Empty state office buildings don’t leave Whitmer much space 

I’ve got a luxurious view from my Ottawa Street office of that big parking lot between the Hall of Justice and the Ottawa Building. 

Before COVID, that parking lot — probably 80% to 90% full — emptied out between 5 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. on the one-way street toward Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Leaving my office around that time if you were in a rush wasn’t advised. 

Today, the scene is much different.  

State office workers have found (surprise, surprise) that they actually like working from home. Their union leaders have gotten the memo. 

So, when Gov. Gretchen Whitmer let her state department heads craft post-COVID, in-person/at-home/hybrid schedules, the Democratic administration was quite accommodating. 

Supervisors, like their underlings, found working from home to be much more convenient for a lot of reasons. 

No commute. Essentially live where you want (as long as you have a good Internet signal). Close to the frig. More schedule flexibility. State employees like that deal. 

A recent report found only about 15% of state employes with office jobs show up to the office four or five days a week. 

Anecdotally, in the few times I’ve been allowed to roam a state office building on the Capitol Mall, there’s been next to nobody there. Literally. 

That parking lot my desk overlooks? It’s 20-25% full. Maybe. 

When it comes right down to it, if employees are getting their work done on time and without issue, who cares?  

Downtown Lansing business and eateries, of course, but making sure Kewpees has a lunch rush five days a week isn’t exactly a state concern. 

So, here’s the question. If all these employees mostly work from home, why do we need all these state office buildings? 

It’s a question the governor and her administration don’t like answering. 

The Detroit News tried to get to the bottom of how many employees are actually in those buildings on a given day by asking for a report on the employees’ recorded keycard swipes. 

The report exists. The Department of Technology, Management and Budget simply doesn’t want to share it.  

The department director says there are security concerns with letting the information be public. Presumably, if someone wanted to blow up state office buildings and wanted to see where to cause the most damage, they could simply look it up. 

Seems like a stretch to me.  

What seems more likely is the administration doesn’t want folks talking about how empty state office buildings are. It’s a losing political issue for her, and she can’t do much about it. 

Here are the official numbers. They come from a draft report by CBRE, a global real estate service firm that state government hired to look into the space issue. 

They found that about 65% of the office space set aside for state of Michigan employees is assigned to somebody. At the Capitol Mall, specifically, it was 63%. At the Ottawa Building, only a third of the office space is assigned to someone. 

Republicans are onto this. They brought the Technology, Management and Budget director, Michelle Lange, into an uncomfortable committee meeting a couple of weeks ago. Their message: Until we get a handle on all of this empty office space, next year’s budget isn’t getting passed. 

Whitmer could put a “For Sale” sign on buildings along the Capitol Mall, but the reality is who is going to buy all that space? There’s empty office space all over the place. 

Beyond that, what happens if the next governor requires all state employees return to work in-person? Both Republican Aric Nesbitt and independent Mike Duggan have signaled that they’re going to do exactly that. 

State government may need some of that space back.  

Meanwhile, taking a more practical approach with the space issue ends up making her look like she’s pro-state bureaucracy. That never sits well politically. 

Whatever happens, I’ll have a front-row seat from my office window — when I’m even there to see the empty parking lot. 

(Email Kyle Melinn, editor of the Capitol news service MIRS, at melinnky@gmail.com.)