4 ms·

Turn them into apartments please. Property prices are too high. At least some offices can be made suitable for residential usage.

hot_gril 4y ago
But the whole reason people wanted to live in a lot of these cities was to be near the offices.
- subarctic 4y ago
  I don't know which cities we're talking about here, but i happen to know at least a few cities that are desirable to live in even if you don't have to commute to an office.
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    Yeah, there are cities that are nice to live in, but a lot of them were built around particular industries or had huge commute flows that surely had something to do with the housing demand. Like SF, Sunnyvale/Palo Alto area, Pittsburgh, Redmond, and Detroit. People used to act like worker bees following the queen, but now it's more complicated, and some of the queens have moved.
    - OkayPhysicist 4y ago
      San Fransisco's housing prices reflect the high pay available to tech workers living there, sure, but it would still be an extremely attractive place to live without commute reduction as a benefit. Night life, cultural scenes, gorgeous weather, it's an extremely attractive city in its own right. Urban living is extremely attractive to many people who don't have families to fill out sprawling suburban homes. If in-office white collar work collapses totally, I'd expect to see a sudden drop in housing prices as older people who were only living in the city to save on a commute rush out, followed by a delayed correction of people currently living outside of cities because they can't afford them moving in. Prices would likely remain greater than suburbia, but maybe closer to the halfway mark between current city/suburb rent costs. The cities that will be hit hard are the "cities"/glorified suburbs that litter the rest of the Bay Area. They're too expensive to for just the weather, they don't have the attractions of urban life, and basically the only reason to live in, say, Fremont, today is because it cuts your commute in half relative to living on the other side of the hills.
      - RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
        > San Fransisco's housing prices reflect the high pay available to tech workers living there, sure, but it would still be an extremely attractive place to live without commute reduction as a benefit. Night life, cultural scenes, gorgeous weather, it's an extremely attractive city in its own right. It would be an attractive place to live but for the random stabbings, used needles, and human feces.
        hot_gril 4y ago
        I can see why some people would like SF despite those issues. It's a big advantage that you can get around the city without a car and that the weather is nice, particularly those two things in combination. I still hated it for other reasons but don't assume everyone does. The thing is, for each person there willingly, it seemed like there were 10 people just moving or commuting in for work. It was assumed by default that you don't live there or at least haven't been there for long.
    - emodendroket 4y ago
      The number of people who actually leave their cities for a different one for work-related reasons has plummeted over the past several decades.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    Problem is American cities are not nice to live in.
- 8bitsrule 4y ago
  An office in your home is really near. And can be the basis of a nice tax write-off.
  - plasticchris 4y ago
    Careful with this tax advice, it doesn’t work if you are salaried (at least not at the moment).
    - hot_gril 4y ago
      Also doesn't help if you're using standard deduction.
908B64B197 4y ago
If I was a commercial landlord, I would start doing this ASAP before everyone.
jghn 4y ago
My understanding is that this is often prohibitively expensive, and potentially impossible for some buildings.
- photonbeam 4y ago
  Bulldozer, then build
  - jghn 4y ago
    To some extent that's starting to happen near me. But it's a long, expensive process. I don't disagree that housing would be a good addition. But it's not going to be a magic bullet without flaws.
kaiku 4y ago
One issue is plumbing. A floor of apartments needs more pipes and drains than were built in for office space. Interesting problem to solve, for sure.
- jghn 4y ago
  Besides plumbing, one thing that came up on a similar discussion in the subreddit for my local area was that there the codes are different between commercial & residential in terms of how far away a room can be from an exterior wall. And it's not uncommon for commercial buildings to have a lot of space that would be unusable in a residential setting because of this.
- okdood64 4y ago
  Plumbing wasn't an issue for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Van_Ness_Avenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Van_Ness_Avenue I think the shape of the building matters most.
- ajb 4y ago
  Not really. Most of these kind of offices have either a raised floor or suspended ceiling, making the addition of this kind of service trivial, compared to doing it in residential buildings. Natural light and fire escapes will be more difficult to provide.
proggy 4y ago
The primary challenge with office tower conversions are the floor plates. Most are big, sprawling rectangles with yawning amounts of interior space intended for cubicles, interior offices/conference rooms, and other windowless uses. Natural light is only available at the perimeter and therefore comes at a premium. The vast majority of proposed apartment conversions call for putting the living area along the curtain wall of windows and push the bedrooms into windowless areas within the core, which is problematic. Removing natural light from sleeping areas messes with circadian rhythm, reduces egress options, and reduces ventilation options as well. In my humble opinion we should not normalize the idea that access to natural light and ventilation in a bedroom should come at a premium in residential construction at least. If you’ve ever been on a cruise ship and seen/stayed in an interior state room, it’s pretty much that but a place intended for permanent residency.
- Haga 4y ago
  Optic fibers and light domes. These are all long solved problems everywhere.

hot_gril 4y ago

But the whole reason people wanted to live in a lot of these cities was to be near the offices.

subarctic 4y ago
I don't know which cities we're talking about here, but i happen to know at least a few cities that are desirable to live in even if you don't have to commute to an office.
- hot_gril 4y ago
  Yeah, there are cities that are nice to live in, but a lot of them were built around particular industries or had huge commute flows that surely had something to do with the housing demand. Like SF, Sunnyvale/Palo Alto area, Pittsburgh, Redmond, and Detroit. People used to act like worker bees following the queen, but now it's more complicated, and some of the queens have moved.
  - OkayPhysicist 4y ago
    San Fransisco's housing prices reflect the high pay available to tech workers living there, sure, but it would still be an extremely attractive place to live without commute reduction as a benefit. Night life, cultural scenes, gorgeous weather, it's an extremely attractive city in its own right. Urban living is extremely attractive to many people who don't have families to fill out sprawling suburban homes. If in-office white collar work collapses totally, I'd expect to see a sudden drop in housing prices as older people who were only living in the city to save on a commute rush out, followed by a delayed correction of people currently living outside of cities because they can't afford them moving in. Prices would likely remain greater than suburbia, but maybe closer to the halfway mark between current city/suburb rent costs. The cities that will be hit hard are the "cities"/glorified suburbs that litter the rest of the Bay Area. They're too expensive to for just the weather, they don't have the attractions of urban life, and basically the only reason to live in, say, Fremont, today is because it cuts your commute in half relative to living on the other side of the hills.
    - RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
      > San Fransisco's housing prices reflect the high pay available to tech workers living there, sure, but it would still be an extremely attractive place to live without commute reduction as a benefit. Night life, cultural scenes, gorgeous weather, it's an extremely attractive city in its own right. It would be an attractive place to live but for the random stabbings, used needles, and human feces.
      - hot_gril 4y ago
        I can see why some people would like SF despite those issues. It's a big advantage that you can get around the city without a car and that the weather is nice, particularly those two things in combination. I still hated it for other reasons but don't assume everyone does. The thing is, for each person there willingly, it seemed like there were 10 people just moving or commuting in for work. It was assumed by default that you don't live there or at least haven't been there for long.
  - emodendroket 4y ago
    The number of people who actually leave their cities for a different one for work-related reasons has plummeted over the past several decades.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Problem is American cities are not nice to live in.
8bitsrule 4y ago
An office in your home is really near. And can be the basis of a nice tax write-off.
- plasticchris 4y ago
  Careful with this tax advice, it doesn’t work if you are salaried (at least not at the moment).
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    Also doesn't help if you're using standard deduction.

908B64B197 4y ago

If I was a commercial landlord, I would start doing this ASAP before everyone.

jghn 4y ago

My understanding is that this is often prohibitively expensive, and potentially impossible for some buildings.

photonbeam 4y ago
Bulldozer, then build
- jghn 4y ago
  To some extent that's starting to happen near me. But it's a long, expensive process. I don't disagree that housing would be a good addition. But it's not going to be a magic bullet without flaws.

kaiku 4y ago

One issue is plumbing. A floor of apartments needs more pipes and drains than were built in for office space. Interesting problem to solve, for sure.

jghn 4y ago
Besides plumbing, one thing that came up on a similar discussion in the subreddit for my local area was that there the codes are different between commercial & residential in terms of how far away a room can be from an exterior wall. And it's not uncommon for commercial buildings to have a lot of space that would be unusable in a residential setting because of this.
okdood64 4y ago
Plumbing wasn't an issue for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Van_Ness_Avenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Van_Ness_Avenue I think the shape of the building matters most.
ajb 4y ago
Not really. Most of these kind of offices have either a raised floor or suspended ceiling, making the addition of this kind of service trivial, compared to doing it in residential buildings. Natural light and fire escapes will be more difficult to provide.

proggy 4y ago

The primary challenge with office tower conversions are the floor plates. Most are big, sprawling rectangles with yawning amounts of interior space intended for cubicles, interior offices/conference rooms, and other windowless uses. Natural light is only available at the perimeter and therefore comes at a premium. The vast majority of proposed apartment conversions call for putting the living area along the curtain wall of windows and push the bedrooms into windowless areas within the core, which is problematic. Removing natural light from sleeping areas messes with circadian rhythm, reduces egress options, and reduces ventilation options as well. In my humble opinion we should not normalize the idea that access to natural light and ventilation in a bedroom should come at a premium in residential construction at least. If you’ve ever been on a cruise ship and seen/stayed in an interior state room, it’s pretty much that but a place intended for permanent residency.

Haga 4y ago
Optic fibers and light domes. These are all long solved problems everywhere.