ABSTRACT
The COVID global pandemic necessitated significant changes in people's lifestyles and work habits. A reduction in the face-to-face workforce has led to significant vacancy in commercial spaces and businesses re-evaluating their needs for large commercial leases. The increased vacancy has also resulted in lower demand for retail and cafes on the ground level in cities globally. The primary issue with vacancy is that commercial centres appear to be dead or dying to the public, creating concerns and stigmas for certain areas which can further drive vacancy and devaluation of commercial buildings. STAR is a type of adaptation also known as ‘meanwhile use’ involving a temporary change-of-use classification. It can be applied to a whole building or part of it. The STAR Toolkit explores the additional value STAR brings to prolong a building's usefulness and increase occupancy by supporting organisations to offer increased social advantages to knowledge workers and other communities. It uses Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting criteria. It may be the case that issues relating to vacancy and under occupancy are different between differing building grades and sub-precincts. STAR aims to explore these issues and open the conversation on using existing building stock more intensively.
