The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town • Hacker News Board

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#241

Post by jessaustin » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 10:48 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #110

bduerst wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automated cars require less parking than the manual cars we drive now, especially since they don't require to be parked near their passengers during off hours and can spend most of their product lives on the road. I'm not saying we shouldn't develop cities with pedestrians in mind, just that it's much easier to adapt a fleet of cars than rebuild an entire city.

This seems commonly stated but not actually examined. > "especially since they don't require to be parked near their passengers during off hours and can spend most of their product lives on the road." I'd argue that both of these points aren't actually true. The nature of on-demand cars (human-driven or otherwise) is that they be quickly available. Automated cars might eliminate the need for the car to be figurativel…

Trains and buses are somewhat "bursty" because... they're trains and buses. Lots of people have to be riding to make it worth the trip. Robocars will work for the single-traveller-at-1AM case. But they also work for the 2-miles-from-the-metro-station-to-the-office case, so they'll make public transport more useful. Robocar owners can optimize rush-hour pricing to emphasize lots of valuable low-speed quick-turnaround trips to and from the dedicated lane in front of the train station. They'll sell a long trip through thick traffic in five outlying suburbs, but it will cost you.

Not every Uber arrives inside five minutes, so I think travelers will be similarly understanding of robocars. That means the fleet doesn't need a giant parking structure anywhere, they just need to keep a few units in every sector (either cruising or parked in surplus spots at the remote edge of store parking), with other units near enough to fill in when demand spikes in a given sector. Lots of existing parking lot owners will make a little more money when the algorithms determine they're optimally located for overnights. It's not like the supermarket needs all its parking spaces outside normal shopping hours. Robocars probably won't typically park on the street, because it's not secure, especially against taggers.

I do expect that robocruising (driving slowly in a parking-limited area while waiting for customers) will be decried as the greatest scourge to afflict red-blooded single-occupancy commuters since the bicycle. I don't expect anyone important will care.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#242

Post by bunderbunder » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 10:51 PM UTC

hnal943 wrote: post #213

will_work4tears wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow, did all of your Milwaukee's Kohl's shut down? We have them here (Puget Sound area) still, and when we left Missouri in 2008 they were still there doing fine.

Kohl's Grocery Stores (defunct) is different than the department store chain, which incidentally is headquartered in the Milwaukee suburbs.

Not entirely; they were both run by the same parent company.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#243

Post by mjevans » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 11:00 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #216

tsotha wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>An enormous number of people, especially young people, are looking to avoid spending their lives in cars. Young people never wanted to spend their lives in cars. What's different with this generation is they don't seem to have much interest in forming families, so they move to the trendier areas and spend all their money instead of living in a cheaper area, commuting, and saving for a situation that would be good fo…

> What's different with this generation is they don't seem to have much interest in forming families, so they move to the trendier areas and spend all their money instead of living in a cheaper area, commuting, and saving for a situation that would be good for raising children. I think it might be simpler than this. They just can't afford to raise a family as easily as their parents and grandparents could, so many ch…

As someone a bit over 30; exactly this.

The numbers do NOT add up and haven't at any point in my life. Then there's also the job stability issue as well; who wants to buy a house or start a family when you don't know you'll be somewhere for years? Also with many family units having two workers, what happens when one doesn't have a job?

None of our social structures (including laws and tax incentives/disincentives) or market valuations reflect the necessary liquidity imposed by current job market.

I happen to think that more nicely constructed MDUs are a good housing option (insulation could always be better).

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#244

Post by jamespitts » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 11:02 PM UTC

normloman wrote: post #151

jamespitts wrote: post #93

These emptying office parks presents an opportunity. Certainly the larger ones contain infrastructure that can be repurposed, and the asking prices is decreasing. In the next downturn, the cost of purchasing a park will go down even more. Perhaps the larger parks can be repurposed into something akin to a village. Reformat the buildings into something more traditional, apartments on the upper floors, offices and stor…

This is the right answer. Instead of letting suburbs rot, we select some for renovation and reuse. With a little work, we can make suburbs more walkable, bikeable, and environmentally friendly. A book on the subject: http://www.sprawlrepair.com/index.html Great Illustrations: http://inhabitat.com/urban-sprawl-repair-kit-offers-simple-p...

Those illustrations are great!

Stuart Brand's "How Buildings Learn" also provides some theoretical background on buildings as infrastructure and can inform how a property may be improved with an eye to the future.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Buildings_Learn

http://www.amazon.com/How-Buildings-Learn-Happens-Theyre/dp/...

There's a whole video series as well, this segment discusses the advantages of loose zoning at the docks in Sausalito:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuKPknFLHno

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#245

Post by ghaff » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 11:03 PM UTC

tsotha wrote: post #207

ken-far wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. This quote is key: “I now say that brainy youngsters are trending urban and urbane, away from your grandfather’s office parks.” Real estate analysis is showing that for the first time since it's been measuring more people are looking for housing in denser, more urban environments than in the traditional suburbs. An enormous number of people, especially young people, are looking to avoid spending the…

>An enormous number of people, especially young people, are looking to avoid spending their lives in cars. Young people never wanted to spend their lives in cars. What's different with this generation is they don't seem to have much interest in forming families, so they move to the trendier areas and spend all their money instead of living in a cheaper area, commuting, and saving for a situation that would be good fo…

>The other difference is big US cities are quite a bit cleaner and safer than they were a generation ago.

While it's not universal, there are large areas of major coastal cities (among others) that middle-class+ people would have hesitated or flat-out typically not have lived in 30 years ago that are now considered highly desirable.

That said, it's easy to overstate the US Millennials want to all live in the city trend. FiveThirtyEight had a piece a while back that basically concluded the urbanization trend is largely exaggerated. The more accurate statement is that college-educated millennials are slightly more likely to live in a handful of particularly dense urban locations (think Brooklyn).[1]

In fact, they say that, among all adults 25-34 the percentage in urban locations overall has actually declined a little. The data is complicated to interpret but their bottom line was that: "Millennials overall, therefore, are not increasingly living in urban neighborhoods. Rather, the most educated one-third of young adults are increasingly likely to live in the densest urban neighborhoods. That’s great news for cities trying to attract young graduates and a sign that urban neighborhoods have become more desirable for those who can afford them. But the presence of more smart young things in Brooklyn is not evidence that millennials are a more urban generation."

There are a lot of trends going on in parallel that make it hard to draw clear non-anecdotal conclusions about where people prefer to live. I also think a lot of people on this board probably find it easier to work remotely or to cherry-pick a job in easy commuting distance (whatever their preferred mode of commuting) than is the norm. Furthermore, in many cases, preferences for dense cities, suburbs, and the country are sufficiently deep-rooted that a lot of folks have trouble understanding how anyone could see things differently.

[1] http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-millennials-are-less...

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#246

Post by c5karl » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 11:04 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #142

pmorici wrote: post #30

I think this article perhaps misses the real story. That being, office parks first built in 25+ years ago are reaching an age where their long term leases are expiring and they need to be renovated for the first time since being constructed to attract new tenants. While it makes sense to renovate an old factory and turn it into trendy office space with exposed brick and vintage architectural details from decades past…

Could they be converted into cheap housing?

Office buildings can be very hard to convert to residential uses.

Office tenants want large, unbroken floorplans, so most office buildings built in the last few decades have a lot of interior space that's far from any windows. Residential uses need windows for every unit.

Adding plumbing for individual kitchens and baths, creating separate HVAC zones, etc. adds more costs and complications.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#247

Post by mixmastamyk » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 11:12 PM UTC

sosuke wrote: post #178

LordKano wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom isn't the word that I would associate with being bound by train schedules and routes. Old cities, like NYC or London were established before the existence of the automobile. It makes sense that they were designed to move large numbers of people without automobiles. I don't live near such a city. The geography of my area prevents the kind of mass transit system that exists in NYC.

I can sympathize, Austin TX is built upon a giant rock of limestone which extremely difficult to develop into. All of our mass transit options that have come up connect to no-where.

How about a monorail or short distance hyperloop?

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#248

Post by burger_moon » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 11:12 PM UTC

bunderbunder wrote: post #156

toomuchtodo wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While those ex-Dominicks buildings are for lease ("rent/buy for a song"), I have yet to see anyone acquire them at their old Bartlett, Schaumburg, or Algonquin locations.

Head up to Milwaukee and you'll see plenty of old Kohl's supermarkets that have all been sitting vacant ever since the chain shut down over a decade ago.

The grocery stores were vacant for a few years but I can't think of any since I left Milwaukee last year that were still dormant. Office Max, Joanne Fabrics, those types of retail took over most of them that weren't leveled.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#249

Post by gph » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 11:15 PM UTC

djrogers wrote: post #234

spiritplumber wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar issue here. What I wanted to do was take a warehouse (zoned light industrial), essentially cut it in half, and live next to my workshop. Explaining that this is common in my home country, it'd take at least one car off the road during commute hours (mine), etc. was in vain.

Lots of people do that type of thing here too, but un-permitted. If you wanted to be really particular, you could probably get a permit for the work itself (plumbing, kitchen, etc) as long as it wasn't specified as residential. This is what we've come to though - the government has taken away our rights and sell them back to us with permits.

>This is what we've come to though - the government has taken away our rights and sell them back to us with permits.

Ah yes, my inalienable right to zone property as I see fit because I want to redevelop it. So often forgotten.

/s

Yea most local governments are slow and obtuse with zoning, but it's not as if the concept of zoning is a violation of your rights, or even that bad of a thing. Criticism is fine, but using hyperbolic statements about how the government is stealing our rights is just asinine.

Re: The old suburban office park is the new American ghost town

#250

Post by pmorici » Tue, Jul 21, 2015, 11:17 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #212

pmorici wrote: post #30

I think this article perhaps misses the real story. That being, office parks first built in 25+ years ago are reaching an age where their long term leases are expiring and they need to be renovated for the first time since being constructed to attract new tenants. While it makes sense to renovate an old factory and turn it into trendy office space with exposed brick and vintage architectural details from decades past…

>old factory and turn it into trendy office space with exposed brick and vintage architectural details That's not why we renovate factories. We renovate them because they are in a location we desire (big city centers). The suburbs are a cultural and transportation wasteland for the most part and have nothing but cheap land. Its just unpleasant real estate. Sadly, a lot of smaller companies migrated out to the suburbs…

Yeah it is. If there weren't anything desirable about the existing structure it would just be torn down and rebuilt. You are confusing the location decision with the decision to demolish vs. renovate.