Can Office to Residential Conversions Help Revitalize Downtown? (Audio)
Earlier this summer, bipartisan legislation was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives aimed at spurring the redevelopment of existing underutilized or vacant commercial properties and converting them for residential...more
Various state housing bills are currently making their way through the State Legislature that are expected to benefit mixed-income multifamily housing developers. The following summaries reflect the status of the legislation...more
The pandemic-driven rise in remote work has created a big opportunity for real estate developers to turn empty offices into apartments, condos, and other types of housing....more
Welcome to the trendy revolution of urban farming. Three years ago, Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser unveiled a plan to transform vacant office buildings in downtown DC into residential properties with hopes of creating a...more
City of Los Angeles - Proposed Citywide Adaptive Reuse Ordinance - In 1999, the city council adopted the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance (ARO) that enabled the conversion of commercial buildings constructed in the downtown area in...more
National and local news has been replete with stories discussing the challenges and benefits of converting underutilized commercial properties such as office buildings into needed housing. A recently introduced bill pending...more
Following up on recent PSH Land Use Client Alerts on June 26, 2023 and August 22, 2023, an important collection of bills were passed through both houses of the Rhode Island state legislature in June and signed into law. ...more
In downtown San Francisco, office vacancy has skyrocketed as hybrid work has transformed the way in which employers and employees use office space. This, in turn, has decreased activity downtown, negatively impacting the...more
As work habits continue to transition from office space to work from home, sparsely populated downtown office towers are proving to be a barrier to the City’s goal of repopulating the traditional financial district. Enter the...more
Last April, I wrote about office to residential conversions, and the various challenges in making such projects work. On October 11, 2022 the Oregon NAIOP Chapter hosted a panel to discuss how we might make such conversions...more
Is downtown Portland ready for office to residential conversions? Attorney Kimberlee Stafford gives a progress update on this movement to address the housing shortage and reduce high office vacancy rates....more
When any real estate investment deal goes badly and ends in litigation, there are many reasons why a potential plaintiff may prefer one forum versus another, including the location of witnesses and documents, location of...more
On July 1, 2020, the Board of Zoning Adjustment (Board) reversed a decision by the Zoning Administrator (ZA) allowing the by-right conversion of an existing dwelling unit into an eight-unit apartment house in the RA-1 zone. ...more
It may have been unthinkable ten to fifteen years ago, but the shift in consumer shopping patterns from brick-and-mortar stores to online platforms has resulted in the emergence of retail-to-industrial conversions over the...more
In Real Estate Bd. of New York, Inc. v. City of New York, Petitioner-Plaintiff Real Estate Board of New York, Inc. (“REBNY”) commenced a hybrid article 78 proceeding and plenary action against the City of New York (“City”)...more
Now that the recession is beginning to become a memory of the past, the demand for housing is on the rise, and with it is the explosive interest in the multifamily market. As more Americans are choosing to marry later and...more