If all you have is a lease, then this is the sunk cost fallacy. Your paying the lease whether you use it or not, so that should not be a factor. Not using it is still cheaper as you do not have the overhead of keeping the space usable (electricity, janitors, etc), and eventually the lease will end. And, you might something else to do with the space that, while not worth the lease, still has non 0 value that you wouldn’t get if the space was being used for offices. Besides, at some point the lease would end.
Of course, if your board and executives have investments in commercial real estate, or industries that depend on it (restraunts in commercial areas, supplies of office grade toilet paper, etc), then they have a clear conflict of interest, and may want to sacrifice the interests of the one company to prop up their other investments. In theory, shareholders could sue over this. However, not only would this be very hard to prove, but almost all shareholders have the exact same conflict of interest.
I know commercial real estate contacts are more complicated than just a lease. Plus companies lose tax incentives from local governments that outweigh any any power and building staff costs. The problem is its not the lease that’s required to get those incentives. It’s butts in seats and with commercial real estate contacts they may have to pay a penalty if people are nit using the building because the building owner may have contracts with city to make sure that buildings traffic is supporting other businesses around the office building that may be owned by the same people. Note I think the whole system is stupid but it’s more complicated than just sunk cost.
If all you have is a lease, then this is the sunk cost fallacy. Your paying the lease whether you use it or not, so that should not be a factor. Not using it is still cheaper as you do not have the overhead of keeping the space usable (electricity, janitors, etc), and eventually the lease will end. And, you might something else to do with the space that, while not worth the lease, still has non 0 value that you wouldn’t get if the space was being used for offices. Besides, at some point the lease would end.
Of course, if your board and executives have investments in commercial real estate, or industries that depend on it (restraunts in commercial areas, supplies of office grade toilet paper, etc), then they have a clear conflict of interest, and may want to sacrifice the interests of the one company to prop up their other investments. In theory, shareholders could sue over this. However, not only would this be very hard to prove, but almost all shareholders have the exact same conflict of interest.
I know commercial real estate contacts are more complicated than just a lease. Plus companies lose tax incentives from local governments that outweigh any any power and building staff costs. The problem is its not the lease that’s required to get those incentives. It’s butts in seats and with commercial real estate contacts they may have to pay a penalty if people are nit using the building because the building owner may have contracts with city to make sure that buildings traffic is supporting other businesses around the office building that may be owned by the same people. Note I think the whole system is stupid but it’s more complicated than just sunk cost.