People enter the Astarta Organic Business Centre in Kyiv on May 18, 2020. Although Astarta continues to work as usual during the coronavirus lockdown, its visitors and residents were obliged to wear medical masks, keep a safe distance from others, and undergo temperature screenings before clocking into work.

The novel coronavirus has changed the way people interact with physical space: less contact, more distance. And now many more people are working from home.

For the commercial real estate market, this new normal — in which only 32% of Ukrainians are working in office settings like they did before the pandemic — raises many questions. As vacancies grow, rental rates are set to decline. And tenants are reconsidering how best to use physical workplaces.