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  #1  
Old Posted Jan 23, 2024, 4:21 PM
DCReid DCReid is offline
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Office-To-Apartment Conversions In Major Cities Quadruple In 4 Years

The number of apartment spaces being created in office buildings across major cities this year has risen to over 55,000, four times higher than the 12,100 under conversion in 2021, according to a new report...Washington, D.C., has the largest number of units under conversion from offices this year, at 5,820, the report shows...New York City is next in line, with 5,215 apartments under conversion from offices, followed by Dallas at 3,163, Chicago at 2,822 and Los Angeles at 2,442...

https://www.bisnow.com/national/news...4-years-122497

https://www.rentcafe.com/blog/rental...artments-2024/
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  #2  
Old Posted Jan 23, 2024, 7:56 PM
austlar1 austlar1 is offline
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Aside from any aging/obsolete/unoccupied office buildings in downtown Dallas, there are probably are several dozen 10 to 20 story 1970's era office buildings strung out along freeways such as North Central, Stemmons, and LBJ that are struggling to survive. Other sunbelt cities such as Houston and Atlanta have similar developments alongside their freeway networks. Most of these buildings are in small office parks or stand alone surrounded by parking lot, garages, and busy feeder roads. They were once evidence of a thriving local economy, but increasingly they are becoming derelict and indicative of a certain kind of decline. Most of the residential conversions taking place in Dallas are in downtown area buildings. There seems to be less interest in converting these freeway office building probably because of marketing considerations, although there is at least one conversion taking place in a rather well situated office park located along Stemmons Freeway. It will be interesting to see whether other freeway office conversions are in the works. https://www.multihousingnews.com/his...le-conversion/

Last edited by austlar1; Jan 23, 2024 at 8:13 PM.
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  #3  
Old Posted Jan 23, 2024, 8:31 PM
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James Bond Agent 007 James Bond Agent 007 is offline
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There's been a bunch of these in downtown KC.
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  #4  
Old Posted Jan 23, 2024, 8:38 PM
dave8721 dave8721 is offline
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In Miami they just tear down the office building and build the apartment tower in its place. Don't think I have seen to many conversions.
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  #5  
Old Posted Jan 23, 2024, 8:49 PM
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Conversions tend to go where (a) codes are easy and (b) office buildings are both dirt cheap and (c) entirely unleased. Or at least two of those things. Rust belt cities and DC seem to be the sweet spots.
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  #6  
Old Posted Jan 24, 2024, 4:47 PM
iheartthed iheartthed is offline
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60 Minutes aired a segment about issues in the commercial real estate industry. They mostly focus on Manhattan, but there are similar issues going on in every major city across the country, and most other cities are probably in much worse shape than Manhattan. I think the Columbia professor interviewed said that Manhattan skyscrapers were on track to take a 40% hit to their valuations if things do not change.

Watch the segment here: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/real-es...es-transcript/
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  #7  
Old Posted Jan 24, 2024, 5:28 PM
3rd&Brown 3rd&Brown is offline
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Philly has been converting it's prewar office buildings to residential (and hotels) for years. At least 20 if not 30 years. I read recently there isn't much left from that era at all, so we should expect the impact here to be minimal.

We do have a post-war 1980s building that was recently proposed for conversion but even there I think the candidates are minimal. I expect this to impact other cities much more than it will impact Philadelphia.
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  #8  
Old Posted Jan 24, 2024, 5:46 PM
iheartthed iheartthed is offline
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There were a lot of prewar conversions in lower Manhattan after 9/11. That fed a lower Manhattan population boom in the 00s.
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  #9  
Old Posted Jan 24, 2024, 5:50 PM
Buckeye Native 001 Buckeye Native 001 is offline
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Cincinnati is apparently converting its second tallest, the Carew Tower, from office to residential.

Phoenix's tallest, Chase Tower/Valley Center is currently vacant but there's some discussion about renovating it to mixed use hotel/residential/office. Apparently because of the original building construction/engineering its going to require a massive renovation if that happens.
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  #10  
Old Posted Jan 24, 2024, 5:57 PM
BigDipper 80 BigDipper 80 is offline
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For once the Rust Belt is ahead of the curve on something! Granted a lot of the office space in cities like Detroit and Cleveland was older with smaller floor plates which makes for somewhat easier office conversions, but there have still been some significantly challenging projects like the May Company building in Cleveland or the Mendelsons/Delco building in Dayton that really push the limit of converting very big warehouse-type structures. I know that Cleveland has also successfully residential-ized a couple of 70s-80s era office buildings that are often dismissed as "too hard to convert" when this topic comes up. Ohio does have a robust historic tax credit program that helps finance some of these tricky projects, too, which might be something other cities/states should look into offering.
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  #11  
Old Posted Jan 24, 2024, 6:22 PM
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Steely Dan Steely Dan is offline
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Haven't pretty much all US cities with substantial stocks of out-dated pre-war office towers been converting them to res./hotel for several decades now?

To my knowledge, that's absolutely nothing new.


The much tougher nut to crack is converting those blocky, giant floorplate post-war office boxes to residential uses.

We have some examples of the latter here in Chicago, but they're still much more the exception than the rule. The two major examples I'm aware of both had some special circumstances.

Mid-Continental Plaza's conversion of its upper floors to residential had everything to do with the building's commanding (and protected) views overlooking millennium Park and the lake.

The old Montgomery Ward's HQ tower conversion was spurred by the company going kapupt, and also because it was located a fair bit outside of the Loop, in a much more residential area of river north.


55 E Monroe (Mid-Continental Plaza):


source: https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/bui...t-monroe/14135


The Montgomery:


source: https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/bui...ntgomery/10312
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Last edited by Steely Dan; Jan 24, 2024 at 7:48 PM.
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  #12  
Old Posted Jan 24, 2024, 9:10 PM
austlar1 austlar1 is offline
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Where there is a will, there is a way. Former Fort Worth Montgomery Ward store and regional warehouse was converted to condo ten or 15 years ago. The units all have just one exposure with many facing a courtyard. Units are quite affordable.

https://www.highrises.com/buildings/...-w-7th-st_2170
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  #13  
Old Posted Jan 24, 2024, 11:34 PM
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LosAngelesSportsFan LosAngelesSportsFan is offline
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Downtown LA has had dozens, if not over 100 of conversions from old stock (late 1890s to 1930s ten - fifteen story buildings to residential and more recently hotel units. I actually lived in two of the buildings over the years and loved the character, sturdiness and uniqueness of these old classics (some with prohibition era tunnels still intact that have been turned into speak easy bars.) This started in 1999 in the old bank district and quickly spread all over downtown> Its basically what started the whole residential renaissance in DTLA. Over the last decade, Koreatown and Mid Wilshire have seen dozens of conversions of 1950s to 1970s office buildings to residential. North Hollywood might have had a few as well.
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  #14  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2024, 1:57 AM
3rd&Brown 3rd&Brown is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by austlar1 View Post
Where there is a will, there is a way. Former Fort Worth Montgomery Ward store and regional warehouse was converted to condo ten or 15 years ago. The units all have just one exposure with many facing a courtyard. Units are quite affordable.

https://www.highrises.com/buildings/...-w-7th-st_2170
Looking at some of the units, it's a great conversion. I'd live in many of them.

But the property taxes! On top of the HOA? 7-8K a year in property taxes for a relatively inexpensive condominium is insane. Looks like the owners recently challenged the assessment. They just came down from close to 10K.
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  #15  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2024, 8:50 PM
austlar1 austlar1 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown View Post
Looking at some of the units, it's a great conversion. I'd live in many of them.

But the property taxes! On top of the HOA? 7-8K a year in property taxes for a relatively inexpensive condominium is insane. Looks like the owners recently challenged the assessment. They just came down from close to 10K.
Property taxes fund almost everything state and local in Texas. There is no individual income tax and corporate tax is kind of a joke. Texas has the 7th highest property taxes in the country behind New Jersey, Illinois, New Hampshire, Conn., Vermont, and Wisconsin.
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  #16  
Old Posted Jan 26, 2024, 2:24 AM
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SpawnOfVulcan SpawnOfVulcan is offline
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The largest office in our downtown is being converted to apartments, 404 of them. It's supposed to take place over time, but I think the top 16 floors are already up for rent or occupied based on their appearance from my commute each morning.


LINK
Credit: Curtis Palmer: AKA Xnatedawgx (Wikipedia)
Flickr LINK

Other than that, all but one of our vacant highrises have been converted to hotels. The lastest being the Brown-Marx Building (1906).


LINK
Credit: Dystopos (may he rest in peace)
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  #17  
Old Posted Jan 26, 2024, 4:47 AM
mrnyc mrnyc is offline
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they been busting out the beautifully bricked but bizzarely under-windowed 4 ny plaza built in 1969 and turning it into 25 water street residential in downtown manhattan by the ferry. at 1300 apts its got to be the biggest conversion in town —


more:
https://newyorkyimby.com/2022/12/dev...manhattan.html
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  #18  
Old Posted Jan 26, 2024, 1:28 PM
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I am generally in favour of using any means necessary to save the old, elegant brick and mortar buildings of the pre-war period. The added benefit of bringing more residents downtown will help restaurants and shops that are suffering from the dearth of office workers due to remote working habits.
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  #19  
Old Posted Jan 26, 2024, 6:02 PM
strongbad635 strongbad635 is offline
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One of my favorite conversions is the old Maryland National Bank building in downtown Baltimore, which was converted a few years back to a luxury apartment community called Arrive Inner Harbor. They preserved the character of the beautiful building masterfully!

https://www.apartments.com/arrive-in...re-md/869m922/
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