Houston, Austin and Dallas lead the nation in empty offices – By Janet Miranda (Chron) / March 2, 2024
The Lone Star State was first to re-open after the pandemic, but the office market has never rebounded.
Houston, Dallas and Austin are the first-, second- and third-most-vacant office markets among the nation’s largest 50 metros, according to Moody’s Analytics. Only much smaller Tulsa, Oklahoma, Charleston, South Carolina, and Dayton, Ohio, are more vacant.
With approximately 300 empty office buildings and availability of 54.5 million square feet of leasing space and another 5.7 million square feet of sublease availability, Houston dominates the empty office building rate in the U.S. with 26.3 percent office vacancy, according to a new report by Bisnow. Trailing behind it are two other prominent Texas cities: Dallas, at No. 2, with 25.3 percent and Austin at No.3 with a vacancy rate of 25.2 percent compared to the national office vacancy rate of 19.6 percent.
Despite the economy’s continued growth and the commercial construction work that comes with it, Houston and the two other Texas metros are grappling with various factors that have kept offices empty. As hybrid work becomes the new normal, many companies have been looking to downsize and large corporations have been fickle in making relocation decisions. Many companies want newer buildings with modern amenities and in places like Austin—where the pre-pandemic tech boom rippled through the city—it’s just a problem of too much supply.
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