Most of those obligations are through special-purpose entities for each location. They just walk away from all but the most profitable ones and leave the landlords holding the bag.
Why would landlords agree to this? "Hey guys, we'll sign a 25 year lease with you but only through a special purpose entity, so we back out at anytime and you can't do anything!". Given how choosy and patient commercial landlords are (eg. letting properties stay vacant for years to find the right tenant), why did they make an exception for wework?
If WeWork walks away, they leave behind nice offices that the landlord can rent out to another tenant with minimal investment beyond a few months lost rent (that could theoretically be recouped from WeWork).
I think most real estate folks learned their lessons in the dot-com bust. Lot's of folks were making stupid office space deals with tech companies in return for warrants, etc., which ended up being worth less than nothing.
Or did WeWork pay for refurbishing the building, so that, if they stop renting early, the building’s owner ends up with a better building than what it had before?
"FF&E are movable furniture, fixtures, or other equipment that have no permanent connection to the structure of a building or utilities. These items depreciate substantially but definitely are important costs to consider when valuing a company, especially in liquidation."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furniture,_fixtures_and_equipm...
Even if not, they are in for some expensive lawsuits. It won't be a matter of simply walking away.
1. WeWork got away with this no matter how stupid those landlords were
2. Landlords actually signed out leases with no collateral considerations.
Though, to be honest, assuming WeWork doesn't actually stiff them on time the space was in active use and a bit of a margin... then I'm less disappointed, since the land lords will have lost very little actual value.