Life Sciences, Consulting Tenants Lead in Boston Office Visitation Recovery

Among the major office-using industries in greater Boston, consulting, research, accounting & recruiting, along with biotech, life sciences, pharma & healthcare have shown the strongest recovery in office visitation rates compared to pre-COVID levels, Avison Young reported. Consulting firms’ office visitations in July reached 95.8% of the levels seen prior to the pandemic, with live sciences tenants at 76.4% of pre-pandemic levels.

In contrast, industries such as tech and media, PR, telecom and entertainment have experienced the lowest total recovery percentages, according to Avison Young. Media firms rank last with 32.5% of pre-pandemic office visits, while tech and aerospace/defense tenants are tied for second lowest at 51.5% each. Tenants in the so-called FIRE sectors as well as government tenants are just a few percentage points higher.

The Boston Data Bite from Avison Young attributed this disparity partly to the nature of the industries. Employees at tech companies primarily work through virtual platforms, for example, while those in life sciences and drug discovery typically need to be in-house to perform their tasks.