You open your phone, scroll through a shopping app, browse for a few minutes, tap “add to cart,” and check out. Before you know it, your order arrives at your door. That level of immediacy has quietly reshaped expectations of speed and convenience across nearly every industry. Office space is no exception.
This shift is often referred to as the “Amazon Effect.” Chris Lewis of Lee & Associates describes it as tenants applying consumer-style speed expectations to office space. He also points out that average tenant sizes have dropped from about 6,000 square feet pre-COVID to roughly 3,800 square feet today, reinforcing a broader move toward smaller, faster decisions.
This shift isn’t just changing expectations; it’s changing how office deals actually move. Tenants are ready to sign smaller, faster leases, but the traditional supply side of the market is built for a much slower era. Space availability, landlord approvals, and behind-the-scenes financial requirements can all stall execution, even when a tenant is ready to move immediately.
In many cases, the friction isn’t about finding space anymore—it’s about the massive gap between a tenant's urgency and the industry's ability to execute.
On an episode of the Transcending Workspace podcast, Rob Nielsen, EVP at JLL, highlighted one reason these delays continue to happen in the office market. He explained that while some landlords are willing to move quickly and offer more flexible terms, their ability to do so is often slowed by lender approvals behind the scenes.
TRANSCENDING WORKSPACE · ROB NIELSEN, EVP AT JLL
There are a handful of landlords that can transact in Seattle that are willing to offer pretty incredible concessions... and then getting the lender on board with that really slows things down — because the lender is trying to work through a number of these in a number of different markets.
This creates a split in the market: trophy and Class A buildings with strong financial backing continue to move quickly, while everything else takes longer to close.
Here's something that often gets overlooked: even when a tenant finds the space and signs the lease quickly, the clock doesn't stop.
Furniture. Technology. Move coordination. Space planning. Each of these workstreams still has to happen, and when handled in sequence the traditional way, they can add months to an already compressed timeline.
The real estate decision might happen faster than ever, but if the workspace isn't ready when people need to show up, none of that speed really matters. That gap between lease signing and operational readiness is where a lot of delays quietly accumulate — and it's something we've seen firsthand.
These delays become most visible when organizations face immovable deadlines tied to lease expirations or occupancy requirements.
When timelines compress, everything compresses. A relocation originally planned as a two-month effort was compressed into just three weeks due to lease timing pressures and the need to avoid significant holdover rent exposure. Furniture, logistics, installation, and move coordination all had to run in parallel instead of sequence to meet the deadline.
The Amazon Effect isn't a passing trend. It has changed what speed means in office space. It no longer stops at leasing decisions. It carries through to how quickly a space can actually be ready for use.
Navigating all of this requires more than just finding the right space. The compressed timelines, the landlord constraints, the gap between lease signing and day one — there's a lot to consider. And that includes the people you choose to work with at every stage of the move. Your broker. Your internal stakeholders. And the partner responsible for making sure your workspace is actually ready when your people show up.
That last part is where we come in. Let's discuss how our team can help.