RXR prides itself on its ability to forecast trends from the insights that we derive from our deep understanding of our customers, community and markets, and to develop products that address these changing demands.

For instance, take our commercial office portfolio, where we have become the regional leader in adapting iconic 20th Century structures and turning them into dynamic 21st Century facilities that encourage collaboration and innovation. We became the leader in this sector by engaging with a wide-range of the customers who might ultimately occupy these buildings, from some of the world’s fastest growing tech firms, to leaders in more traditional fields.

Based on what we learned from our customers, we recognized dramatic changes that needed to be addressed in the market. The most significant was that there was no typical work day.

Increasingly, 9-to-5 is becoming 5-to-9, and the line between “at work” and “not at work” is blurring. To make this tolerable, our customers told us that we needed to help them transform the workspace into an ecosystem of “urban experiences.” This includes amenities and gathering spaces, combined with opportunities for rich, differentiated and purposeful human interactions, resulting in a true sense of belonging to a special community. The community aspect has become so critical to our customers because their workspaces have become among their most important assets – the keys to attracting and developing much sought-after talent.

So, we responded. We changed the traditional landlord-tenant relationship, turning it from one that was primarily transactional to one that was human-focused – one that sought to improve the quality of the lives of those who occupied our buildings.

Customer expectations have continued to evolve as new, innovative products and services have changed how they live, work and play. Today, customers expect a business such as ours to know what they want before they tell us (in some cases before they even know themselves). These customers are the employees who work for our tenants in our commercial buildings, the individuals who live in our growing residential portfolio, the individuals who partake of the food, services and entertainment afforded by our retail spaces and, in the not-too-distant future, the individuals who receive our hospitality products and services. They put a premium on productivity, so that they can extract more from their time and spaces. They put a premium on flexibility, because a fast-changing world demands they be nimble. And they put a premium on community, authenticity and experiences, because in a world where most connectivity takes place online, people are starving for meaningful human interaction.