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Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

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Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#201

Post by addisonl »

mkoubaa wrote: post #167
steveBK123 wrote: post #7

There was a cool OddLots episode recently where they talked to a guy who does Office to Residential work and some of the complexity. One thing he talked about, which I didn't know anyone did, was to actually cut through the ceiling/floorplate of buildings to basically "donut" them. This is necessary because many office floorplans are huge with modern HVAC and when converted into residential you end up with either und…

Seems to me like a failure of imagination to insist that some buildings can not support this

I mean with unlimited money anything is possible of course, but that’s not how these conversions work.

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#202

Post by inferiorhuman »

eagleinparadise wrote: post #123
jimt1234 wrote: post #85

I'm confused. Why is this program necessary? If building owners are sitting on vacant space because the demand for office space has dropped, while the demand for housing continues to rise, aren't they already incentivized to convert to residential space just based on the market conditions? Not sure why the city has to subsidize the property owners.

Most office buildings are not architecturally feasible to convert to residential. In fact, because of zoning laws, many/most can't even be converted. Would you live in an apartment 15 feet wide and 50 feet deep? No. That's why most office buildings dont work You have to redo all the mechanical, plumbing, electric, and then entirely refinish the building. Its literally cheaper to build new than deal with the nightmare…

Would you want to live here? Conversion is a great theory, but it definitely needs some guard rails.

https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/viral-bay-area-zillow-l...

https://www.google.com/maps/@37.9703586,-122.5195036,3a,75y,...

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#203

Post by 8f2ab37a-ed6c »

suzzer99 wrote: post #199
8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #190

Downtown LA had a bunch of (textile?) factories and warehouses back in the day that got repurposed as residential lofts. They're quirky and somewhat charming big buildings to live in, but you can tell they weren't really meant for humans to live in to begin with. I'm thinking of all of the SB lofts. For example if you're on the first few floors and you don't have an outside-facing window, your only source of light mi…

There's also no green space nearby and skid row is only a few blocks away.

You get used to the constant background sketchiness of it after enough time, but the lack of an easily accessible green space is a bummer. There's Elysian, but it's a decent walk.

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#204

Post by tjmc »

steveBK123 wrote: post #7

There was a cool OddLots episode recently where they talked to a guy who does Office to Residential work and some of the complexity. One thing he talked about, which I didn't know anyone did, was to actually cut through the ceiling/floorplate of buildings to basically "donut" them. This is necessary because many office floorplans are huge with modern HVAC and when converted into residential you end up with either und…

Why not put edge datacentres in the middle? They could provide heating to perimeter apartments in cold climates and just imagine the ping!

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#205

Post by steveBK123 »

maximinus_thrax wrote: post #133
steveBK123 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure less owners is bad for competition, but more supply itself creates competition in a sense. Let's say theres 100 apartments in the entire town, and they are all owned by the same company. Next let's say they build 50 more apartments and theres now 1000 apartments still all owned by the same company. Given the number of apartments has increased, renters now have more power to negotiate as the owners have more unit…

> Let's say theres 100 apartments in the entire town, and they are all owned by the same company. Next let's say they build 50 more apartments and theres now 1000 apartments still all owned by the same company. Given the number of apartments has increased, renters now have more power to negotiate as the owners have more units they need to fill. Unfortunately, that's not what is happening on the ground. In my town, th…

I think a lot of people mistake cause & effect. What if the housing is being built because they expect rent to go up?

If supply went up say 5% and rent went up 10%, what do people think would have happened in the 0% supply increase mirror universe?

People can't just make you spend money.

US has been underbuilding housing, especially in blue coastal cities, for generations. The last 25 years has seen a big move back to these cities where everything is getting bid up. And then the surrounding burbs, commuter built, secondary cities, etc follow suit.

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#206

Post by steveBK123 »

bmitc wrote: post #58
thrill wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"know that they'll be able to find someone to pay" So, you're saying the demand remains greater than the supply?

What are you getting at? That is not necessarily the only conclusion that supports that, but it is one. A lot of urban designers just think that building apartment buildings will help with the demand problem in the same way that people think building highways alleviates congestion, which perhaps surprisingly urban designers know that that doesn't work for highways. And I see no evidence, at least in big metropolitan…

What is the alternative to building more housing in a world where demand exceeds supply, we've been underbuilding in blue rich coastal cities for generations, and young people need places to live?

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#207

Post by steveBK123 »

bmitc wrote: post #63
micromacrofoot wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because supply has almost never outpaced demand in these cities

Under what conditions or reality will supply ever outpace demand in big cities like Boston or New York? I don't think it's physically, realistically, or pragmatically possible.

Well it happened to Commercial RE because of COVID, which was seemingly unthinkable. So now we want to convert some to residential.

What other unthinkable future could lead to a change in net migration out of urban areas rather than into urban areas? Happened ~1950->1990s. Flipped 2000-2020s. Could flip back? Who knows!

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#209

Post by pxmpxm »

okaram wrote: post #173
AlbertCory wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Hong Kong, pre-handover, I stayed in a windowless hotel room.

I love to sleep in darkness. Stayed at an Airbnb with a windowless bedroom. Best sleep I ever had.

Second, would pay extra for that

Re: Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office buildings

#210

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

hedora wrote: post #183
steveBK123 wrote: post #7

There was a cool OddLots episode recently where they talked to a guy who does Office to Residential work and some of the complexity. One thing he talked about, which I didn't know anyone did, was to actually cut through the ceiling/floorplate of buildings to basically "donut" them. This is necessary because many office floorplans are huge with modern HVAC and when converted into residential you end up with either und…

The main advantage of living in a converted factory (there are a lot of these in the rust belt) is that you end up with an absolutely enormous space made out of cool materials. I was finding it hard to imagine that there are inner-city office buildings (high rises) that have floors so large that they couldn't be cut into, say 1/4'ths, with four residences on each floor, and each unit having 50% windows along its peri…

Due to fire code, to divide a high-rise into 4 corner units, you need to take up almost ~50% of the space for elevators, stairs and hallways.

So you'd probably end up with close to 5k square foot condos - which isn't too ridiculous.

You'd probably do 4 corner units and 4 non-corner units for a total of eight, and end up with each being between 2000 and 2500.

The problem is, they'd be ridiculously expensive for a number of reasons. And when you're paying that much money, you probably don't want to live in a building that wasn't even designed to be lived in...

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