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newestindustry t1_j617n4v wrote

Reply to comment by OrangeSlimeSoda in Mayor Adams unveils proposal to convert Midtown offices into apartments by psychothumbs

>There's a bunch of reasons why office landlords won't want their offices converted to residential.

All of these hinge on the offices being converted into dorms, which I have never seen anyone but you suggest will happen.

>As I mentioned in another comment, trying to compel office landlords to convert will be an expensive and time consuming process.

I think letting your office space sit empty while you look for nonexistent tenants is also an expensive and time consuming process.

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OrangeSlimeSoda t1_j619f7d wrote

> All of these hinge on the offices being converted into dorms, which I have never seen anyone but you suggest will happen.

Because the cost of gut-renovating office spaces into fully-function housing units is cost-prohibitive. Merely from a physical standpoint, it would entail ripping down and re-erecting walls, re-wiring things, upgrading plumbing, providing gas, re-configuring things to work around elevator banks, etc. Turning them into dorms is the most cost-effective and expedient solution for a landlord.

>I think letting your office space sit empty while you look for nonexistent tenants is also an expensive and time consuming process.

The office landlords really don't have a choice. They are bound by legal obligations to their lenders, municipal regulations, and zoning laws to only allow their spaces for offices. It would be more expensive to convert the office space into a residential unit than to try to flip it to a different kind of office use.

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newestindustry t1_j61bisc wrote

OK well I'm gonna be real with you, I think you kind of just made this whole dorm thing up. NYC has been converting office to residential in Lower Manhattan for decades now, none of them are dorms.

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Needs0471 t1_j620vvv wrote

Yeah, this whole sub thread is just bullshit. It’s not like the task force that wrote the plan is ignorant of the very obvious challenges.

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Evening_Presence_927 t1_j64dimr wrote

This is the same administration that wants to forcibly hospitalize homeless people without expanding outpatient care. I wouldn’t put it past them to be that stupid.

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Revolio_ClockbergJr t1_j61monk wrote

> Merely from a physical standpoint, it would entail ripping down and re-erecting walls, re-wiring things, upgrading plumbing, providing gas, re-configuring things to work around elevator banks

These are all things they would do anyway. What else does “conversion” mean, if not these tasks?

Skip gas, do electric. Plumbing would be weird but nothing that hasn’t been done before.

Yes, dorms are more cost effective… until they sit empty like the offices.

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Evening_Presence_927 t1_j64drl2 wrote

I think they’re saying it would take far more resources doing that than simply tearing the building down and doing it from scratch. Office buildings are built to hold, well, offices, not apartments.

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LikesBallsDeep t1_j61hab6 wrote

Nobody's saying gut renos are cheap but.. have you seen the price of getting ANYTHING new built in NYC in general?

Very expensive can still be better than absurdly, astronomically expensive for a new build.

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