If the trend in office usage keeps going, it's not long before these white elephants in the middle of cities will be considered of "negative value". Empty monoliths in very valuable lots, that you have to spend money to make useful? Sounds like negative value to me.

Negative value isn't really possible in this scenario. I'll buy a floor of one of these buildings for $1, and promise to pay for its upkeep.

I'm sure I can find someone willing to rent a 10,000+s.f. downtown manhattan apartment for more than the cost of maintenance (and the property tax on the $1 the floor of the building is apparently worth).

Will you also take on the debt payments?

> prices that valued the _ structures_ as having negative value

You are ready to pay $1 for a floor in the structure and how many millions for your share of the plot?

Pinky swear you’ll pay for the upkeep, all of it? It’s not just day-to-day maintenance (which I promise costs more than you’d expect) but also long-term building integrity and lifespan assurance.

There are about 100 condo residents in Miami who kicked that can down the road to disastrous consequences and paid with their lives.

Plus, negative value to equity is absolutely possible in this scenario. Let me how far you get in the commercial real estate world without signing a personal guaranty.

Seems like they could make decent mixed use spaces - with some of the space being converted into retail / malls, some of it being used for on-shoring / light industry, and the rest remaining office space.

Another solution for cities with astronomical land prices (like NYC) is to look into moving some of their city buildings into sky scrapers, and then selling their buildings & land to be re-developed.

Like why can't the police "building" just be 30 floors in a sky scraper? Why can't a hospital just be a bunch of floors in a sky scraper? Why can't a high school just be a bunch of floors in a sky scraper? Etc...