Converting an Office Building to Apartments
Representative image, not indicative of a converted office building
As office parks and large office complexes continue to be outdated for today’s market needs, something will have to done with the millions of underutilized square footage. As profiled in this article from ULI, Lowe, the developer who converted a Virginian 1980’s Class B office complex into 435 luxury apartment units. The building has everything an apartment building needs and more, such as walk-in closets, dens, a package room, a dog park and even on-site childcare.
Compared to a purpose-built apartment building, the project certainly had it’s challenges. One challenge was getting outdoor lighting into all the interior space of the large footprint. The office building had floor to ceiling windows around the perimeter, but those didn’t help all the interior office space that existed. Lowe’s solution? Converting the interior spaces into dens, with an open doorway into the main living areas to use the light from the large windows. You can check out the apartment’s website here. Looking at the website, you’d never guess what the apartment building used to be.
Even as these types of conversions become more prevalent, there isn’t really a simple way to do it. Each project will be different and have it’s own unique set of challenges. According to the ULI article, only 20 - 25% of North American offices buildings are viable for converting due to the building’s shape and floorplate, parking and loading access and the location of the building.
“In 27 metropolitan areas with the biggest pandemic declines in office occupancy, 22 had market conditions that favored conversions, such as higher apartment rents compared with office space. If 20 percent of the vacant office space in those markets was converted to residences, it would add 43,500 new housing units across the United States.”
If it’s decided that the office building is in that 20 - 25%, the conversions cost approximately 15 - 20% less than new development and typically get done faster.
As rental demand increases and available land for development decreases, I would assume that more developers within the Twin Cities would look into adaptive reuse of existing buildings. Only time will tell what’s to come with all the 1980’s office complexes out there!