Dan from Lotus Eaters raised this point as not as easy at it sounds.
Turning a commercial building into residential apartments is basically impossible as it requires a total internal fit out. It will probably be cheaper to demolish and rebuild if you wanted too.
Maybe if the price of commercial real estate crashed, but if that happened the overall economy would most likely be affected so who knows what the costs would be. Spoiler, they reckon about 3% of NY's commercial office space would be good candidates for conversion.
"Apartments" yes, needing a redesign. "Barracks" not so much.
Set a keycard or passcode on the elevator and stairwell. A washroom or four per floor that houses a half-dozen toilets each? Take the toilet plumbing pipes for one or two stalls and turn them into a shower set. Done. Toss some mattresses in there and you've got solid living conditions.
It doesn't seem to be all that difficult, at least with older (pre-1960s) office buildings...
Australia is littered with buildings like that which have been converted, and, off the top of my head, I can think of a number of former medical office -> apartment conversions I have seen...
Sure, the scale is larger, but it's clearly not all that difficult...
Or, as others point out, "hostel" style conversions with shared facilities... There's a heap of those around, too.
Note the example they use is reality TV show. And most converted commercial spaces are ugly as fuck as they have to use what they have and call it "urban" or "avant garde" which is just code for shit.
Dan from Lotus Eaters raised this point as not as easy at it sounds.
Turning a commercial building into residential apartments is basically impossible as it requires a total internal fit out. It will probably be cheaper to demolish and rebuild if you wanted too.
Edit: Someone did a basic calculation of the numbers and it's not great: https://cre.moodysanalytics.com/insights/cre-trends/office-to-apartment-conversions/
Maybe if the price of commercial real estate crashed, but if that happened the overall economy would most likely be affected so who knows what the costs would be. Spoiler, they reckon about 3% of NY's commercial office space would be good candidates for conversion.
"Apartments" yes, needing a redesign. "Barracks" not so much.
Set a keycard or passcode on the elevator and stairwell. A washroom or four per floor that houses a half-dozen toilets each? Take the toilet plumbing pipes for one or two stalls and turn them into a shower set. Done. Toss some mattresses in there and you've got solid living conditions.
That's such a completely terrible idea that progressive cities might do it. They can put all the childless single cat ladies in there.
nah you really don't. there's no reason they have to be GOOD apartments. they can be like some kind of massive boarding house.
You have to completely remodel every single utility as well as the internal space. Even before adding internal apartment walls etc.
Go into a large commercial space and just imagine how you'd turn it into a series of houses. It just cannot be done economically.
like i said, they don't have to be good. think mass shelter in a school gym.
It doesn't seem to be all that difficult, at least with older (pre-1960s) office buildings...
Australia is littered with buildings like that which have been converted, and, off the top of my head, I can think of a number of former medical office -> apartment conversions I have seen...
Sure, the scale is larger, but it's clearly not all that difficult...
Or, as others point out, "hostel" style conversions with shared facilities... There's a heap of those around, too.
How many older, pre 1960 office buildings are there in the middle of cities though?
https://www.commercialrealestate.com.au/advice/converting-commercial-buildings-into-residential-819336/
Note the example they use is reality TV show. And most converted commercial spaces are ugly as fuck as they have to use what they have and call it "urban" or "avant garde" which is just code for shit.