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Comment by idoh | Hacker News Reader

I’m surprised to see it that low. Downtown SF is pretty dead. As an introvert looking for some quiet time I head into the office with an open floor plan to not see people while I work.

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A 100-person office that has one introvert coming into it every day because they are looking for some quiet time is not considered 'vacant' by this statistic.

So the per-desk vacancy, if such a thing were tracked, might be much higher than 33%?

The proper way to track it would be traffic in the commute hours and spending on lunches and so on during the work day, I suppose? Isn't that what cities are measuring and looking at with this return to office stuff?

Correct. Those lower-desk-utilization offices still have current leases.

https://www.kastle.com/safety-wellness/getting-america-back-...

Those statistics are probably closer to what you want.

Right. 49% pre-pandemic occupancy, measured by the systems that check people in when they enter the building.

43.2% specifically for San Francisco metro last week.

I find the reports interesting and they change through time and for example the breakdown by day of the week.

I don't even think it would track it if 0 people were coming in, as long as the lease is still active. Commercial office leases tend to be on the longer end compared to residential (eg. 10-year is not uncommon).

>I’m surprised to see it that low. Downtown SF is pretty dead.

And yet there are people in denial. This /r/sanfrancisco post is unintentionally hilarious. <https://np.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/11z2cz5/americ...> I think they think that "People leaving SF" = "Trump wins", or something.

>As an introvert looking for some quiet time I head into the office with an open floor plan to not see people

...maybe they see you coming?

How thoughtful of then to clear out for him!

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