They’re always looking for ways to nickel and dime us and laying people off to ‘cut cost’ so why not just sell off the hundreds of offices that are sitting empty?
Every building I go into is nearly empty and in need of repairs….went into the office and saw a grand total of 3 people on my floor….huge campus is in a bad part of town and needing a major renovation. Why hold onto it? Can’t even imagine the heating, electric, maintenance, and security costs etc for barely anyone to come in…
I also imagine a bunch of the executives are heavily invested in commercial real estate. This is likely true for all the other CEOs and BODs out there. They want us all to RTO because it lines their own pockets, not because it increases productivity or efficiency. They don't care that it costs the COMPANY money because having us RTO makes them personally richer.
CPG has been selling buildings / not renewing leases every year for at least the last 5. Every year they brag about how many sqft they have dumped. All signs suggest that they will continue. Their wet dream is to close a very large majority of branches, and have everyone else hub'd in admin buildings in just a few approved cities.
A very reliable source told me they are selling One and Two Wells Fargo Centers in Charlotte
Pretty sure you need a buyer to sell, who the F is buying office space right now? And if they are buying, you think they would may more than 80 cents in the dollar?
Thanks. It's clear then that local governments are giving businesses tax breaks for bringing people downtown, giving downtown businesses a reason to exist. Perhaps it's time for a new paradigm.
Where I am located, the tax breaks are based on the number of people occupying the building. Wells owns the building, but gets tax breaks based on number of people employed and working in the building. Wells leased out office space to a different company at one point. They are working to consolidate office space in some locations. It will also be interesting to see what happens when they leave Correspondent completely, and do staffing changes for the planned changes to the mortgage business. Some locations are primarily mortgage and/or correspondent. I'm curious as to whether they will keep the buildings for remaining staff, or do something else with them.
"Well the conspiracy here is they want to watch us suffer."
It's not a stretch to think they purposefully make us miserable, hoping we'll quit and avoid paying out severance as they shrink the company.
Well the conspiracy here is they want to watch us suffer.
They are in the process of downsizing their “brick & mortar” real estate holdings. In St. Louis WFA is selling two very large brick 10 story brick buildings.
Let’s not forget that Wells Fargo is spending $455 Million for new office space in Irving Texas. This is not a company who plans to back down on RTO.
We are not working for a forward-thinking company. It might be time to face the facts that we are working for an aging dinosaur, a has-been who can’t recognize it needs to change to stay alive.
If we want to have better work-life balance, better learning and development opportunities, and better alignment with our personal ethics - we have to make the move to another company.
Charlie is old school. The BOD is old school. Wells Fargo is old school. Don’t let your career stagnate here.
For those tax breaks, do the buildings have to be leased only, or leased AND occupied to an extent?
The larger the building or space, the longer the lease. It's rare though that a lease would go past 15 years for even the biggest buildings. Smaller spaces would be around 3-5 years
I’m assuming office lease records are not public record and google seems to indicate that is indeed the case. I’m not at all well-versed in commercial office space stuff and wondering what a typical lease term is for floors in a big city skyscraper? Or for a 3-story suburban office park building where each floor has the footprint of a football field. Ten years? Twenty years?
Leases can be bought out, often for an amount that is less than finishing it out.
But even if it's break-even, it still saves on facility fees, utilities, insurances, etc.
RTO might make more sense for other companies where everyone's co-located, but that will never be the case for Wells.
They are getting rid of real estate. They also need to wait for leases to expire.
My assumption is that the tax breaks that Wells Fargo gets from local and state municipalities is more lucrative an incentive than doing right by it’s employees and the environment. I don’t care how green tech a building is made, if your workforce doesn’t even make a living wage and they have to drive fossil fuel burners to work, your profiting off of exploitation. At least Marie Antoinette let her people eat cake. Charlie won’t even buy dinner before making us put out.🤷🏻
They sold off most of it but have long leases instead.