ULI San Francisco Bay Area Perspectives: Facing the Future of Office Ownership & Development

We hope you can join us for this webinar as we learn in real time how Bay Area real estate leaders make decisions in the face of the profound uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than focus on the triage of dealing with current events, our panel of economic advisors and owners & developers of major office projects in the Bay Area will use the tool of scenario planning to show how assumptions about the future impact of the pandemic profoundly shape decisions that must be made on a daily basis.

Our panel will envision two potential realities for the Bay Area a year from now, by reading the (imaginary) headlines from local newspapers dated August 1, 2021. Scenario #1 is a “Square Root” recovery, where a sharp recession is followed by a rapid recovery of economic activity to a level approaching the pre-COVID economy. Scenario #2 is a “Twilight Zone” world, where economic activity and demand for office space remains very weak for an extended period. Our panel will then explore and explain the different decision-making processes that they would follow if they knew that either of those scenarios would come to fruition. We hope to not only provide a fascinating behind-the-scenes view of how thought leaders approach planning and decision-making, but also give viewers tools that can help them navigate the tough decisions that all of us face in response to these unprecedented times.