I know that commercial and residential building codes are different, but you would think converting them to residential units would fix this..
The bipartisan housing bill that Trump has refused to sign included provisions for encouraging this.
As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers
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Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers
#12Zoning and other regulations getting the way of it being used. The city "just" needs to incentivize it getting used, and someone's gotta come to terms with losing money.
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Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers
#13I know that commercial and residential building codes are different, but you would think converting them to residential units would fix this..
might depend how different the codes are. could be a really expensive retrofit. Residential and office put different stresses on infrastructure.
Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers
#14I know that commercial and residential building codes are different, but you would think converting them to residential units would fix this..
The article goes into this: > The city of Seattle estimates that, with aggressive incentives, conversions could generate up to 6,000 housing units over the next seven years. At a rough approximation, that would use around a fifth of the city’s present office surplus. > But “potential” is doing a lot of work here. > Newer, larger office buildings, like the U.S. Bank Center, are hugely impractical for conversion, thank…
So convert those buildings to giant dorms. Lots of younger people would be more than happy with such an option (as long as it's priced accordingly of course)
Can also combine with capsule hotels.
Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers
#15I know that commercial and residential building codes are different, but you would think converting them to residential units would fix this..
I live in a converted office building I. Downtown Chicago . But it was built in 1913. Newer office buildings are less practical to convert due to larger floor plates. Older office buildings are smaller or have light wells etc.
Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers
#16I know that commercial and residential building codes are different, but you would think converting them to residential units would fix this..
On top of the architectural challenges and efficacy of it, you have to contend with the terms of the bank loans that apply. Those are why the buildings "can't" lower rents to attract new business.
If they sign a lease at a new lower rent it basically triggers a re-check of "can they repay the loan based on their rental income?", which comes back as "no". That trigger _doesn't_ occur if you just leave the building empty, with _no one_ paying rent, because your last mark to market rent was high enough.
Fundamentally changing the type of tenant in the building would presumably trigger that check as well.
It's a shell game that eventually leads to the loan defaulting, but both the bank and the building owner are happy to pretend they can't see the train coming down the tracks at them.
For an example of this in Seattle that everyone was calling years ahead of the collision, see the Martin Selig sagas https://deepnewz.com/real-estate/seattle-developer-selig-war...
Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers
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Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers
#18New York City: Hold my Negroni aperitivo. I have faith in the Big Apple administration's ability to become a leader on this metric.
According to the graph in the article, NYC is doing about average, and LA/SF are the other front-runners.
Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers
#19[flagged]
If that isn't just anti-immigrant snark, it is at least not reading TFA.
Re: As downtown Seattle offices empty, city facing years of 'zombie' towers
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article goes into this: > The city of Seattle estimates that, with aggressive incentives, conversions could generate up to 6,000 housing units over the next seven years. At a rough approximation, that would use around a fifth of the city’s present office surplus. > But “potential” is doing a lot of work here. > Newer, larger office buildings, like the U.S. Bank Center, are hugely impractical for conversion, thank…
So convert those buildings to giant dorms. Lots of younger people would be more than happy with such an option (as long as it's priced accordingly of course) Can also combine with capsule hotels.
There was a great episode of the Planet Money podcast a few weeks back that talked about boarding houses https://www.npr.org/2026/06/10/nx-s1-5851902/housing-afforda... they're apparently illegal in most places