Rob Olivet has worked on some of the largest corporate headquarters projects in the country. And while the pandemic has dealt its share of unknowns, the project management executive is pretty sure how those projects will be designed in coming years: with an eye toward bringing the outside world into the building.
Olivet, who says he's long been fascinated with how the built environment comes together, is the senior vice president for global project management firm MGAC. Working from the firm's Washington, D.C., headquarters, he's intimately involved in how corporate giants such as T-Mobile and Marriott Corp. choose to design their main spaces.
"Workers want to be able to come in and enjoy food at the office one day and get a haircut another," he said. "There's a bigger focus now on making space for things that allow people to do what they need to do outside of work while they're at work. It has been a big mindset shift in how companies think about the cost of finishing out space, which has increased significantly."
Olivet, who graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in civil engineering, said he has a fascination with how a project evolves from conception to implementation. His project management career has taken him from one of his earliest roles with The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company in the Baltimore area over to Glasglow as an infrastructure lead with BAE Systems.
He returned to the D.C. area in 2015, where he has been working with MGAC on projects with budgets of $100 million and more. To say a lot has changed in the corporate work landscape over the course of Olivet's career is a significant understatement.
Olivet has noticed that the pandemic initiated shifts in every segment of the national real estate market, including the stoking of more demand for industrial space and raising questions about the necessity of office space. The way companies think about their corporate headquarters is no exception, he said.
The Office As Destination
With a renewed focus on investing in building out high-end physical spaces, companies across the country are increasingly willing to spend to ensure their corporate hubs are places employees want to come to and work.
"We have seen a lot that entails making the built environment a place folks want to go to," Olivet told CoStar News. "Historically, office space was centered around how much square footage each person needed and economizing costs, but the pandemic has made it so that it isn't just about the dollars and cents."
The spotlight on the importance of office design has brightened as companies enter the latest phase of the pandemic with their push to attract employees back to in-person work. Companies including Apple, Goldman Sachs, Credit Karma, Marriott International and others used the Labor Day holiday as a deadline to transition to a more permanent hybrid or full-time schedule, and many of those businesses went to great lengths to persuade employees after more than two years of largely remote work.
In the first four months of 2022, office occupancy in the nation's largest cities rose 20 percentage points to about 45%, according to building security provider Kastle Systems, which has been tracking the return to the office through anonymous keycard swipe data. Since April, however, occupancy has hovered below 45% compared to pre-pandemic levels despite employers' attempts to coax workers back with free food, Lizzo concerts and other perks.
Olivet and MGAC have a big stake in the national return-to-office movement. The project management firm, founded in the mid-1990s, works with companies to plan and organize headquarters projects, ironing out details from financing to what kinds of amenities will be included.
As the pandemic unfolded, that latter responsibility has become even more critical in how employers are able to use their spaces as a way to get workers back to the office.
'Have To Have'
For companies that are expanding their headquarters or building out new physical office spaces, MGAC — which is brought on in the earliest stages of a project's design — and Olivet have found the conversation has shifted to "Here's what we have to have."
Olivet said clients such as Hilton Hotels Worldwide and the National Football League are adjusting to a new workplace reality.
"Now a headquarters is more than just space, it's a place that has to be able to retain the most talented employees and give them what they need as everyone comes out of the pandemic. You now need to make sure you're designing and constructing space people want to come to versus have to come to."
MGAC has been asked to include more service and hospitality-oriented features, including child-care centers, hair salons, massage therapy rooms and fitness centers that rival those found in luxury hotels, Olivet said.
That means outdoor lounges, recreational areas for sports as well as walking trails are increasingly found on company wish lists, as are kitchens suitable for professional chefs, gardens to grow produce and anything wellness-related that employers can use to highlight workers' health.
"The COVID and hybrid workforce has prompted more attention to certain amenities, and those high-end amenities are definitely helpful in getting people back to the office," Olivet said.