McCall & Almy Blog Revisiting the Leasing Environment One Year Into an Era of Uncertainty

Revisiting the Leasing Environment One Year Into An Era of Uncertainty. A Conversation with Jennifer Elia, Senior Vice President of Lease Administration, McCall & Almy What has been the reaction of tenants to the pandemic?When COVID-19 first broke and everything shutdown, the general reaction was some level of panic, which was understandable. Office tenants were thinking, "I can't go into my space, the economy is going to go south, what's going to happen to my business, etc.?" And I think that was a natural reaction. The main questions that followed were, "Can we get out of our lease?" and "Can we stop paying rent?"I went through the dot-com bust in the early 2000s, and the "I just want to stop paying rent" reaction was similar. Well, you can't. It's a contract for a significant amount of money and you can't just ask for a do-over. As time has gone on, people have realized that this is a long-term issue and it is impacting all of us in some capacity - but the world has not ended.