2023 Year in Review: Hank White, HMWhite

What was your greatest professional accomplishment or most notable project, deal, or transaction in 2023? Tishman Speyer’s renovation and re-use of the historic Morgan North Post Office is a compelling example of future urban work environments. One of the distinguishing tenant features is its two-acre rooftop landscape – the largest in Manhattan. The Morgan North rooftop landscape is beyond a park in the sky. It embodies a variety of outdoor spaces for working and socializing within an immersive landscape.

What emerging trends will drive investment and development in 2024? Re-use explorations of outdated and hard-to-lease commercial buildings into residential and other uses will continue. Building technologies and design innovations will evolve to invent new forms of housing, hospitality, health care and institutional uses and infuse high performing energy efficient building technologies and best environmental practices.

What person, project, transaction, or market trend had the greatest impact on your industry this year? The need to generate incentives and amenity rich features into commercial real estate is paramount. Having immediate access to designed landscapes as optional working environments has shown impressive and measurable evidence of employees’ improved creativity, productivity, wellness, comradery, and job gratification. Unused mechanical equipment filled rooftops now are considered to have untapped substantial value.