9 ms·

Most offices have physical layouts that make conversion to residential difficult to impossible. Big things like lots of interior square footage without windows

by ptmcc 4y ago

Most offices have physical layouts that make conversion to residential difficult to impossible. Big things like lots of interior square footage without windows and plumbing only to a few central locations. And while some or even most of this is fixable, major renovations are a ton of cost and effort to convert them to something that will still be expensive and weird, if even possible to meet the legal requirements of residential space. https://sfstandard.com/housing-development/turning-downtown-offices-into-housing-isnt-the-solution-you-think-it-is/ https://sfstandard.com/housing-development/turning-downtown-...

ethbr0 4y ago
Maybe SF should relax the legal requirements of residential space, then? If they choose not to build sufficient housing... they can at least choose to use what they have. A windowless room with a community bathroom doesn't sound appealing, but at a certain price point it's better than nothing.
- s0rce 4y ago
  As long as its safe to occupy for permanent living it should get permitted, not sure how its much different than a hostel/rooming house-like arrangement. You don't need a kitchen and bathroom in your unit to live.
  - notch656a 4y ago
    Safety will always be a top argument to constrain and block off new housing. Look at current building codes. Sure all those things make us safer -- if you ignore the homeless left on the streets and the people who no longer have money left over for good food, education, and healthcare after paying the high price it costs to build an up-to-code house in America. You can restrict housing practically as tight as you want by raising permitting requirements, safety assessments, and safety factors and other safety features until it's practically impossible for anyone but the rich to build. There are people out there that would be safer in a run-down tinder-box shack than an up to code and zoned house. Not because the house is safer, but because it allows them to have an affordable roof over their head and round out their finances for other things that bring them wellbeing. Building and zoning codes fail to account for this.
    - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
      China has a lot of people living in subbasements ("ant tribe", not just the immediate floor before ground, but the 3rd or 4th floor below ground). No egress, crappy ventilation (mold is a huge problem), but its cheap. Also, a lot of restaurants in Beijing have their staff sleeping out in their dining room after they close up as a form of worker dorms (people also sleep in their shops, which is why they cover the windows up after closing). So this is all very crappy housing situations, but its cheap, and one reason why China doesn't have a huge homeless problem (though still larger than the government admits). Japan has a lot of 2.5 tatami sized apartments that you can get for $500/month (even in Tokyo). No heat, but you can plug in a space heater. Shared toilet, and no shower necessarily in building (so you have to use a bath house down the street). America goes out of its way to avoid such living arrangements, and to avoid things like slums. I think we could do a better job at creating lower end housing, however, by sacrificing some of our livability principles. But it isn't going to fix the guy who wants to cook meth in their state provided housing.
      - fakethenews2022 4y ago
        My opinion is that the problem with SF isn’t as much housing. It is more with mental health and drug addiction. You do know where many immigrants live right? It isn’t so much on the streets. It is 16 packed into a single apartment. So the mechanisms people talk about already exist. It is that the homeless can’t work because of mental or social issues that compound with drug abuse. You need to fix the mental issues, social issues, and the drug abuse. The housing helps a little but the underlying problems are still there. I think the results already show this.
        fakethenews2022 4y ago
        We can just measure this. What percentage of people we give just housing to get off their feet after say a year or two? What percentage of people we allow to shoot up in city approved areas go clean after a year or two? From what I have read, it is a percentage in the low single digits. We are perpetuating a permanent dependent underclass along with a bureaucracy that is incentivized to maintain the class to maintain their power.
- ptmcc 4y ago
  But that is also key to the problem: the cost to convert these buildings is already prohibitively expensive, and converting them into dormitories cannot possibly recoup the cost. It's like how sometimes it just doesn't make sense to refactor code because it is fundamentally designed for a different purpose. Sure you can grind it out but will it be any better or cheaper than starting fresh?
  - sharklazer 4y ago
    Even bigger, most of the buildings are highly leveraged. There literally is no incentive unless the mortgages can be restructured, as the ultimate prices will be forwarded to the renter. Everyone’s underwater a there isn’t a good solution without massive price decrease (crash) or commercial space demand re-invigorates.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > most of the buildings are highly leveraged. There literally is no incentive unless the mortgages can be restructured, as the ultimate prices will be forwarded to the renter. This is what recessions are useful for. Underwater mortgages still need to be serviced. There might be a deal in providing assistance to the lender in exchange for financing conversion.
    - adam_arthur 4y ago
      It's called default and foreclosure, followed by liquidation by the lender. The mortgages will fail for most new office space, because the underwriting used unrealistic assumptions about rents.
  - klooney 4y ago
    I mean, SF residential prices are still super high, it seems like it oughta pencil out.
    - metadaemon 4y ago
      I think flooding the market in new living spaces would decrease demand, leading to lower rent.
- rapind 4y ago
  > A windowless room with a community bathroom doesn't sound appealing, but at a certain price point it's better than nothing. You make this legal and tomorrow every RE developer stops putting in windows.
  - Longlius 4y ago
    Then put restrictions on it - pass a law that allows you to convert commercial to residential during X number of years and for that converted commercial to have slightly laxer requirements than standard residential housing. Don't allow new residential construction to skirt the regulations and put a time limit on the law to keep property developers from simply building commercial with the off-chance of being able to convert it to residential if the market for commercial real estate doesn't rebound.
    - acchow 4y ago
      If only making laws was as simple as adding if statements in computer programs... In the real world, you have millions of agents try to game every law and bend it into their advantage in some way.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > You make this legal and tomorrow every RE developer stops putting in windows This sounds like new housing supply. I'm failing to see the problem. Developers still have to sell the apartment, after all.
    - sangnoir 4y ago
      >This sounds like new housing supply. I'm failing to see the problem The problem is the new housing supply was always imminent - only now, it's windowless, all because developers can increase margins by 1.07% and shorten build times by a day.
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
    Except people will pay extra for windows...
- silicon2401 4y ago
  > Maybe X should relax the legal requirements of Y That's a slippery slope. Lots of legal requirements exist to protect someone. Legal requirements for windows are pretty reasonable to ensure people have at least some bare minimum of access to natural light in their home, rather than just living in a box.
  - lghh 4y ago
    Seems to me like lots of people in SF would rather live in an indoor box than an outdoor box. Why not let those without homes choose if they are willing to take the risks associated with ignoring those rules over l king on the streets?
    - raydev 4y ago
      > lots of people in SF would rather live in an indoor box than an outdoor box. Yes, and people voluntarily placed themselves under indentured servitude before it was made illegal. If there's a housing shortage, the solution isn't to remove bare minimum housing standards for everyone.
    - stavros 4y ago
      Presumably an office space would still cost more than a homeless person could afford, so it's not economical to convert an office to ultra-cheap housing.
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > Presumably an office space would still cost more than a homeless person could afford, so it's not economical to convert an office to ultra-cheap housing It may be something a marginally housed person could afford, though. Maybe that makes room in their budget for healthier food, addiction counseling or after-school tutoring. Or maybe they're already strained and would otherwise be on the street.
    - entropicdrifter 4y ago
      Because that's how you get the haves taking even greater advantage of the have-nots, to the point of injury, illness, and death in the name of slightly greater profits.
- gibsonf1 4y ago
  The requirements for residential units are primarily the International Building Code, which are the expensive ones. The city only manages planning, such as a residential use can go in a certain area. To actually build, you need a building permit which has to conform to City and State building codes [2], which right now is basically the International Building Code [1]. And yes, it would cost a fortune to convert office into residential use. However, if office buildings become truly deserted and can be bought at very low cost, then it can start making financial sense. The building codes have evolved over time to protect life/safety of the occupants, so not something you would want to have the City bypass. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Building_Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Building_Code [2] https://sfdbi.org/codes https://sfdbi.org/codes
  - gernb 4y ago
    Many of those codes have been designed to protect incombents from competition and various other forms of encouraging one form of living (car dependent) over others. Plenty of people in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, etc live happy lives in much much smaller living areas. This makes them more affordable. But building codes in many places in the USA disallow making places that small. Other examples of questionable codes are codes that require parking spaces, codes that require front yards, codes that require backyards, etc.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCOdQsZa15o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCOdQsZa15o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnKIVX968PQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnKIVX968PQ
    - gibsonf1 4y ago
      (I'm an Architect who has built in SF) Parking spaces, front yards, back yards, building heights, building types, density etc are all City Planning functions, and you're right, have little to do with life/safety typically, and in many ways are quite destructive by making walkable livable cities very difficult to do now. The Building codes, on the other hand, have evolved with each disaster over the last century or two - a building collapsing in an earthquake, people dying in fires, etc. So those have real life/safety protection as a primary directive.
- UnpossibleJim 4y ago
  Given that we spend at least 8 hours a day working in these places, working, is anyone surprised at the resistance to return to the office? It's "basically unlivable" but ok to toil in for a third of your living day in (minus the traffic)... I'm sure I'll face a lot of backlash for placing the argument in this framing, but I think more than a few people feel this way.
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  > A windowless room with a community bathroom doesn't sound appealing, It also likely doesn't meet Fire code, which is there for a pretty good reason.
- jshprentz 4y ago
  > A windowless room with a community bathroom doesn't sound appealing, but at a certain price point it's better than nothing. Last November, HN briefly discussed [1] Munger Hall at the University of California Santa Barbara, which will be just such a building. Housing 4,500 students, only 32 of 512 single rooms on each floor will have physical windows. The remaining 95% will have virtual windows that simulate sunlight. The HN linked article [2] includes a floor plan and a rendering of an 8-room cluster with shared kitchen, dining room, and bathrooms. UC Santa Barbara has more information on the project [3]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29096773 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29096773 [2] https://www.dezeen.com/2021/11/02/architect-resigns-grotesque-design-university-california-munger-hall/ https://www.dezeen.com/2021/11/02/architect-resigns-grotesqu... [3] https://sam.ucsb.edu/campus-planning-design/current-projects/munger-hall https://sam.ucsb.edu/campus-planning-design/current-projects...
  - ulfw 4y ago
    Terrible way to live for a human being. Hello Matrix.
  - radicaldreamer 4y ago
    This building is a recipe for mental illness. It’s like someone saw Kowloon Walled City and was like, let’s do that (or Chungking Mansions). People do live there (some pretty happily) but this does not seem like a good idea for UCSB freshmen.
fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
Can they be converted into huge units with an open floor plan and bathroom/kitchen near the center? If someone can figure out how to make it look cool, office conversions could be the 2020s version of the warehouse loft.
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  Sublime. All of the people who hated working in an open office are screaming at the idea of living in one.
  - MiddleEndian 4y ago
    The corporate commune!
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    I am very over getting together in people’s open plan kitchen + living/family/dining room homes and being unable to have a conversation because 10 people’s voices are bouncing around one room with 10ft ceilings when there is enough space for 2 or even 3 separate rooms. And the TV volume is on for some reason. And the exhaust above the stove is on. And the kitchen faucet is running.
    - kelseyfrog 4y ago
      A lot of those conversations could have been just an email.
      - mitchdoogle 4y ago
        nice
- Finnucane 4y ago
  19h century brick and concrete industrial buildings weren't built the same way. Or, obviously, to the same height. It's much easier to just gut them to the shell and then add in your modern amenities.
mancerayder 4y ago
They did it extensively in lower Manhattan after 9/11 I thought? The layout doesn't seem so terrible, minus the plumbing and heating concerns.
starkd 4y ago
It's like efforts to convert abandoned malls into apartments. Hard to even imagine living in a mall and the exorbitant cost to convert into something livable. Most people would rather be homeless than living in such a terrifying environment.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  Doubt
gbasin 4y ago
Take a look at Manhattan's Financial District — seems like half of the commercial buildings have already been converted to residential. Some layouts are a bit awkward but it works fine
ratchetbob 4y ago
maybe it's the new ware-home? (warehouse home) similar gluts caused a really vibrant music scene in Berlin
cronix 4y ago
Sounds better than living in a tent on the street.
dogman144 4y ago
I think it is more difficult to impossible to make office to residential units conversions that fit a $/sqft that’s meets the market for normal housing (avoid huge square footage for cheap). All of these buildings have a hub, bathrooms, and open ceilings for laying more pipes/wiring next to all the fiber cables.
dieselgate 4y ago
Interesting point and seems pretty logical. There are a lot of warehouse/commercial spaces used for housing in places like Oakland and am sure people would want to live there (mentioned commercial spaces) if they could. Hopefully it’s safe for living, though, the Ghostship fire comes to mind specifically
pbreit 4y ago
Surely there is more creativity out there than this?
anigbrowl 4y ago
If industrial/warehouse spaces can be converted to lofts office spaces can be repurposed as well. Make the spaces available and affordable and let people figure it out as they go.
picsao 4y ago

by ptmcc 4y ago

ethbr0 4y ago

Maybe SF should relax the legal requirements of residential space, then? If they choose not to build sufficient housing... they can at least choose to use what they have. A windowless room with a community bathroom doesn't sound appealing, but at a certain price point it's better than nothing.

s0rce 4y ago
As long as its safe to occupy for permanent living it should get permitted, not sure how its much different than a hostel/rooming house-like arrangement. You don't need a kitchen and bathroom in your unit to live.
- notch656a 4y ago
  Safety will always be a top argument to constrain and block off new housing. Look at current building codes. Sure all those things make us safer -- if you ignore the homeless left on the streets and the people who no longer have money left over for good food, education, and healthcare after paying the high price it costs to build an up-to-code house in America. You can restrict housing practically as tight as you want by raising permitting requirements, safety assessments, and safety factors and other safety features until it's practically impossible for anyone but the rich to build. There are people out there that would be safer in a run-down tinder-box shack than an up to code and zoned house. Not because the house is safer, but because it allows them to have an affordable roof over their head and round out their finances for other things that bring them wellbeing. Building and zoning codes fail to account for this.
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    China has a lot of people living in subbasements ("ant tribe", not just the immediate floor before ground, but the 3rd or 4th floor below ground). No egress, crappy ventilation (mold is a huge problem), but its cheap. Also, a lot of restaurants in Beijing have their staff sleeping out in their dining room after they close up as a form of worker dorms (people also sleep in their shops, which is why they cover the windows up after closing). So this is all very crappy housing situations, but its cheap, and one reason why China doesn't have a huge homeless problem (though still larger than the government admits). Japan has a lot of 2.5 tatami sized apartments that you can get for $500/month (even in Tokyo). No heat, but you can plug in a space heater. Shared toilet, and no shower necessarily in building (so you have to use a bath house down the street). America goes out of its way to avoid such living arrangements, and to avoid things like slums. I think we could do a better job at creating lower end housing, however, by sacrificing some of our livability principles. But it isn't going to fix the guy who wants to cook meth in their state provided housing.
    - fakethenews2022 4y ago
      My opinion is that the problem with SF isn’t as much housing. It is more with mental health and drug addiction. You do know where many immigrants live right? It isn’t so much on the streets. It is 16 packed into a single apartment. So the mechanisms people talk about already exist. It is that the homeless can’t work because of mental or social issues that compound with drug abuse. You need to fix the mental issues, social issues, and the drug abuse. The housing helps a little but the underlying problems are still there. I think the results already show this.
      - fakethenews2022 4y ago
        We can just measure this. What percentage of people we give just housing to get off their feet after say a year or two? What percentage of people we allow to shoot up in city approved areas go clean after a year or two? From what I have read, it is a percentage in the low single digits. We are perpetuating a permanent dependent underclass along with a bureaucracy that is incentivized to maintain the class to maintain their power.
ptmcc 4y ago
But that is also key to the problem: the cost to convert these buildings is already prohibitively expensive, and converting them into dormitories cannot possibly recoup the cost. It's like how sometimes it just doesn't make sense to refactor code because it is fundamentally designed for a different purpose. Sure you can grind it out but will it be any better or cheaper than starting fresh?
- sharklazer 4y ago
  Even bigger, most of the buildings are highly leveraged. There literally is no incentive unless the mortgages can be restructured, as the ultimate prices will be forwarded to the renter. Everyone’s underwater a there isn’t a good solution without massive price decrease (crash) or commercial space demand re-invigorates.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > most of the buildings are highly leveraged. There literally is no incentive unless the mortgages can be restructured, as the ultimate prices will be forwarded to the renter. This is what recessions are useful for. Underwater mortgages still need to be serviced. There might be a deal in providing assistance to the lender in exchange for financing conversion.
  - adam_arthur 4y ago
    It's called default and foreclosure, followed by liquidation by the lender. The mortgages will fail for most new office space, because the underwriting used unrealistic assumptions about rents.
- klooney 4y ago
  I mean, SF residential prices are still super high, it seems like it oughta pencil out.
  - metadaemon 4y ago
    I think flooding the market in new living spaces would decrease demand, leading to lower rent.
rapind 4y ago
> A windowless room with a community bathroom doesn't sound appealing, but at a certain price point it's better than nothing. You make this legal and tomorrow every RE developer stops putting in windows.
- Longlius 4y ago
  Then put restrictions on it - pass a law that allows you to convert commercial to residential during X number of years and for that converted commercial to have slightly laxer requirements than standard residential housing. Don't allow new residential construction to skirt the regulations and put a time limit on the law to keep property developers from simply building commercial with the off-chance of being able to convert it to residential if the market for commercial real estate doesn't rebound.
  - acchow 4y ago
    If only making laws was as simple as adding if statements in computer programs... In the real world, you have millions of agents try to game every law and bend it into their advantage in some way.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > You make this legal and tomorrow every RE developer stops putting in windows This sounds like new housing supply. I'm failing to see the problem. Developers still have to sell the apartment, after all.
  - sangnoir 4y ago
    >This sounds like new housing supply. I'm failing to see the problem The problem is the new housing supply was always imminent - only now, it's windowless, all because developers can increase margins by 1.07% and shorten build times by a day.
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  Except people will pay extra for windows...
silicon2401 4y ago
> Maybe X should relax the legal requirements of Y That's a slippery slope. Lots of legal requirements exist to protect someone. Legal requirements for windows are pretty reasonable to ensure people have at least some bare minimum of access to natural light in their home, rather than just living in a box.
- lghh 4y ago
  Seems to me like lots of people in SF would rather live in an indoor box than an outdoor box. Why not let those without homes choose if they are willing to take the risks associated with ignoring those rules over l king on the streets?
  - raydev 4y ago
    > lots of people in SF would rather live in an indoor box than an outdoor box. Yes, and people voluntarily placed themselves under indentured servitude before it was made illegal. If there's a housing shortage, the solution isn't to remove bare minimum housing standards for everyone.
  - stavros 4y ago
    Presumably an office space would still cost more than a homeless person could afford, so it's not economical to convert an office to ultra-cheap housing.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > Presumably an office space would still cost more than a homeless person could afford, so it's not economical to convert an office to ultra-cheap housing It may be something a marginally housed person could afford, though. Maybe that makes room in their budget for healthier food, addiction counseling or after-school tutoring. Or maybe they're already strained and would otherwise be on the street.
  - entropicdrifter 4y ago
    Because that's how you get the haves taking even greater advantage of the have-nots, to the point of injury, illness, and death in the name of slightly greater profits.
gibsonf1 4y ago
The requirements for residential units are primarily the International Building Code, which are the expensive ones. The city only manages planning, such as a residential use can go in a certain area. To actually build, you need a building permit which has to conform to City and State building codes [2], which right now is basically the International Building Code [1]. And yes, it would cost a fortune to convert office into residential use. However, if office buildings become truly deserted and can be bought at very low cost, then it can start making financial sense. The building codes have evolved over time to protect life/safety of the occupants, so not something you would want to have the City bypass. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Building_Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Building_Code [2] https://sfdbi.org/codes https://sfdbi.org/codes
- gernb 4y ago
  Many of those codes have been designed to protect incombents from competition and various other forms of encouraging one form of living (car dependent) over others. Plenty of people in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, etc live happy lives in much much smaller living areas. This makes them more affordable. But building codes in many places in the USA disallow making places that small. Other examples of questionable codes are codes that require parking spaces, codes that require front yards, codes that require backyards, etc.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCOdQsZa15o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCOdQsZa15o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnKIVX968PQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnKIVX968PQ
  - gibsonf1 4y ago
    (I'm an Architect who has built in SF) Parking spaces, front yards, back yards, building heights, building types, density etc are all City Planning functions, and you're right, have little to do with life/safety typically, and in many ways are quite destructive by making walkable livable cities very difficult to do now. The Building codes, on the other hand, have evolved with each disaster over the last century or two - a building collapsing in an earthquake, people dying in fires, etc. So those have real life/safety protection as a primary directive.
UnpossibleJim 4y ago
Given that we spend at least 8 hours a day working in these places, working, is anyone surprised at the resistance to return to the office? It's "basically unlivable" but ok to toil in for a third of your living day in (minus the traffic)... I'm sure I'll face a lot of backlash for placing the argument in this framing, but I think more than a few people feel this way.
HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
> A windowless room with a community bathroom doesn't sound appealing, It also likely doesn't meet Fire code, which is there for a pretty good reason.
jshprentz 4y ago
> A windowless room with a community bathroom doesn't sound appealing, but at a certain price point it's better than nothing. Last November, HN briefly discussed [1] Munger Hall at the University of California Santa Barbara, which will be just such a building. Housing 4,500 students, only 32 of 512 single rooms on each floor will have physical windows. The remaining 95% will have virtual windows that simulate sunlight. The HN linked article [2] includes a floor plan and a rendering of an 8-room cluster with shared kitchen, dining room, and bathrooms. UC Santa Barbara has more information on the project [3]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29096773 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29096773 [2] https://www.dezeen.com/2021/11/02/architect-resigns-grotesque-design-university-california-munger-hall/ https://www.dezeen.com/2021/11/02/architect-resigns-grotesqu... [3] https://sam.ucsb.edu/campus-planning-design/current-projects/munger-hall https://sam.ucsb.edu/campus-planning-design/current-projects...
- ulfw 4y ago
  Terrible way to live for a human being. Hello Matrix.
- radicaldreamer 4y ago
  This building is a recipe for mental illness. It’s like someone saw Kowloon Walled City and was like, let’s do that (or Chungking Mansions). People do live there (some pretty happily) but this does not seem like a good idea for UCSB freshmen.

fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago

Can they be converted into huge units with an open floor plan and bathroom/kitchen near the center? If someone can figure out how to make it look cool, office conversions could be the 2020s version of the warehouse loft.

kelseyfrog 4y ago
Sublime. All of the people who hated working in an open office are screaming at the idea of living in one.
- MiddleEndian 4y ago
  The corporate commune!
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  I am very over getting together in people’s open plan kitchen + living/family/dining room homes and being unable to have a conversation because 10 people’s voices are bouncing around one room with 10ft ceilings when there is enough space for 2 or even 3 separate rooms. And the TV volume is on for some reason. And the exhaust above the stove is on. And the kitchen faucet is running.
  - kelseyfrog 4y ago
    A lot of those conversations could have been just an email.
    - mitchdoogle 4y ago
      nice
Finnucane 4y ago
19h century brick and concrete industrial buildings weren't built the same way. Or, obviously, to the same height. It's much easier to just gut them to the shell and then add in your modern amenities.

mancerayder 4y ago

They did it extensively in lower Manhattan after 9/11 I thought? The layout doesn't seem so terrible, minus the plumbing and heating concerns.

starkd 4y ago

It's like efforts to convert abandoned malls into apartments. Hard to even imagine living in a mall and the exorbitant cost to convert into something livable. Most people would rather be homeless than living in such a terrifying environment.

anigbrowl 4y ago
Doubt

gbasin 4y ago

Take a look at Manhattan's Financial District — seems like half of the commercial buildings have already been converted to residential. Some layouts are a bit awkward but it works fine

ratchetbob 4y ago

maybe it's the new ware-home? (warehouse home) similar gluts caused a really vibrant music scene in Berlin

cronix 4y ago

Sounds better than living in a tent on the street.

dogman144 4y ago

I think it is more difficult to impossible to make office to residential units conversions that fit a $/sqft that’s meets the market for normal housing (avoid huge square footage for cheap). All of these buildings have a hub, bathrooms, and open ceilings for laying more pipes/wiring next to all the fiber cables.

dieselgate 4y ago

Interesting point and seems pretty logical. There are a lot of warehouse/commercial spaces used for housing in places like Oakland and am sure people would want to live there (mentioned commercial spaces) if they could. Hopefully it’s safe for living, though, the Ghostship fire comes to mind specifically

pbreit 4y ago

Surely there is more creativity out there than this?

anigbrowl 4y ago

If industrial/warehouse spaces can be converted to lofts office spaces can be repurposed as well. Make the spaces available and affordable and let people figure it out as they go.

picsao 4y ago