The word “amenity” is now frequently heard on the lips of the 5 huge institutional proprietors who together manage 65 percent of A-grade workplace in Sydney and Melbourne.
However, Mr Bonétt said feature had actually been his directing concept given that he purchased his very first workplace building 25 years earlier, Port Adelaide’s Customs House, which his Precision Group still owns.
Listening to feedback
Mr Bonétt is now a Sydneysider however was still based in his Adelaide home town at the time, and the previous insolvency legal representative would talk with his occupants and their staff.
“They were telling me there weren’t enough childcare centres nearby, so I put one into the building,” he said. Based on feedback, he looked for a gym to be a ground-floor renter at Customs House also.
“All these landlords and employers now wondering why people aren’t coming into the office should think about a person’s daily schedule. Give people a childcare centre that isn’t a 40-minute drive away, subsidise a gym membership in the building, they will turn up!”
Mr Bonétt said Port Adelaide’s Customs House was not only 100 per cent leased, it had a waiting list.
Meanwhile, his two other office buildings – 144 Edward Street in Brisbane’s CBD, and the Metro Chatswood Business Centre 10 kilometres north of Sydney’s CBD – both enjoy more than 90 per cent occupancy.
“I bought all of them based on transport hubs, restaurants, pubs, gyms and childcare centres being either within them or within close proximity,” Mr Bonétt said.
Power of pets
Another feature that unites all three office buildings is that they are pet-friendly. Structurally, Mr Bonétt said this amounted to little more than designating a room on each floor for the animal to “do their business”. More complicated was the process of amending leases, notifying local councils and educating tenants on the processes around allowing animals at work.
However, Mr Bonétt said the effort had paid off.
“To me, allowing pets in your workplace is like the litmus test between the nice words about culture on your website, and whether you’re serious about creating a welcoming environment,” he said.
Pet-friendly policies are often dismissed as a gimmick, but many of the pets that attend the offices owned by Precision Group are emotional support animals for people suffering conditions such as anxiety.
“Full employment has helped give people with a disability a much greater voice in the corporate world, and landlords need to listen.”
Mr Bonétt admitted that one reason for his office portfolio’s below-average vacancy rate was his long-time avoidance of the Sydney and Melbourne CBDs, where he had heard anecdotally that “ghost tenancies” – space officially rented but not being used by the renter – had pushed the “real” vacancy rate closer to 30 percent.
“The biggest cities in most parts of the world are out of favour,” he said.
“There is greater pressure on employers to act reasonably and ensure staff aren’t unnecessarily put out by enduring long travel periods to and from the office. In smaller cities like Brisbane and Adelaide that travel time and that pressure is much less.”
