My organisation dodged a bullet. I work in the public sector and our current HQ has been earmarked for disposal for a good few years now. It was only a year or two ago they were bidding to be part of a central Birmingham government hub leasing prime city real estate in brand new high rises. As luck would have it there wasn’t space for us at the time and so we opted to co-locate with another organisation in Lichfield.
The new building is due to open at the end of July but we’ve already been told it’ll be a place for collaboration and networking, not day-to-day work - unless you want to (there are always a few funny civvys you have to accommodate). So if we have a meeting that’d benefit from being face-to-face then we can go into the office and then once finished we can head back home if we want to. There’s no requirement to do a full day in office. I’m aiming for 1 day a week max, which will help enormously with the kids being dropped off / picked up.
Besides, I’ve kitted out my office now so why would I want to travel 40mins x2 every day? Crazy!