Convert empty office towers into mixed use housing.
this post was submitted on 30 May 2023
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United States | News & Politics
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The majority of office-spaces aren't suitable for that, and even those that are aren't viable as market-products - you'd need to basically rebuild from the ground up for most places, which doesn't make sense economically, as if you're going to do that, why not just literally rebuild it after razing the office-tower, resulting in a more attractive, on all fronts, end-product? As for those spaces that are suitable for retrofitting, the lower rent-levels activists clamour for simply don't cover the expense of redoing a high-earning office-space into affordable housing, doubly so as that actually has a knock-on effect on the rent-levels for the remaining office-spaces, bringing it down as companies actively desire to not share spaces with normal tenets.
If you want to retrofit office-towers into affordable housing you'll need massive incentives; rewrite your building-codes and allow certain exemptions for these retrofits; and finally, wring in profiteering with legislation companies are actually afraid of.
If you want to retrofit office-towers into affordable housing you’ll need massive incentives
This is exactly what's happening here in Grand Rapids, MI (and I assume other places). It's massively controversial. We need the housing, but at what point are taxpayers footing the bill for construction that developers will take all the profit on?
I see your point, but if an office tower is vacant and will never again be occupied, then are the costs to rehab really more than razing the building and starting over?
Admittedly, I'm not that familiar with the code requirements.
are the costs to rehab really more than razing the building and starting over?
I didn't mean to imply that; of course starting from something is going be cheaper than doing it from scratch, but in the case of retrofitting office-buildings to apartments, the savings could maybe amount to ~20%, optimistically. Now, savings of 20% isn't anything to scoff at, but when you're talking about a scyscraper (which, in New York) that costs upwards of 20-million USD per floor, is a final savings of 20% on the final bill worth it, for a developer, when you could raze the building and make new everything that you can price higher? Keep in mind in this scenario the reused building is supposed to house "affordable" apartments, meaning yes the developer saves 20% on the final bill, but they also lose out on lower rents.
You need to incentivise this.
That would be the sane solution hence why it'll never happen.
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