Andreea Paun, Griffes: “In the future, offices will have some of the characteristics and atmosphere of hotels”

“Customers are increasingly better educated, professional. They know very well the technical characteristics of the projects; they know what they want and what to choose. Customers have a slightly more practical perspective.

We often do the exercise of translating the technical characteristics and specifications of a building into benefits for tenants. In Romania, the office market is dominated by tenants, and tenants want concrete benefits.

When we talk about ESG and the new rules, tenants really appreciate green spaces, gardens, parks, any outdoor area where they can work. For example, in the Business Garden Bucharest project, the developer Vastint allocated 30% of the surface for green spaces, which does not really happen in other projects,” Andreea Paun, Managing Partner, Griffes said at Workplace of the Future conference organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“Facilities such as sports, tennis, and basketball courts have begun to appear, which are available free of charge to tenants. Such benefits are increasingly demanded by tenants. People know exactly what they want and how they want their workspaces to look.

Purchasing behavior has changed a lot. For example, in the period 2015-2020, we developed a scoring for companies that wanted to relocate to Bucharest, depending on location, benefits, etc. Now, a company’s decision to choose an office, whether it is a relocation or the opening of new premises, is very much based on emotion.

In the last two years, companies that have a large footprint of offices have started to take the initiative and come up with programs and facilities that increase the attractiveness of the spaces and bring more people to the office.

In the future, offices will have some of the characteristics and atmosphere of hotels. Employees are very much looking for community and comfort. I think offices will become very versatile. There is a very high demand for private and collaborative spaces. We are looking for spaces for meetings that involve certain special activities.”

Griffes is a real estate consultancy company founded in 2016 by Andreea Paun, following an experience of 15 years in real estate and property marketing. Griffes’ office building portfolio reaches 130,000 sqm and includes prominent properties such as Unirii View tower in downtown Bucharest, J8 Office Park in the norther part of Bucharest, the Record Park mixed-use project in the heart of Cluj-Napoca, Liberty Technology Park, an urban regeneration project in Cluj-Napoca, Paltim in Timisoara, Muse boutique office building in Bucharest, and several other projects in regional cities.

Griffes assisted occupiers from a large palette of services, from local unicorns to Fortune 500 insurance companies, outsourcing, IT and software development, into restructuring their space strategy or securing office and production spaces.