The World’s Largest Office is Empty

Universal Challenge of Scale

Before you think, 'That could never happen here,' consider that SDB had everything going for it: government backing, industry logic, and perfect timing for India's growth story. If it can sit empty, any big workplace can.

And there are a lot of big projects out there.

For single tenants, JPMC’s 2.5m sqft ​HQ​ and Walmart’s 350-acre ​Home Office​ are both supported by executive mandates.

Mixed-use developments go even bigger with ​Ellinikon​ (Greece, 600 acres), ​Songdo IBD​ (South Korea, 1,500 acres), and the audacious ​NEOM​ (Saudi Arabia).

Why are big spaces inherently risky? Three compounding factors:

• Fixed costs meet variable demand
• Pivot options become limited
• Sunk cost psychology can take over

Changing course becomes exponentially harder when you've committed hundreds of millions or billions to a specific vision of work.

And the pace of change is accelerating. AI is reshaping entire industries in months, not years. Generational shifts in work preferences happen faster than construction timelines. And work happens anywhere now.

There's also a leadership trap: One person's vision of "the future of work" becomes organizational gospel, encoded in concrete and steel.

Repurposing Reality Check

Buildings around the world are being repurposed, for example:

• BMO ​turned​ a mall in Toronto into an office
• An office in Calgary is ​becoming​ an urban farm
• A baseball stadium in Indiana was ​converted​ into apartments

But imagine having to convert the Pentagon into, say, a hotel.

Now consider SDB’s challenge: 6.6m sqft designed for a workflow that simply isn't materializing.

I’m a strong advocate for offices having a ​clear purpose​, but the more purpose-built something is, the harder it becomes to pivot when that purpose changes.

Repurposing a generic building is easier than a diamond in the rough.

New Rules for Big Decisions

Innovative organizations are learning to build differently. Here are four principles emerging from perceived failures like SDB and successes I'm seeing elsewhere:

Rule 1: Build for Multiple Futures

Design flexibility into projects from day one, especially the big ones.

Google’s ​Alta Garage​ project was “purposely designed to not be a parking garage someday – and stands ready to be converted into commercial, residential or community use whenever the moment is right.”

In "​Empty Spaces and Hybrid Places​," my former colleagues and I wrote:

"To adapt to declining demand for traditional office and retail space, developers could create hybrid buildings. The most ambitious vision is a universal, ‘neutral use’ building whose design, infrastructure, and technology could be easily modified to serve different uses."

Neutral use is future-proof by definition.

Rule 2: Test Before You Scale

Run pilot programs. Try gradual rollouts. Set milestone checkpoints where you can genuinely change course. Most importantly, challenge executive assumptions with real user behavior data.

Two years ago, I ​published​ a survey of 50 progressive real estate and workplace leaders, in which fewer than half indicated they had a process to test and measure new concepts.

The diamond traders who were supposed to flock to Surat never had a chance to vote with their feet before the massive infrastructure was complete. WeWork Phil would have asked, “Is there a way to try this out with a flexible workspace before fully committing?”

Rule 3: Distribute Decision-Making

Avoid single-leader mandates for complex behavioral changes.

When an individual's ​vision​ becomes organizational doctrine, particularly regarding a new HQ or RTO policy, the risks increase exponentially. The most successful workplace transformations I've studied involve broad stakeholder input and genuine consensus-building.

Rule 4: Speed Beats Scale

Agility beats ambition in a world where AI can reshape entire industries in months. It's better to build right-sized and iterate than go big and get stuck. The companies thriving in 2025 can pivot quickly when their initial assumptions prove wrong…especially for real estate decisions, where it takes months or years to build a new facility.

The smartest companies I work with treat major workplace decisions like software releases: ship a minimum viable product, gather user feedback, iterate rapidly. One of my clients is literally planning to use a versioning system for new workplace behavioral norms.

Your Action Plan

Before your next major workplace initiative, ask these three questions:

1. Reality Check: "What assumptions are we making that felt bulletproof just a few years ago?"
2. Voice Check: "Who will actually live and/or work in this space, and what do they really want?"
3. Escape Hatch: "If our core thesis proves wrong, what's Plan B?"

Assuming this will be a team effort, you can ​forward this email​ to any colleagues who should hear the cautionary tale of SDB.

The Paradox of Progress

Permits take months. Construction takes years. Lease commitments span decades. Meanwhile, AI, shifting talent preferences, economic shocks are reshaping work in real time.

The math is brutal: By the time you finish building for today's vision of work, that vision may already be obsolete.

The winners won't be the ones who predict the future perfectly. They will the ones who build the capacity to adapt.

The SDB is more than a mega-project, it’s a monument to a fixed vision of work. Whether it erodes, evolves, or reinvents itself, the lesson is clear:

Do not build what you cannot afford to change.

What assumptions is your organization pouring into concrete and steel? Please get in touch—I’d love to hear what your version of the SDB looks like.