Commercial real estate facing worse days
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William J. Hirschfeld, leasing director for One Liberty Place, on the office tower's 54th floor, which has been available for three years. But overall occupancy is better than 2005-07: One Liberty was 42 percent vacant then; it's 9 percent today. In the background is One Mellon Bank Center.
From his 30th-floor Center City office, William J. Hirschfeld has an in-your-face reminder that all is not well in commercial real estate.
His view is of One Liberty Place, the 61-story premier office address that, to the casual observer, is a glistening marvel. To Hirschfeld, it's also a constant prod that he's "gotta make the doughnuts."
That means finding a tenant for the 54th floor, a spectacular space that, despite pulse-quickening views, Hirschfeld, as One Liberty's leasing manager, has had no luck filling since Cigna moved out three years ago.
It's just a hint of the harrowing state of affairs in commercial real estate, where vacancies are on the rise across virtually all sectors, rents and property values are dropping, building owners are low on funds, and financing options are drying up.
And bad as things are, they're expected to get worse - the next slide in the snowballing economic crisis that began with the collapse of the housing market and continues to claim casualties.
