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> 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 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...
gonzo41 3y ago
The type of plumbing, fires systems and ventilation change depending on office use to apartments.
rticesterp 3y ago
The plumbing, electrical and code requirements are completely different for residential. Think kitchens and bathrooms every 10 to 20 feet. People need windows in all of the rooms. Most open offices couldn't be converted into residences.
kenhwang 3y ago
Typically you'll have to put in all new electrical and plumbing, because the existing office level capacity is no where near sufficient. You'll have to completely redesign HVAC and ventilation as well since you can't have an entire floor be one climate and you'll need exterior ventilation for showers/cooking/laundry that aren't a consideration in an office. There might not even be enough space between floors to accommodate those things. Then there's other code considerations like windows and fire exit distance requirements that become harder to meet once you start adding walls. If you have to move all the floors, walls, utilities, elevators, and exits, how much of the original building are you actually leaving intact? Often times, even after doing all that, a conversion still isn't viable because there's just too much floor area and not enough windows to make any layout that isn't a 10k sqft single room studio viable.
- hedora 3y ago
  I’ve seen enough factory to residential conversations to say that 10,000 sq ft studios are amazing. They’re probably worth less per square foot than a bunch of smaller apartments, but they’re still worth way more than a typical N bedroom apartment. You can always build rooms out of dividers, etc to break up the space.
  - leesalminen 3y ago
    A 10ksf studio doesn’t sound very affordable, though. How many residential tenants can afford that kind of space? Is there really a big market for that?
    - belltaco 3y ago
      10ksf studios will reduce the cost of housing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37524331 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37524331
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > you'll have to put in all new electrical and plumbing The solution is dorm-style housing. Shared bathrooms to reduce plumbing requirements. Waiver of window requirements for internal rooms, possibly even units. New York has a couple of these left, and they’re popular with young people first moving to the city. (Shared bathrooms. Units without windows are also popular, but they are illegal.) Unfortunately, it’s largely against code, and not for safety reasons.
bombcar 3y ago
Even a simple remodel of a normal house can be more expensive than building new, because building new is hella fast. And commercial buildings are often just knocked down and a new one built because that's cheaper.
celestialcheese 3y ago
Everyone is saying plumbing/utilities - that's not usually the biggest cost or issue with conversions (although it is expensive). It's lack of natural light and the size of the typical floor plate for offices that often render the projects impossible without significant structural rework. This building in manhattan is in the range of ~$400/500/sqft to renovate existing offices to apts [1]. ANd that's with concessions from Adams in NYC to allow for windowless office rooms in the space. Still likely better economics than a ground up rebuild, but likely only because the project can be completed and permitted much faster than a ground up project in big cities. 1 - https://gothamist.com/news/the-countrys-biggest-office-to-apartment-conversion-is-underway-inside-the-old-daily-news-office https://gothamist.com/news/the-countrys-biggest-office-to-ap...
Gigachad 3y ago
You’ve got a steel and concrete frame already there. Everything else is not only useless, but actively in the way and has to be replaced. And the end result will still suck because that building frame was designed in a fundamentally different way to how apartments are.
randomdata 3y ago
The thing is, people like to live near where the work is. If one office among many is closing down, that puts these homes right in the centre of the action. That might make for a good residence and justify the cost. But if swaths of offices are closing down, as suggested earlier, there won't be any nearby work left. Why would people want to live in those converted buildings? "the building is already there" can be said about any ghost town. Hell, in those ghost towns, many of those buildings are houses already. There being a building isn't a compelling enough reason to want to live somewhere.

> 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...

gonzo41 3y ago

The type of plumbing, fires systems and ventilation change depending on office use to apartments.

rticesterp 3y ago

The plumbing, electrical and code requirements are completely different for residential. Think kitchens and bathrooms every 10 to 20 feet. People need windows in all of the rooms. Most open offices couldn't be converted into residences.

kenhwang 3y ago

Typically you'll have to put in all new electrical and plumbing, because the existing office level capacity is no where near sufficient. You'll have to completely redesign HVAC and ventilation as well since you can't have an entire floor be one climate and you'll need exterior ventilation for showers/cooking/laundry that aren't a consideration in an office. There might not even be enough space between floors to accommodate those things. Then there's other code considerations like windows and fire exit distance requirements that become harder to meet once you start adding walls. If you have to move all the floors, walls, utilities, elevators, and exits, how much of the original building are you actually leaving intact? Often times, even after doing all that, a conversion still isn't viable because there's just too much floor area and not enough windows to make any layout that isn't a 10k sqft single room studio viable.

hedora 3y ago
I’ve seen enough factory to residential conversations to say that 10,000 sq ft studios are amazing. They’re probably worth less per square foot than a bunch of smaller apartments, but they’re still worth way more than a typical N bedroom apartment. You can always build rooms out of dividers, etc to break up the space.
- leesalminen 3y ago
  A 10ksf studio doesn’t sound very affordable, though. How many residential tenants can afford that kind of space? Is there really a big market for that?
  - belltaco 3y ago
    10ksf studios will reduce the cost of housing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37524331 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37524331
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> you'll have to put in all new electrical and plumbing The solution is dorm-style housing. Shared bathrooms to reduce plumbing requirements. Waiver of window requirements for internal rooms, possibly even units. New York has a couple of these left, and they’re popular with young people first moving to the city. (Shared bathrooms. Units without windows are also popular, but they are illegal.) Unfortunately, it’s largely against code, and not for safety reasons.

bombcar 3y ago

Even a simple remodel of a normal house can be more expensive than building new, because building new is hella fast. And commercial buildings are often just knocked down and a new one built because that's cheaper.

celestialcheese 3y ago

Everyone is saying plumbing/utilities - that's not usually the biggest cost or issue with conversions (although it is expensive). It's lack of natural light and the size of the typical floor plate for offices that often render the projects impossible without significant structural rework. This building in manhattan is in the range of ~$400/500/sqft to renovate existing offices to apts [1]. ANd that's with concessions from Adams in NYC to allow for windowless office rooms in the space. Still likely better economics than a ground up rebuild, but likely only because the project can be completed and permitted much faster than a ground up project in big cities. 1 - https://gothamist.com/news/the-countrys-biggest-office-to-apartment-conversion-is-underway-inside-the-old-daily-news-office https://gothamist.com/news/the-countrys-biggest-office-to-ap...

Gigachad 3y ago

You’ve got a steel and concrete frame already there. Everything else is not only useless, but actively in the way and has to be replaced. And the end result will still suck because that building frame was designed in a fundamentally different way to how apartments are.

randomdata 3y ago

The thing is, people like to live near where the work is. If one office among many is closing down, that puts these homes right in the centre of the action. That might make for a good residence and justify the cost. But if swaths of offices are closing down, as suggested earlier, there won't be any nearby work left. Why would people want to live in those converted buildings? "the building is already there" can be said about any ghost town. Hell, in those ghost towns, many of those buildings are houses already. There being a building isn't a compelling enough reason to want to live somewhere.