Return-to-Office Is Driving a New Wave of Commercial Moves — Is Your Space Ready?

After years of hybrid arrangements and downsized footprints, the office is back on the agenda. Amazon brought 350,000 corporate employees back five days a week in January 2025. JPMorgan Chase followed with a full-time mandate for all 316,000 employees. A KPMG survey of global CEOs found that 83% expect a complete return to five-day office weeks within three years. National office occupancy recently hit its highest point since the pandemic began.

That shift is generating something concrete: a new wave of commercial moves. And many companies are finding their space isn't ready for it.

Coming Back Doesn't Mean Going Back to the Same Office

The return-to-office moment isn't simply reversing the clock. It's prompting companies to rethink their physical space entirely — and that rethinking often ends in a move. CBRE's research shows that 59% of organizations are considering or actively executing a relocation to higher-quality space. Savills found that 80% of large office leases signed in the first half of 2025 involved tenants moving to new or upgraded locations, not renewing in place.

On the West Coast, this pattern is visible across every market Chipman serves. Amazon's return-to-office push is measurably lifting foot traffic in downtown Seattle. San Francisco's leasing activity hit its highest annual volume since before the pandemic, fueled in part by AI sector growth. Sacramento's downtown vacancy is outperforming most West Coast markets as the state's return-to-office mandate takes effect. The activity is real — and it comes with significant logistics demands.

The Hidden Complexity of an RTO-Driven Move

Companies that haven't thought through the physical side of returning to office often encounter the same problems. Space that sat mostly empty for two or three years may have outdated network infrastructure that can't handle full-occupancy demands. Furniture purchased for a different headcount doesn't suit the collaboration-heavy configurations that hybrid policies require. And the awkward reality that tripped up Amazon and several other large employers: there weren't enough desks.

Reconfiguring for hybrid work typically means replacing assigned seating with hoteling systems, adding acoustic pods and smaller meeting rooms, and rethinking storage for employees who aren't there every day. Each change touches furniture, fixtures, and equipment — and often requires a facilities team to coordinate procurement, removal, delivery, and installation across multiple floors simultaneously.

Pro Tip: Don't treat IT as a separate workstream. Network capacity, AV systems, and wireless access points need to be assessed and upgraded before employees return — not after they're already there experiencing the gaps.

How Much Lead Time Does a Commercial Move Actually Need?

One of the most common mistakes companies make is underestimating how far in advance planning needs to start. For a mid-size organization, three to six months is a realistic minimum. Larger, multi-floor moves with complex IT requirements often require six to twelve months of lead time to execute cleanly.

The goal is to confine physical disruption to the narrowest possible window — ideally a single weekend — while doing all the preparatory work in the weeks leading up to it. That means furniture procurement and delivery to a staging location well before move day, IT infrastructure installed and tested at the destination in advance, and a department-by-department sequencing plan so that no team loses more than a day of productive work during the transition.

Pro Tip: A phased move approach — starting with storage and lower-priority departments, finishing with revenue-critical teams — keeps operational risk contained even when timelines compress unexpectedly.

Ongoing Change Doesn't Stop After Move Day

For many companies, the move is just the beginning. Hybrid policies create a dynamic workplace where layouts shift, headcount changes, and departments reconfigure on a rolling basis. That ongoing churn requires a facilities partner who can handle moves, additions, and changes as they come — not a one-time commercial mover. Chipman's Move, Add, Change (MAC) services are built for exactly that: responsive, recurring workspace changes managed without coordinating a new vendor every time something needs to move.

Your Move Back Should Move You Forward

Chipman Relocation & Logistics has been managing commercial office moves across San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Portland, and Seattle since 1939. Our project managers, West Coast warehouse network, and MAC services give companies the full infrastructure to plan, execute, and sustain a return-to-office move without losing momentum. Contact us today to talk through what your space needs — and what it takes to get there.