I think you would be surprised to what the ratio of office square foot to employee headcount looks like. Most modern offices are designed to 150-250 sf per employee including circulating space, common meeting rooms, kitchens, and washrooms.
Also, if what you say is correct, that office space is 10x suburban housing rent, that is most certainly an anomaly unique to your city. That would mean a high end market, like NY or SF with $100-$150 per square foot rents would have housing stock renting for $10-15 per square foot (these are annual numbers). That is not the case in any market I have ever encountered.
