“At the end of the day, I think the problem is that we have too much office relative to our future needs, and a lot of places have too little housing. So I think one way or another, we’re going to have to turn some of that office space into apartments,” said Van Nieuwerburgh. “That might have to partially happen through demolition. But it would be nice if we could have at least some of it through conversion. It’s sort of the environmentally friendly way to go.”
In the downtown cores, where demolition costs are highest, there are lots of businesses that would be willing to re-locate once rents reset. Suburban office parks are the ones that should be torn down and redeveloped.
Sometimes it’s even too expensive to turn them into apartments, could just build a whole ass other tower for the cost. Who would have thought that having a giant tower of glass with no areas for recreation and balconies was going to be an overheated waste of space
30% of office buildings should be transformed into esoteric art collectives
“[We used to be involved with] conversions that cost $75 to $150 a foot. Now, the market rate is $350. For high-end luxury, it’s $450. The economic model is very challenging for conversion,” said Cordova. “The way to do it is for governments to provide subsidies for conversion…the government needs to provide about a 20% cost subsidy.”
The standard liberal solution - means tested handouts to business owners who are already rich with the cover story of “helping” poor people by subsidizing housing construction that will target luxury buyers/renters and will gouge the shit out of everybody in the process.
Holy fuck these people are dense. Communists and urban planners have been screaming this from the rooftops for 30 years.
