Future office developments in doubt due to pandemic

From this week’s Galway City Tribune – Large-scale office developments such as Bonham Quay and Crown Square could be the last of their kind in the city as evidence grows that workers intend to stick with remote working, even after Covid-19 restrictions are lifted.

Property developer Gerry Barrett’s Bonham Quay, which is currently under construction, is intended to house up to 2,700 office workers at the Docks when completed in 2022, while Pádraic Rhatigan’s €200 million Crown Square development in Mervue, the first phase of which is due for completion in the same year, can house 3,500 office workers.

But as a second phase of a national remote workers survey led by NUI Galway and the Western Development Commission gets underway, indications are that the demand for office space could decline significantly in the coming years.

Professor Alma McCarthy, one of the survey’s leads and Head of NUIG’s JE Cairnes School of Business and Economics said that while the first phase was carried out in April, when people were still getting to grips with working from home, there was a clear preference to continue with the practice.

“With the second phase of this survey, we’re looking at how people are getting on six months into this. With the first survey back in April, I was quite taken aback by the numbers who wanted to continue working from home,” Prof McCarthy told the Galway City Tribune.

“83% of 7,200 respondents wanted to continue working remotely either some or all of the time and since then, we’ve seen the discussion move towards a more blended form of working [between home and office] because some do miss the social dynamic.”
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