OFFICES
Jeremy Sharp, TG+P associate principal, is in Multifamily Housing News on the challenges of office to residential conversions:
While there is significant enthusiasm—and capital—for conversions, physical and financial barriers remain.
The biggest challenges to designing housing conversion projects involve fitting a residential building into an office building footprint, Sharp said, since buildings must be no more than 80 to 100 feet at their narrowest depth to avoid unit depths of more than 35 to 40 feet from the exterior wall.
Viable candidates should also have a structural system that is easy to modify for the many new openings required for a conversion (ducts, pipes and other infrastructure). And for high-quality apartments, the building should provide the ability to get to 9-foot ceilings, he added.
One of the biggest financial decisions is whether to reuse the facade, he said, noting that outdated office buildings are likely to have unappealing facades that are not energy efficient, may leak, and do not have quality air and water barriers. And, in nearly all cases, the windows need replacing. At Tidelock, for example, destructive testing and review of the facade’s structure, revealed that the facade walls did not meet code and had to be replaced.
Another barrier to conversions is many suitable office buildings are partially occupied by tenants on long-term leases that need to be bought out before converting the building.
Sharp noted that in Washington D.C., office owners are considering partial conversions, where 50 percent is converted to housing and the other half remains office to accommodate long-term tenants. “I think we will have to find many creative, flexible solutions to make use of outdated office space,” he added.
