality of life here in Western Mass., and I
PAUL STELZER
some of the restaurants that have fallen victim to the pandemic.
“This past year was one of our busiest years, and there was a lot of activity on all ends of the marketplace,” Bolotin said. “We’ve had deals in the retail world, the industrial market has been very active, the office market has been active, and there have been some development deals. We’ve seen it all across the board.”
Evan Plotkin, president of Springfield-based
think there’s some desire for people not to be going up and down a 30-story elevator every day or taking the subway to work.”
BusinessWest
COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE
JANUARY 24, 2022 39
office market, said those we spoke with, but over- all, this is the category still clouded by question marks. Large question marks.
Indeed, while all those we spoke with expressed the opinion (and we’ll paraphrase) that many workers now toiling remotely will eventu- ally return to the office because employers realize there is more and better collaboration and more productivity when a team is in one place, there was also something approaching general consen-
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