Reducing office space: relocate, renovate, sublease, or share?

Is your current location still the right one? This question sounds bigger than just square footage, and it is. Since being in the office is no longer a given, the requirements for a location have shifted. The question of space has become a question of location, and it can no longer be answered with a single number.

What has changed in favour of companies is that those deciding on their office space today have significantly more options than they did five years ago. Moving or staying used to be the only alternative. Today, at least five paths are open, and some of them require you to understand the structural characteristics of your own property.

The market offers flexibility that hasn't been seen in a long time

A look at the figures reveals a situation that is favourable for tenants. In the "Big 7" cities, office vacancy rose to around 8.5 million square metres by mid-2026, with an average vacancy rate of 8.5 percent, up from 7.7 percent in mid-2025. Düsseldorf recorded the highest rate at 11.8 percent, while Cologne had the lowest at 5.0 percent. (Source: JLL, Big 7 Office Market Report Q2 2026) JLL

At the same time, prices for high-quality space are rising: prime rents in the Big 7 increased by an average of 5 percent over the last twelve months. Together, these two factors describe a decoupling that is more important for your own planning than any average figure. The market is splitting. Negotiating room is growing for average spaces in mid-range locations, while it is shrinking for high-quality spaces at prime addresses. JLL

These figures do not apply directly to locations outside the Big 7, such as the Ruhr area. Düsseldorf is the nearest reference market, and the trend is the same. If you need a reliable figure for your specific location, you can find it in the regional market reports from major real estate firms.

In practical terms, this means that an upcoming lease renewal is currently a negotiation opportunity rather than just a formality. This also applies to instruments that focus on existing leases, such as Blend and Extend, which involves adjusting the rent in exchange for a lease extension.

How have the decision-making criteria shifted?

Accessibility. For those who are in the office two to three days a week and come primarily for collaboration, the commute is calculated differently. In our latest wpi survey, about a third of respondents cited a shorter commute as an aspect that would need to improve for them to come to the office more often. This is remarkable because the commute is the only one of the six points surveyed that cannot be solved by renovation. Acoustics, concentration, quiet zones, modernity, and atmosphere can all be designed. The commute cannot. It can only be changed by changing the location.

This turns accessibility into a planning metric rather than a soft factor: public transport connections and frequency, bicycle infrastructure, parking availability, lunch options, and the quality of the surrounding area.

Quality over quantity. Fewer square metres at a better address can be the better decision for the same total rent. In the industry, this is known as a "flight to quality," and the rising prime rents alongside increasing vacancy rates show that many companies are calculating exactly this way.

Third-party usability and ESG. For owners and tenants with long lease terms, it is becoming relevant whether a property will still be leasable in ten years. Energy efficiency, divisibility, and technical equipment determine whether a property will retain its value.

We have described in more detail how closely collaboration and space requirements are actually linked in our column »Work changes spaces, space changes work« .

What are your five options for reducing office space?

1. Stay and densify. Usage is organised more densely while the leased area remains the same. This makes sense if the lease has a long time left to run and no partial return is negotiable. The space that becomes available is then converted into focus and collaboration areas rather than sitting vacant.

2. Give up part of the space. Through a negotiated partial return to the landlord or via subletting. Both assume that the lease provides for a right to sublet and that no non-compete clause stands in the way. It also assumes that the space can actually be structurally divided. More on that below.

3. Move to a smaller, better space. Higher price per square metre, less space, often the same total rent but with significantly better quality and location. The obvious option if the current location is lacking in terms of accessibility.

4. Split the location. A smaller headquarters plus satellites where the staff lives. In sprawling regions with multiple centres—the Ruhr area is the classic German example—this is often more effective than a single central address.

Whether this model is viable, however, is not decided by the property, but by communication. A split location only works if collaboration is organised asynchronously: decisions are documented instead of being made in the hallway, information is available in writing and accessible to everyone, and project statuses can be viewed without having to ask. Where the flow of information depends on physical presence, a divide between the headquarters and the branch office quickly emerges when splitting. Anyone considering satellites should therefore honestly assess how much knowledge in their company is currently conveyed verbally and incidentally.

5. Flex portion as a buffer. Coworking or serviced offices for peak days, project phases, and growth spurts, instead of permanently maintaining your own space for exceptional cases. This turns part of the space from a fixed cost into a variable one.

Here, too, the prerequisite is asynchronous collaboration, because those sitting in a flex space are cut off from the day-to-day happenings at the main location.

In addition, there is the organisational effort that is often overlooked in calculations: contracts and cost centres need to be managed, access and IT permissions regulated, and data protection and confidentiality in third-party spaces clarified. And the space needs to be utilized. If employees show up there individually and on different days, you create exactly the effect you wanted to avoid: people commute somewhere only to sit alone. A flex portion only works if someone coordinates who is there together and when.

Can your existing space be converted into multi-tenant areas?

Options 2 and 4 stand or fall on this question. And it is not decided by the floor plan, but by access and building services. The checkpoints:

• Access: Are there separate entrances, or can they be created? Is there a second emergency exit for each rental unit? How are the stairwells and elevator cores positioned in relation to the desired subdivision?
• Creating rental areas: Can floors be divided along fire compartments and structural grids without creating unusable residual space?
• Building services: Can ventilation, heating, cooling, and electricity be separately controlled and metered for each unit? Retrofitting separate metres is often the largest cost factor in a subdivision.
• Security and IT: Access control for each rental area, separate networks, and dedicated connection points.
• Sanitary facilities and ancillary areas: Sufficient sanitary facilities per unit or a viable arrangement for shared use.
• Common areas: Reception, deliveries, waste disposal, bike storage, and showers. Who uses them, who manages them, and who pays for them?
• Space allocation: Recalculation of the rental area according to gif guidelines so that common areas can be accurately apportioned.
• Contractual aspects: Subletting rights, landlord consent requirements, non-compete clauses, and restoration obligations.

These questions cannot be answered from behind a desk. What provides the answers is a feasibility study with test planning based on the actual floor plan. Measured against a lease term of five or ten years, this is the most cost-effective part of the entire project. The results are often more encouraging than expected: many existing properties from the eighties and nineties were built with two stairwells and spacious shafts, making them easy to subdivide with manageable effort.

The one metric all five options need

Regardless of which path you are evaluating, you need the actual peak-day attendance and the distribution by space type. Averages are not useful here because attendance tends to cluster on specific days. We have described how to collect both in our article on space requirements for hybrid work in five steps.

This number is the difference between a decision and a guess. And it is the only one that remains the same across all five options.

Key takeaways

What are the options for reducing office space?

Five: densify within the existing space, release part of the area through partial return or subletting, move to a smaller and better-located space, split the location into several smaller units, or plan for a flexible portion via coworking as a buffer for peak days.

Is moving worth it, or is renovating the existing space the better option?

This depends on two questions: Is the current location accessible enough, and does the building allow for the desired spatial structure? If both are true, renovation is usually more economical. If either fails, even a larger budget won't help.

How important is the commute when choosing an office?

In our latest wpi survey, about a third of respondents cited a shorter commute as an aspect that would need to improve for them to come into the office more often. Remarkably, this is the only point surveyed that cannot be solved through construction.

How do I know if my office building can be divided into multi-tenant spaces?

By the access points and building services, not the floor plan. The deciding factors are separate entrances, a second emergency exit for each unit, fire compartments, separately controllable and billable technical systems, and sufficient sanitary facilities. A feasibility study with test planning provides the answer.

Am I allowed to simply sublet office space?

That depends on the lease agreement. Landlord approval requirements and non-compete clauses are standard. Check your subletting rights before speaking with a prospective tenant, and have the contract reviewed by a lawyer if in doubt.

What does a split location require organizationally?

Above all, asynchronous collaboration. As soon as people are permanently based in different locations, knowledge must be documented and accessible without needing to ask. Where information is tied to physical presence, a disparity arises between the headquarters and the branch office. This applies to satellite locations just as much as it does to coworking arrangements.

What is the current market situation for tenants?

According to JLL, the vacancy rate in the Big 7 cities was 8.5 percent at mid-year 2026, up from 7.7 percent the previous year, while prime rents rose by about 5 percent. For average spaces, there is growing room for negotiation, but not for prime locations and top-tier quality.

Whether your space can be divided, downsized, or repurposed is answered by a feasibility study based on your specific floor plan. How much space you will need in the future is answered by the workspace performance insights (wpi). Together, both provide a decision instead of a guess.
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