Thats great but I don’t think my office building could ever be converted. It has a central core and 3 wings (shape like mercedes symbol) but most of the plumbing is either in the middle or at the end of each wing.
That would work great for some of these empty offices in downtown Denver… a couple schools are an easy bus ride away from downtown, and LoDo would be a pretty good college neighborhood (other than all the people on fentanyl etc). The only problem is I don’t think they really need more college housing.
This simply means it’s a question of how far do the values of these buildings need to fall before it is economically viable to perform these massive conversions. Government could certainly incentivize these conversions. Too bad it seems most governments don’t care about alleviating the various housing crises.
The loads you’re designing for in a building intended for commercial use are lower and more uniform than the loads you’re looking at when you wanna slap together something for industrial or residential use.
Office and retail spaces are not designed to bear the heaver load of residential use or the combination of weird flexing, torsion and heavier loads involved in industrial applications.
Those warehouse spaces can be safely converted to lofts by just framing them in. Office buildings need structural changes to become safe living space in addition to all the utility stuff.
Isn’t it really expensive converting officespace to residential though? Given the layout of plumbing, elevators etc. Would assume that alot of the time it would just be cheaper to tear it down ☹️
Its what AB 1532 is trying to achieve in California. Given that the building is already there, there will be less vectors for nimbys to prevent the construction of said building (as its already up and approved)
Only some office buildings can be converted into reasonably shaped apartments, particularly those built before WW2, when architects wanted more natural light. After WW2, office buildings became a lot deeper because of expanded use of electric lights.
But there are ways to make more useful shapes out of those open floor plans.
Per the article, it seems that the main barrier here is that it is currently not economically worthwhile to convert these buildings, as the conversions require massive changes to the buildings themselves. If the value of these properties fall enough, however, it could easily become an attractive proposition for these buildings. A continued push for work from home can hopefully damage these property values enough to make it feasible.
The thing I don’t like is that so much of the cost cutting goes to companies. It’s not just the office space, it’s also furniture, electricity, water and so on.
While the worker save time and costs for transportation they usually don’t get any compensation for the wear and tear of their furniture or the need for extra space for work area.
My work gives me a $100 monthly stipend to cover internet and incidental costs for my home office. It’s not a whole lot but it’s a nice touch on top of my salary + cost savings of working from home.
Sure, but a good desk or chair can be quite expensive to buy. Sitting badly can really mess you up.
But the transportation of the employee isn’t a problem that an employer care about usually. The costs for office space on the other hand is just a saving that companies pocket and pass over to the employers. That’s why I feel that companies should give a stipend for the office space needed by the employee, including computers and screens of course.
Two people now. You are not going to see ANY of the money that will not be spent on real estate. Do you think it’s going to trickle down? But hey at least it feels good to pretend right? What we need is more snarky comments and less actual solutions.
I work remote and do see that money. Let me explain how:
I save money on car maintenance, gas, and business attire.
I save money on food by eating at home or eating in my neighborhood instead, which adds value to my neighborhood and creates businesses in my neighborhood instead of my bosses
I save roughly 2 hours of getting ready / commute time per day, and time is money.
What’s wild is that my boss ever felt entitled to all of that for their benefit.
I mean WFH was literally impossible for a lot of jobs until broadband internet and personal computers became ubiquitous in the average workers home in the last decade or so. That’s part of why yor boss felt entitled to all that, but I see the rest of your points
they point blank told me they needed me in the office because ‘they owned the building’ (read: they think they are entitled to use their employees time and resources to prop up the value of their commercial real estate)
they also spent the time during the pandemic installing a giant paid cafeteria, so they were hoping to capture some of that lunch revenue I mentioned for themselves, or the company they sub-contracted with
Most of the time it’s more economical to tear them down than to convert them. The plumbing work needed is probably the most expensive part but then you only have windows along the outside walls. I suppose you could have large common areas in the center.
That’s the story they’re selling but I don’t think it really holds water. Sure, they’ll have to remove the fitout and upgrade the plumbing and that costs money but no more than anyone would expect when building apartments. Some office buildings won’t be suitable for residential use due to their shape and they obviously won’t be converted but most are suitable and they’ll be fine.
The business lobby pointing at the ones which are unsuitable and saying “but this whole thing is going to be impossible!” looks disingenuous to me. There are plenty of good options and there’s no reason to expect they won’t be converted.
Economical perhaps, but this is the sort of stupid ass shit that epitomizes how fucked the growth based economy is in this climate changed era. Developer’s think a few years down the road, but have no economic incentive to build it as a cradle-to-cradle build rather than a cradle-to-grave build.
Build the same damn curtain wall floor plans in a dozen cities, so they all look ugly and don’t improve the quality of life, because it’s cheap, makes short term money for people who already have more then they can spend, and leave it to the kids to deal with everything in the future… Grrrr {rant off}
Not just zoning, the average office building needs thorough work for that to happen. Washrooms are centralized and one per floor in an average office building for example, for it to have a bathroom for every apartment, it needs extensive piping.
It can definitely be done though, I live in such a building myself.
I’m sure there are special cases where residents would need bathroom access directly from their apartment, but are there any good reasons for private bathrooms, other than convenience?
To me, one of the most interesting things about converting non-residential building to residential is the potential for different ways of living. A shared bathroom and kitchen with offices converted into living space surrounding a communal area could lead to a more communal lifestyle for residents.
If you want to charge market rents you’d need to provide private bathrooms. Any apartment without a private bathroom is what we’d call a bedsit in the UK and it could be worth half the rent.
We’re talking about converting unused office space into affordable housing, though. Charging half the rent would qualify it as affordable housing and is still better than no income from an unused building.
The piping also needs to be oversized for apartment areas compared to offices.
Local company made this mistake, raised an apartment building on sewage piping designed for offices. At peak hours in the evening and morning the sewage ended up backflowing into the apartments at the lower levels.
LOL I’m sure the depiction of what someone could look like after years of working from home, created/paid for by a work furniture company, is totally accurate.
Noooo, we can’t let companies lose on bad investments, it is a sin in the eyes of The Red Line! Quickly, let’s whip up a bailout for those poor billionares!
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