https://www.gensler.com/doc/pew-gensler-flexible-co-living-housing-feasibility-study.pdf is a study of conversion of vacant office buildings to lower cost housing that resembles college dorms.
It looks like the target market is that of single renters with about 40-50% of area median income.
Boston is incentivizing conversion of unused office space to apartments. However, they will be standard apartments at market rents (with the exception of a percentage required to be low income housing). Several financial district office buildings in lower Manhattan have been converted to apartments.
I have seen write ups about âdormâ style apartment in Boston. They probably work best for grad students as off-campus housing.
Seattle is looking into this as well. The challenge is how to add plumbing and utilities to support 24/7 use.
One of the examples in the study is in Seattle.
One of the reasons for college-dorm-like arrangements is that existing office buildings often have plumbing and utilities concentrated in the middle of the building, so the studies put the bedrooms around the outside with windows with the bathrooms, kitchens, and laundry rooms in the middle where the plumbing and utilities are (keeps renovation costs down).
NYC:
This is not surprising. Even with remote working getting pushback (how much/how far remains to be seen) in the post covid world office space needs are going to be a lot less than it has been in the past (it amazes me when I see new office space going up around me here in the burbs).
This process happened in lower manhattan, when financial firms that used to be clustered there moved, either uptown or to places like Jersey City or the burbs. They converted more than a few of those buildings to residential units as lower manhattan became more residential (when I worked there in the mid to late 80s, it was a ghost town after like 6pm, now it is like the rest of NYC).
It would seem an ideal solution, given there is a big problem with housing that is affordable. One of the problems is it isnât that easy, plumbing and electricity in office buildings are generally arranged to support business use, so for example water lines and plumbing is routed to centralized bathrooms and kitchenette areas. So you basically have to gut the building to allow re-routing the plumbing (electricity may be easier). Plus things like HVAC in an office building may not translate easily into an apartment building (that could be as simple as rerouting ducting, but still can be a challenge).
The other problem is who is doing the conversion? If it is owned by the landlord, they are going to want to maximize there investment, so likely will do what new apartment construction seems to do around here, it is all âluxuryâ rentals or condos/co-ops and you have the same problem. A landlord will make a lot more money with a 3500 a month 1 bedroom then they would with a bunch of small âstudio-etteâ apartments. In theory if there is a large supply of new housing the price would drop, but it really depends on just how much unfilled demand there is too.
On the other hand if office space is sitting there empty and there is a need, likely a way will come about. If office buildings go under and banks take over the properties, they likely will try and unload them, take the losses on the loans, and get them off their portfolio and non profit groups potentially could get involved, or even towns/cities.
Will definitely be interesting to see how this plays out.
Yes, the converted buildings may end up âluxury apartmentsâ with higher rents. Today, nobody builds any new apartment building that they donât label luxury. Also, luxury sometimes just means central AC and in unit washer dryer. Many cities require a percentage of any new apartment building to be earmarked for lower or moderate income housing.
There is some evidence that even adding new higher end apartments to a local market, eases some pressure on the lower end of the market (I have read this but canât remember where or when - so I cant supply a link).
This doesnât work if the apartments are so high-end that they become strictly investment properties with absentee owners. This has happened in NYC, particularly with foreign investors.
Yes, even the addition of expensive housing means that wealthy people can live there instead of bidding up the rents and purchase prices of housing that would otherwise be lived in by less wealthy people. However, such trickle down may not reach poor people as effectively as building more lower cost housing.
That is one of the reasons for looking into college dorm like housing in the former office buildings â the utilities intensive kitchen, bathroom, and laundry areas would be in a central area and shared among those living there.
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