4 ms·

It's not that easy, those places were built as offices, not apartments, they don't have a lot of the things that are required to be liveable.

dumbfounder 4y ago
Who said it was? Do it anyways. The cost of having an empty building in a big city is high. Getting some more people in there is good for the city, so the city should help. Having the downtown area decay is bad bad bad. But I am sure the owners are exploring every option they can. But to me the answer is simple: figure out a way to make it happen.
- drstewart 4y ago
  Well, nothing is stopping you from making an offer on the building.
  - dumbfounder 4y ago
    I am more talking about the city than buyers.
- alfor 4y ago
  I agree, but it’s always a question of money. With the cost of transformation it’s possible the value of building will be zero or even negative. In this case the owner of the building default and the building stay there and decay until the city take on the burden of demolition or transformation with dwindling tax revenue... Start to look like Detroit scenario. It doesn’t look that bad form the outside, I wonder what would it take to collapse like this.
empty_buildings 4y ago
[Given enough political motivation and building/zoning permits] Can't these be taken down and rebuild into residential? Given a long enough projected decline in needed office space there must be a ROI to rebuild at some point.
- marcinzm 4y ago
  Tearing down a building in a downtown area is expensive and if demand for residential units also drops (ie: why would you want to live in an empty office building wasteland). So might be better to invest in buildings in further out areas that have not been built up as offices yet. Removing the daily need for commuting to work can change a lot of the dynamics around where people want to live even if they stay in the same metro areas.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Even if I wanted to live in San Francisco I sure wouldn't choose to live in the general downtown area if I weren't commuting to a job there every day.
Hippocrates 4y ago
e.g. Plumbing throughout the floor, single-occupancy bathrooms, windows in the center, HVAC and utilities that can be metered and operate independently from other "units". This kind of building is a lot tougher than say, a pre-war office building like you might see in NYC. Those ones tend to have more "rooms" and sometimes center shafts, whereas these newer ones are a bunch of stacked up wide open floors, with elevators, mech, and bathrooms in the center.

dumbfounder 4y ago

Who said it was? Do it anyways. The cost of having an empty building in a big city is high. Getting some more people in there is good for the city, so the city should help. Having the downtown area decay is bad bad bad. But I am sure the owners are exploring every option they can. But to me the answer is simple: figure out a way to make it happen.

drstewart 4y ago
Well, nothing is stopping you from making an offer on the building.
- dumbfounder 4y ago
  I am more talking about the city than buyers.
alfor 4y ago
I agree, but it’s always a question of money. With the cost of transformation it’s possible the value of building will be zero or even negative. In this case the owner of the building default and the building stay there and decay until the city take on the burden of demolition or transformation with dwindling tax revenue... Start to look like Detroit scenario. It doesn’t look that bad form the outside, I wonder what would it take to collapse like this.

empty_buildings 4y ago

[Given enough political motivation and building/zoning permits] Can't these be taken down and rebuild into residential? Given a long enough projected decline in needed office space there must be a ROI to rebuild at some point.

marcinzm 4y ago
Tearing down a building in a downtown area is expensive and if demand for residential units also drops (ie: why would you want to live in an empty office building wasteland). So might be better to invest in buildings in further out areas that have not been built up as offices yet. Removing the daily need for commuting to work can change a lot of the dynamics around where people want to live even if they stay in the same metro areas.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Even if I wanted to live in San Francisco I sure wouldn't choose to live in the general downtown area if I weren't commuting to a job there every day.

Hippocrates 4y ago

e.g. Plumbing throughout the floor, single-occupancy bathrooms, windows in the center, HVAC and utilities that can be metered and operate independently from other "units". This kind of building is a lot tougher than say, a pre-war office building like you might see in NYC. Those ones tend to have more "rooms" and sometimes center shafts, whereas these newer ones are a bunch of stacked up wide open floors, with elevators, mech, and bathrooms in the center.