Property

Commercial Real Estate’s Survival Plan Looks a Lot Like WeWork

Landlords were already beginning to offer shorter, more flexible office leases. The pandemic is accelerating all of those plans.

Illuminated floors of an office building in the City of London on March 16.Photographer: Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg
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Nestled in a bed of the River Thames between London’s twin financial districts, Canada Water is about to become a testing ground for the future of real estate in a post-Covid-19 world.

After more than a decade assembling a parcel of land almost double the size of New York’s Hudson Yards, developer British Land Co. expects to start construction this year on a multibillion-pound neighborhood of office buildings, homes, and shops at a time of dramatic change in how people work, live, and buy.