Reimagining

The commercial office space has been struggling for several years. Covid was merciless to this asset class and it seemingly has not recovered.

Increasingly, working for yourself or remotely for someone else is viable. When I was selling real estate I noticed that most of my buyers prioritized a home office. And this was several years ago.

And thus that meant the office, the one you commute to, was falling from favor. I remember the last real estate office I worked in. Bright lights shining overpoweringly in every hallway, bathroom, suite and conference room. A dropped ceiling. Glass doors everywhere - an impossibility to escape coworkers. Generic sleek colorless modernity - void of personality or mood.

Maybe it deserved it's fate? To me, this was an environment I couldn't stand to work in for more than a couple hours.

That said, I just stumbled across Water Street Associates. It is the rebirth of an ugly 80's postmodern building in Manhattan's Financial District. But the investment group in partnership with creative direction of Gabriella Khalil leaned all the way in to the vibe of the era. This is the power office aesthetic I've written about, we've all seen this on Pinterest, in AI generators, in 80's coffee table books, but these folks did it in real life. Maybe a bit of American Psycho mixed in.

They also got some tax breaks and thus were able to bring down their initial ask for rents and cater to the who's who of NYC's creative scene.

The brown & red, the chrome, the statement pieces. A very specific mood.

This may or may not be your thing.

I like it because it actually seems to stand for something. In a commoditized world, my thesis has always been to use design to stand out. Mood is what I've always been after even since I discovered it in my grandparents home.

Unlike most office space today, this one has a waitlist. You can ​read more about it in this WSJ article.​

what were you interested in when you were young?

My wife and I were just talking about what we enjoyed when we were young. I was telling her how much I liked to make home movies.

We then talked about the fact that I essentially make home movies on instagram for a living today. A funny turn of events.

This morning, my children were fighting over a drum machine in our basement. The simple pleasure of playing, looping and changing drum sounds is just as appealing to my little angels as it was to me when I was a kid. I had a Yamaha keyboard with a bunch of drum loops, 100 voices, and lots of presets and I loved it. I still do. I get obsessed over how songs are made and love the inspiration-to-production process.

There have been other things like rollerblading, cycling, and more recently, marble runs, that have found their way back into my life.

If you are struggling creatively with where to turn, where to seek inspiration, where to find a foothold, it's clear to me that pretty much everything I used to like when I was a kid, I still like today.

Just as the power office is reimagined and reborn, you too can look at the things you once loved and use them as a guide to find a direction.

Maybe that's the secret to creating something meaningful: not chasing what's next, but reimagining what has always captivated you.