January 15, 2021
Worcester office space available for sublease nearly doubles
Photo | Grant Welker
Downtown Worcester's Commerce Building, its offices largely empty, is proposed to be converted into residences.
By Grant Welker
Office employers in Worcester are finding during the coronavirus pandemic that they don't need nearly as much room as they used to.
Space available for sublease in the city nearly doubled in the fourth quarter of 2020 compared to a year prior, according to a new report by the Boston offices of Colliers International, a real estate industry analyst. Such sublease space for offices and labs totaled 100,000, or a little over 3% of the city's total inventory. A year prior, that number was roughly 53,000.
That number almost certainly includes Unum, the insurer whose downtown Worcester offices have been advertised for sublease after the company announced last summer that its entire Worcester workforce of roughly 400 people would be remote indefinitely. City officials are reviewing a tax break given to Unum to move to Commercial Street from its prior location a few blocks away in light of the employment change.
Worcester's office and lab vacancy rate has also ballooned to 16.7% from 9.7%, according to Colliers.
Other regions of Greater Boston have had similar struggles. The region as a whole has also seen sublease space nearly double, putting nearly 3.5 million square feet of space back on the market. The regional vacancy rate has risen from 12.3% to 15.0%.
MetroWest, which had higher vacancy rates to begin with, has seen available sublease space rise in the past year by 22%, and its vacancy rate has risen to 20.5% from 18.8%.
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