5 Tips to Safely Secure a New Office Lease During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the commercial lease process. As businesses are planning to change office locations due to various reasons ranging from zip code with high COVID-19 cases to new space needs, businesses have learned invaluable lessons that will shape their future decisions and spaces. To better position your business for the future and keep safety top of mind when looking for a new office, business owners should take advantage of the following tips:

1. Do Your Research Online

When starting to secure a new office lease especially during the COVID pandemic, you may want to begin by conducting your research online. To ensure your research process is effective, you may want to identify key elements that are important to you as a corporate tenant.

For example, the location of the office building, square footage, and amenities are some of the things you may want to check to sort the hundreds of listings online. 

2. Ask For More Photos And A Virtual Tour

If a picture is more than a thousand words, then a virtual tour is an encyclopedia of building knowledge. With virtual tours, you can safely navigate the building, understand its layout and make sense of the space without physically visiting the building. Many building rentals have online features that allow you to take virtual tours.

3. Social Distancing Capabilities

Even if you are not planning to expand the business, your old space details will be inaccurate in choosing a new office building.

The new office space has to accommodate social distancing for your employees or customers. When considering social distancing capabilities, here are a few questions to consider:

• Do you have enough room at the register to distance customers six feet apart?

• Do you have space to install physical barriers between workstations?

By keeping all these safety protocols in mind, you will be able to estimate your space needs and pick the right building.

4. COVID-19 Clauses

Before signing the lease agreement, you may want to check the provision of new COVID-19 clauses within the lease. For example, global pandemics were traditionally left out of “insured risks” in past policies but new lease terms or the acceptance of tenant requests may be items to review. The process of negotiating commercial lease agreements can be quite complex and lengthy. If you have questions, your tenant rep may be able to help. By reviewing the lease with your tenant rep, you can mitigate risk.

5. Open Dialogue Between Landlord and Tenants

In light of the pandemic, there must be an open dialogue between the lessor and the tenant. The landlord should be able to answer your questions about insured risks, safety protocols, and any new guidelines. Moving to a new building in a time like this requires transparent and open communication/. This will help in protecting everyone involved and foster commercial lease best practices.

You can avoid common mistakes that most corporate tenants make by working with a tenant rep and reviewing the lease in advance. A tenant rep can help you research the market, offices that will fit your needs, and make the entire process easier.