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Instead of building new housing, cities should pay landlords and companies to convert their office space into apartments. Every office turned into an apartment

Instead of building new housing, cities should pay landlords and companies to convert their office space into apartments. Every office turned into an apartment opens up space both by increasing remote workers and tenants. Convert enough, and both the newly-remote employees and those with jobs which require in-person get a virtual pay increase from decreased rent. (I get in some sense that offices can't just be turned into apartments: you need to change the layout, install sound-proof walls and furniture, and there will be rooms without windows which presumably can't be rented. But also, many people are desperate for some kind of place to stay, so it seems like an office-cheaply-converted-into-suite would suffice)

deelowe 3y ago
You'd have to gut the entire building or maybe even demolish it. Pretty much all of the mechanical would need to be redone.
- actuator 3y ago
  Eh, there are quite a few apartment buildings in every major city which used to be something else like warehouses
  - deelowe 3y ago
    Whataboutism doesn't change anything I said.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    Which were gutted, abated, and rebuilt from the frame up. Office building floors are concrete, usually. You cannot dictate where plumbing goes. Drain pipes are ruled by the iron fist of gravity. And down is technically in your downstairs neighbor's space.
    - actuator 3y ago
      I have seen few buildings in London itself which were warehouses and now have these weird shaped apartments with high ceiling height and a separate floor bedroom arrangement. A lot was kept from the old structure, some of them even make the plumbing added look more of an industrial design
      - bombcar 3y ago
        And I doubt Meta spent $181m to get out of a lease of a warehouse. Skyscrapers are much more difficult to convert (there's an NYT article on it). Midrise buildings might be the best bet, but even then unless you allow "basically slumlord" conversions, it's probably simpler to knock and rebuild, even if you disguise it by leaving the outer walls up or something.
        hinkley 3y ago
        The “hang everything from the elevator shaft” design doesn’t allow that, does it? You might be able to take it to the joists if it’s not hurricane season but not more than that.
      - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        Industrial garage or old single story garment factory conversions are extremely popular with hipsters. Many of the smaller places can be converted into...something. I've seen some beautiful conversions in Pioneer Square/downtown Seattle. But the taller office buildings are much harder to convert, not impossible, and can lead to some stunning excesses (like really high ceilings with horrible heating costs) that wouldn't be possible in a direct for residential build. > , some of them even make the plumbing added look more of an industrial design This was probably out of necessity rather than aesthetics, but again, hipsters (especially rich ones) love this stuff.
        actuator 3y ago
        I agree, also converted 19th century warehouse has a nice ring to it. No one will probably pay the premium for a converted 5 year old building
  - Spooky23 3y ago
    Legacy warehouses are much easier buildings to retrofit.
    - deelowe 3y ago
      Plus, a converted loft that was formerly a hosiery mill from the turn of the century has a certain character to it. An apartment that used to be an ATT call center doesn't have quite the same appeal.
jononomo 3y ago
Office buildings usually have floor plans and plumbing that make it extremely difficult to turn them into apartments.
- hedora 3y ago
  They also usually have space for drop ceilings for exactly this reason. It’s true that the $/sq ft value of post-conversion will be lower than pre-conversion but the idea that the building is negative value is nonsense. Sell each floor as a single unit unrentable condo for $1M, and let the new occupant put whatever floor plan they want in. Office buildings have very few structural walls because companies frequently change floor plans. Most of the articles I’ve seen saying the above is hard assume that building that the current owners of the buildings must turn a profit. Similarly, they assume building codes are immutable. The buildings have safe fire exit routes, and adequate light. So, relax window requirements for individual rooms on the condition that each unit’s perimeter is at least N% window.
  - jononomo 3y ago
    This is a 40-minute interview with a developer who specializes in converting office buildings into apartments: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-really-takes-to-convert-an-office-building/id1056200096?i=1000619506506 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-really-takes-t... It is from this interview that I learned that the plumbing often has to be entirely redone.
kenhwang 3y ago
The cost of a conversion typically isn't much less than the cost of a complete demolition and rebuild. So it just makes more financial sense to find a smaller building to upsize or one in more disrepair to demolish and rebuild than to convert a perfectly fine office building.
- totallywrong 3y ago
  > The cost of a conversion typically isn't much less than the cost of a complete demolition and rebuild. What?? Not saying the conversion is cheap but come on, the building is already there.
  - trust_bt_verify 3y ago
    The walls are normally the cheap part. Running the necessary utilities through those walls quickly adds up in cost and it quickly becomes cheaper to put up new walls, or just a whole new building like the parent comment suggests.
  - SonicScrub 3y ago
    You'd be surprised. The architecture and design podcast 99% Invisible did an episode on this recently. Give it a listen if you're interested in learning more. Here are some details from memory. Internal space without windows can't legally be made into residential. Plumbing and ventilation requirements are vastly different (in offices these go to larger centralized areas, in residential they go to smaller distributed locations). There are very few buildings that can be easily converted to apartments, and the costs of conversion for those that can be is expensive. Meaning what few conversations are possible are limited to luxury units. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/office-space/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/office-space/
    - adolph 3y ago
      > Internal space without windows can't legally be made into residential. Residential: Bah; Dormitory: Yay! In brief: [Charlie Munger—billionaire vice chairman of Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway] has offered UCSB more than $200 million to build this dorm to his designs, which will cost an estimated $1.2 billion. The structure is a giant block in which almost none of the rooms have windows. https://www.architectmagazine.com/design/buildings/the-munger-dorm-is-bad-but-why_o https://www.architectmagazine.com/design/buildings/the-munge... Also, the Munger interview here is pretty funny: https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/15378-exclusive-interview-with-billionaire-charlie-munger-on-controversial-ucsb-dorm https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/15378-exclusive...
RichEO 3y ago
In principle conversion is a good idea, but I see no reason why the city should swoop in and give tax payer money to landlords.
- chii 3y ago
  > why the city should swoop in and give tax payer money to landlords. is the only thing stopping better housing ideological aversion to subsidizing landlords? If the landlords cannot find economical ways to turn offices into residential apartments, they won't do it. Therefore, it is in the city's interest to make such a subsidy.
  - hedora 3y ago
    This is a situation where capitalism is actually pretty close to optimal. The landlord attempts to sell at a small enough loss to avoid bankruptcy. If that fails, the lender (which should be collecting enough interest or holding enough insurance to absorb the shock) forecloses and sells at auction to the highest bidder. The new owner effectively received a subsidy, since they bought way below cost. Incompetent real estate holding companies and banks go under, increasing future economic efficiency. If all this is so bad to lead to economic contagion, the government can bail out the retail investors and institutions that got swindled by the wall street folks. That bailout is some tiny percentage of the cost of bailing out the real estate holders, since all the fiscally irresponsible companies that went under act as ablative shielding.
    - chii 3y ago
      which is exactly what will happen, if there's no gov't intervention. However, this will take years, if not a decade or two. The reason being that the real estate companies knows this is possible, and so is likely diversified, and therefore, can absorb the losses for a long time (as long as they have income elsewhere to make up for it), and hope for a reversal of demand for offices, or wait for organic growth to catch up. They will not willingly bankrupt themselves and take a loss for no good reason - that's just stupid. So in the mean time, the offices aren't being used efficiently. If the city is really keen on making good use of the space by making it residential, they can speed this process up by subsidizing.
actuator 3y ago
If companies are letting go of real estate as some employees want to go remote, why would the said employees who are remote want to stick in the center of city where these offices are, but not go out a bit outside of the center or even suburbs. If they do move out, the demand of real estate in the center anyway goes down
Spooky23 3y ago
It’s not feasible for modernish, large floor plate buildings. These buildings are designed around fluorescent lighting and are usually made from tensioned concrete that you can’t drill for plumbing. Older, prewar buildings are a totally different story. Basically wherever you see a bunch of mostly empty glass buildings, half of them need to be demolished.

deelowe 3y ago

You'd have to gut the entire building or maybe even demolish it. Pretty much all of the mechanical would need to be redone.

actuator 3y ago
Eh, there are quite a few apartment buildings in every major city which used to be something else like warehouses
- deelowe 3y ago
  Whataboutism doesn't change anything I said.
- hinkley 3y ago
  Which were gutted, abated, and rebuilt from the frame up. Office building floors are concrete, usually. You cannot dictate where plumbing goes. Drain pipes are ruled by the iron fist of gravity. And down is technically in your downstairs neighbor's space.
  - actuator 3y ago
    I have seen few buildings in London itself which were warehouses and now have these weird shaped apartments with high ceiling height and a separate floor bedroom arrangement. A lot was kept from the old structure, some of them even make the plumbing added look more of an industrial design
    - bombcar 3y ago
      And I doubt Meta spent $181m to get out of a lease of a warehouse. Skyscrapers are much more difficult to convert (there's an NYT article on it). Midrise buildings might be the best bet, but even then unless you allow "basically slumlord" conversions, it's probably simpler to knock and rebuild, even if you disguise it by leaving the outer walls up or something.
      - hinkley 3y ago
        The “hang everything from the elevator shaft” design doesn’t allow that, does it? You might be able to take it to the joists if it’s not hurricane season but not more than that.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      Industrial garage or old single story garment factory conversions are extremely popular with hipsters. Many of the smaller places can be converted into...something. I've seen some beautiful conversions in Pioneer Square/downtown Seattle. But the taller office buildings are much harder to convert, not impossible, and can lead to some stunning excesses (like really high ceilings with horrible heating costs) that wouldn't be possible in a direct for residential build. > , some of them even make the plumbing added look more of an industrial design This was probably out of necessity rather than aesthetics, but again, hipsters (especially rich ones) love this stuff.
      - actuator 3y ago
        I agree, also converted 19th century warehouse has a nice ring to it. No one will probably pay the premium for a converted 5 year old building
- Spooky23 3y ago
  Legacy warehouses are much easier buildings to retrofit.
  - deelowe 3y ago
    Plus, a converted loft that was formerly a hosiery mill from the turn of the century has a certain character to it. An apartment that used to be an ATT call center doesn't have quite the same appeal.

jononomo 3y ago

Office buildings usually have floor plans and plumbing that make it extremely difficult to turn them into apartments.

hedora 3y ago
They also usually have space for drop ceilings for exactly this reason. It’s true that the $/sq ft value of post-conversion will be lower than pre-conversion but the idea that the building is negative value is nonsense. Sell each floor as a single unit unrentable condo for $1M, and let the new occupant put whatever floor plan they want in. Office buildings have very few structural walls because companies frequently change floor plans. Most of the articles I’ve seen saying the above is hard assume that building that the current owners of the buildings must turn a profit. Similarly, they assume building codes are immutable. The buildings have safe fire exit routes, and adequate light. So, relax window requirements for individual rooms on the condition that each unit’s perimeter is at least N% window.
- jononomo 3y ago
  This is a 40-minute interview with a developer who specializes in converting office buildings into apartments: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-really-takes-to-convert-an-office-building/id1056200096?i=1000619506506 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-really-takes-t... It is from this interview that I learned that the plumbing often has to be entirely redone.

kenhwang 3y ago

The cost of a conversion typically isn't much less than the cost of a complete demolition and rebuild. So it just makes more financial sense to find a smaller building to upsize or one in more disrepair to demolish and rebuild than to convert a perfectly fine office building.

totallywrong 3y ago
> The cost of a conversion typically isn't much less than the cost of a complete demolition and rebuild. What?? Not saying the conversion is cheap but come on, the building is already there.
- trust_bt_verify 3y ago
  The walls are normally the cheap part. Running the necessary utilities through those walls quickly adds up in cost and it quickly becomes cheaper to put up new walls, or just a whole new building like the parent comment suggests.
- SonicScrub 3y ago
  You'd be surprised. The architecture and design podcast 99% Invisible did an episode on this recently. Give it a listen if you're interested in learning more. Here are some details from memory. Internal space without windows can't legally be made into residential. Plumbing and ventilation requirements are vastly different (in offices these go to larger centralized areas, in residential they go to smaller distributed locations). There are very few buildings that can be easily converted to apartments, and the costs of conversion for those that can be is expensive. Meaning what few conversations are possible are limited to luxury units. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/office-space/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/office-space/
  - adolph 3y ago
    > Internal space without windows can't legally be made into residential. Residential: Bah; Dormitory: Yay! In brief: [Charlie Munger—billionaire vice chairman of Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway] has offered UCSB more than $200 million to build this dorm to his designs, which will cost an estimated $1.2 billion. The structure is a giant block in which almost none of the rooms have windows. https://www.architectmagazine.com/design/buildings/the-munger-dorm-is-bad-but-why_o https://www.architectmagazine.com/design/buildings/the-munge... Also, the Munger interview here is pretty funny: https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/15378-exclusive-interview-with-billionaire-charlie-munger-on-controversial-ucsb-dorm https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/15378-exclusive...

RichEO 3y ago

In principle conversion is a good idea, but I see no reason why the city should swoop in and give tax payer money to landlords.

chii 3y ago
> why the city should swoop in and give tax payer money to landlords. is the only thing stopping better housing ideological aversion to subsidizing landlords? If the landlords cannot find economical ways to turn offices into residential apartments, they won't do it. Therefore, it is in the city's interest to make such a subsidy.
- hedora 3y ago
  This is a situation where capitalism is actually pretty close to optimal. The landlord attempts to sell at a small enough loss to avoid bankruptcy. If that fails, the lender (which should be collecting enough interest or holding enough insurance to absorb the shock) forecloses and sells at auction to the highest bidder. The new owner effectively received a subsidy, since they bought way below cost. Incompetent real estate holding companies and banks go under, increasing future economic efficiency. If all this is so bad to lead to economic contagion, the government can bail out the retail investors and institutions that got swindled by the wall street folks. That bailout is some tiny percentage of the cost of bailing out the real estate holders, since all the fiscally irresponsible companies that went under act as ablative shielding.
  - chii 3y ago
    which is exactly what will happen, if there's no gov't intervention. However, this will take years, if not a decade or two. The reason being that the real estate companies knows this is possible, and so is likely diversified, and therefore, can absorb the losses for a long time (as long as they have income elsewhere to make up for it), and hope for a reversal of demand for offices, or wait for organic growth to catch up. They will not willingly bankrupt themselves and take a loss for no good reason - that's just stupid. So in the mean time, the offices aren't being used efficiently. If the city is really keen on making good use of the space by making it residential, they can speed this process up by subsidizing.

actuator 3y ago

If companies are letting go of real estate as some employees want to go remote, why would the said employees who are remote want to stick in the center of city where these offices are, but not go out a bit outside of the center or even suburbs. If they do move out, the demand of real estate in the center anyway goes down

Spooky23 3y ago

It’s not feasible for modernish, large floor plate buildings. These buildings are designed around fluorescent lighting and are usually made from tensioned concrete that you can’t drill for plumbing. Older, prewar buildings are a totally different story. Basically wherever you see a bunch of mostly empty glass buildings, half of them need to be demolished.