Offices Into Housing…Easier Said Than Done

Christopher Thornberg, founding partner and economist wit Beacon Economics, said at a recent presentation fo San Jose State ““How do you make housing more affordable? You build more housing… “You need to start taking down these office buildings and putting up apartments, However, Thornberg said he prefers “adaptive reuse” of existing office buildings rather than projects that bulldoze office structures. Too much demolition could create “dead zones” in urban areas”.  In my previous blogs I have mentioned repeatedly that over time office buildings that are physically or economically obsolete will be demolished and replaced with housing. There will be very few that are transitioned into housing due to the constraints most buildings have with central restrooms, air conditioning, too-large floor plates to allow residential conversion with window access, and a host of other issues which makes most office buildings non-conversion candidates. Demolishing means the value of the office building goes down to less-than land value as you have to deal with the cost of demolition and disposing of the rubble.