[HN Gopher] Boston mayor announces residential conversion progra...
___________________________________________________________________
Boston mayor announces residential conversion program for office
buildings
Author : toss1
Score : 174 points
Date : 2023-07-13 20:27 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bostonplans.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bostonplans.org)
| lusus_naturae wrote:
| I think this policy is incomplete without ensuring there is
| enough competition to ensure that rents stay relatively
| affordable.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| more supply = more competition, no?
| bmitc wrote:
| I have _never_ seen more supply of apartments make existing
| rents go down.
|
| I had a friend's rent go up 25% in one year in an area that
| has seen a huge amount of apartment buildings go up. That's
| not rational. The companies that own these apartment
| buildings care about nothing more than more money and know
| that they'll be able to find someone to pay the exhorbant
| prices.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| because supply has almost never outpaced demand in these
| cities
| bmitc wrote:
| Under what conditions or reality will supply ever outpace
| demand in big cities like Boston or New York? I don't
| think it's physically, realistically, or pragmatically
| possible.
| crmd wrote:
| Same in New York City where I live. A major reason is that
| the demand curve is effectively vertical - people here who
| would like to buy a home to live in are not competing just
| with other residents but with a global investor class who
| want to park capital in NYC property (and expect an
| appreciation rate that far exceeds inflation).
| beastman82 wrote:
| Supply and demand is the oldest, most obvious economic
| relationship in existence.
| bmitc wrote:
| And yet it doesn't correctly model the situation. This
| isn't rabbits and foxes.
| vkou wrote:
| Prices in his area went up, because of gentrification, but
| it relaxed demand in other parts of the city.
|
| Even if prices in other parts went up, they would have gone
| up even more if there had been no construction.
| thrill wrote:
| "know that they'll be able to find someone to pay"
|
| So, you're saying the demand remains greater than the
| supply?
| bmitc wrote:
| What are you getting at?
|
| That is not necessarily the only conclusion that supports
| that, but it is one. A lot of urban designers just think
| that building apartment buildings will help with the
| demand problem in the same way that people think building
| highways alleviates congestion, which perhaps
| surprisingly urban designers know that that doesn't work
| for highways. And I see no evidence, at least in big
| metropolitan areas like Boston with a huge amount of
| attraction, that building supply does anything to ease
| demand. If anything, it increases it.
|
| I would argue that demand in major cities will never go
| down. In particular, the greater Boston area has more
| than 500,000 college students. Many of those graduate and
| stay and work in the area and many more graduates move
| into the greater Boston area to work. It's a big area
| with lots of growing fields with a lot of professional
| people moving into. Demand is simply not going to go down
| for apartments, and the demand for housing shows no signs
| of slowing either.
|
| A bit of my point was that landlords siphon off money
| from society knowing how important housing is to people
| and will charge the absolute maximum they can get away
| with. It's predatory.
| favorited wrote:
| Your rent is only going to go down if you move. Your
| landlord knows you're willing to pay the current rate,
| they're not incentivized to lower it.
| lusus_naturae wrote:
| It depends. If everything is owned by the same management or
| equity firm, then no.
| dghughes wrote:
| A REIT is the worst. One in my town is demanding a 20% rent
| increase. And also asking for tax breaks. Half the tenants
| will have to move and their tax money is going to the
| company forcing them out. The people in the building are in
| well paying jobs like IT professions not low income or
| elderly (but they are also facing the same thing).
| ch4s3 wrote:
| The idea that a single firm or even a stable cartel could
| effectively control prices in a market as large as Boston
| is just naive.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| They can just run a cartel [1]. I don't understand why
| anyone thinks things like housing can have any
| competition when housing is not a commodity but a
| necessity and the margins are rather thin with little to
| no space for efficiency and innovation, and private
| equity can just buy apartments and houses.
|
| > In one neighborhood in Seattle, ProPublica found, 70%
| of apartments were overseen by just 10 property managers,
| every single one of which used pricing software sold by
| RealPage.
|
| [1] https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-
| increase-r...
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Property managers <> owners. RE investment is very hands
| on, and people hiring property managers to deal with it
| on their behalf. The idea that the top 10 own 70% of the
| market is not a shock.
|
| You could probably do this "top 10 own 70% of __ market"
| for literally anything.
| thfuran wrote:
| I think you skipped the last clause of the sentence
| you're referencing (and forgot to look at the source).
| The real point is that one software vendor effectively
| controls all the pricing.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Notice that you omitted the important part:
|
| > every single one of which used pricing software sold by
| RealPage.
|
| Which makes this effectively a cartel.
| LightBug1 wrote:
| De facto cartels ... what do you think is going on now
| around the world, let alone speculatively in Boston.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Not cartels. Rising productivity means everyone knows
| they can raise rents. No coordination necessary.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Sure less owners is bad for competition, but more supply
| itself creates competition in a sense.
|
| Let's say theres 100 apartments in the entire town, and
| they are all owned by the same company. Next let's say they
| build 50 more apartments and theres now 1000 apartments
| still all owned by the same company. Given the number of
| apartments has increased, renters now have more power to
| negotiate as the owners have more units they need to fill.
|
| This is why Tesla for example is dropping prices as they
| produce more cars and they have inventory vs when they had
| 6-12 month backlog & scalpers were flipping used vehicles
| for more than new in 2021-2022.
|
| When supply is severely constrained, you end up with
| bidding wars for the finite goods.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > as the owners have more units they need to fill.
|
| Or they can leave the units empty. There's no reason all
| units must be filled.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| I'm confused. Why is this program necessary? If building owners
| are sitting on vacant space because the demand for office space
| has dropped, while the demand for housing continues to rise,
| aren't they already incentivized to convert to residential space
| just based on the market conditions? Not sure why the city has to
| subsidize the property owners.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| Office space rents for more per SQ ft than residential, so
| landlords have incentive to keep it vacant in the hopes that
| markets come back.
| eagleinparadise wrote:
| I work in CRE - anyone reading this completely disregard this
| silly comment. it is laughably stupid
| superfrank wrote:
| I've read that one of the biggest problems is that while the
| demand for office space has dropped, the cost to convert to
| residential is so high that building owners can't break even on
| a reasonable timeline so they have little incentive to convert.
| I'm not an expert at all, but I think that in addition to
| building out the new floor plans you pretty much have to redo
| all the plumbing and electrical and I believe in many places
| the rules for emergency exits are different between the two
| building types. I think in some cases it would actually just be
| cheaper to tear the entire building down and build a new one
| from the ground up.
|
| I think many owners have the mindset that if they're going to
| lose money either way they'll stick with the devil they know
| and hope for a miracle rebound. It sounds like this program is
| offering tax incentives to help offset those conversion costs
| to make it much easier for building owners to break even after
| a conversion.
| eagleinparadise wrote:
| Most office buildings are not architecturally feasible to
| convert to residential. In fact, because of zoning laws,
| many/most can't even be converted.
|
| Would you live in an apartment 15 feet wide and 50 feet deep?
| No. That's why most office buildings dont work
|
| You have to redo all the mechanical, plumbing, electric, and
| then entirely refinish the building. Its literally cheaper to
| build new than deal with the nightmare that is to convert an
| office.
|
| I work in CRE - every single office to multi deal i have seen
| the developer has war stories. And the units are 40-100% more
| expensive in cost than other apartments.
|
| Office buildings are like an infectious disease. You could let
| them die. But if you have an urban infill city environment and
| more and more office properties become ghost buildings, then
| that disease will spread. All of the restaurants and other
| businesses nearby that rely on the foot traffic from office
| folk, they will die. You will see more riff raff. More
| homeless. More crime.
|
| Many office assets need to go to 0 in asset value before the
| private market is willing to take the risk of those
| conversions.
|
| Remember, loans are close to 10% for construction. And equity
| returns are higher.
| fundad wrote:
| Housing should not be privatized
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| IMO, they should consider banning cars in downtown areas (and
| adding large parking garages just outside them) while they're at
| it.
| alfalfasprout wrote:
| Very ableist of you. Not everyone has the luxury to rely on
| unreliable MTA or bike.
| Arrath wrote:
| Nothing says that banning general commuter cars also means
| banning handicapable public transit, cabs, or specialty
| medical transport though.
| menus wrote:
| The original comment did not specify that.
|
| It may be obvious to you or me but not to most people.
|
| Advocates for improved cities need to understand that are
| less likely to receive pushback if they are clear and
| concise from the get go.
| skwirl wrote:
| They will have to fix Boston's horribly broken subway system
| first.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Easier to do if you stop having to maintain tons of roadway
| and can move that money into mass transit.
| caditinpiscinam wrote:
| When I lived in Boston I used the subway a lot and though it
| was ok. What makes you say it's broken? Has it gotten worse
| recently?
| spacephysics wrote:
| Red line and blue line don't connect. You need to take a
| bus to "connect" them
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| the subway only runs from 5:30 to 1am (so good luck getting
| to the airport for a morning flight). also it's been on
| fire and slow and often down for maintenance
| whymauri wrote:
| Since Fall of 2022, there's been a negative spiral within
| the MBTA. Primarily due to poor maintenance leading to:
| service cuts, full shutdown of certain lines, and the
| highest percentage of slow zones in recent history.
|
| Here's a graph of slow zones:
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/11qtx82/red_line_s
| l...
|
| They are returning a good chunk of the system back to
| regular service this Summer, though.
|
| Edit: the slow zones might not be clear on that graph, but
| at one point the Red Line end-to-end was around 1-1.5 hours
| slower. Especially bad for commuters.
| natdempk wrote:
| TransitMatters has a nice graph of the problem: https://das
| hboard.transitmatters.org/slowzones?startDate=202...
| twelvechairs wrote:
| Its a delicate balance with these things. Residential brings life
| to the monotonous business areas and helps to improve housing
| supply (often not by an awful lot) but on the other hand, once
| you lose office sites they are generally gone forever (because of
| multiple ownership you can almost never convert from residential
| back to office) and even though the office market is taking a big
| hit from working from home / remote, the broader trend of the
| past 100 years is more and more jobs being concentrated into
| fewer and fewer office district that have to be larger and larger
| in critical mass.
|
| Sydney, Australia is a good example. They introduced residential
| floorspace bonuses 10-20 years ago which have changed the city
| for the better. Pre-covid they wanted to shut this lever off as
| it almost flipped the other way where they were running out of
| land for offices to keep up with demand. Now its a bit of a lull
| on how to respond to the new environment though.
| kbenson wrote:
| > even though the office market is taking a big hit from
| working from home / remote, the broader trend of the past 100
| years is more and more jobs being concentrated into fewer and
| fewer office district that have to be larger and larger in
| critical mass.
|
| Well, the question is whether we hit an inflection point which
| changed the future drastically and invalidated data based on
| prior trends or not. So, does remote work just alleviate _how
| quickly_ office space needs were growing (and if so is it to
| the point that new office space could be built), or does it
| actually reverse the trend to a degree?
| temp-boston wrote:
| When I read this my immediate reaction is this is part of
| Boston's effort to blunt the impact of the potential incoming
| commercial real estate crash, which could damage many Boston
| business as well as Boston's commercial tax base.
|
| I was surprised not to see that mentioned at all in the
| announcement. Is it unrelated? Is the announcement political spin
| to encourage those who might otherwise be against bailing out
| commercial real estate property owners to support it? Am I just
| wrong and this has nothing to do with the CRE crisis?
| alephnerd wrote:
| > a rate reduction by up to 75% of the standard tax rate for
| residential for up to 29 years could provide a strong incentive
| to encourage conversion. This would be implemented through a
| public-private partnership that will enable the BPDA, the City,
| and the proponent to enter into a payment in lieu of taxes
| (PILOT) agreement
|
| This is actually a pretty nice rebate (similar to the one Ed Lee
| and Willie Brown proposed for Mid-Market redevelopment and
| Mission Bay's development respectively). I'd love for SF to use
| similar terms, but I doubt it's politically feasible anymore.
| mholm wrote:
| Is this as good as I'm imagining? Almost feels like any office
| developer would be looking at their offices and thinking about
| it, even if they're currently rented.
| mlyle wrote:
| Property taxes are a big expense, but not as big as the debt
| on the construction costs. And you end up with massive
| additional construction costs for fewer square feet to lease.
|
| So you only can do this if your bank decides to agree to take
| a haircut... which only happens if the bank is convinced you
| have no other options.
|
| Reducing the property tax provides a sweetener that you and
| the bank can share to make it slightly more palatable.
| fasthands9 wrote:
| I could imagine edge scenarios (not sure how common) where
| office buildings that happen to have residential friendly
| layouts do this first. Perhaps if that happened it would
| both raise demand for non-residential space (more people
| living nearby) and lower supply of commercial prop avail.
| mlyle wrote:
| > Perhaps if that happened it would both raise demand for
| non-residential space (more people living nearby) and
| lower supply of commercial prop avail.
|
| Yup, that's what economics does: the firms with the
| lowest cost to converting, do so. And it's a nice follow-
| on effect that more residential hopefully increases
| commercial demand.
|
| This is mostly a factor where you have a big inventory of
| older commercial buildings. Advances in HVAC (and before
| that, lighting) have let you build bigger floors that are
| less desirable for residential use.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Yes. Left wing politicians need to remember a rising tide lifts
| all boats. We need to stop treating things like zero sum games
| and that we need to take things away or redistribute finite
| goods.
|
| Subsidizing things like education, housing, and healthcare..
| without corresponding encouraging increases in SUPPLY.. just
| gives more dollars to the demand side to chase the same stuff.
|
| Yes, typically the market responds, but in highly regulated
| markets the government needs to make sure they are encouraging
| rather than discouraging supply.
|
| For example in NYC, an office-to-residential dev was talking
| about how depending on the neighborhood, there are basically
| cutoff dates of what construction year is eligible for
| conversion. In midtown it's something like 1960 whereas
| downtown it is the 70s or so. That is - nothing built after
| that date can be converted. And the dates are fixed, not
| changed in years, have to be renegotiated in zoning law
| periodically.
|
| There's no fixed reason for this other than setting arbitrary
| numbers to limit the amount of conversions to residential..
| that is.. reduce the ability to build housing!
|
| When asked why, the developer basically said "it's sort of
| arbitrary but they do it so that a neighborhood doesn't get too
| much housing when it doesn't have enough schools or markets,
| etc".
|
| Which is kind of crazy. Build the housing. Build the schools.
| Just.. build.
| delecti wrote:
| Yeah, it's a good thing we have a famously right-wing bastion
| like Boston to lead the way with good old fashioned
| conservative policies like more housing and less commercial
| real estate. /s
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| This is a very nice rebate... maybe too nice? It's hard to say,
| but other cities might learn a lot from this experiment.
| tiedieconderoga wrote:
| It's a fine idea if good candidates for conversion can be found,
| but shouldn't they fix up their dilapidated public transit system
| before inviting more density into their urban core?
|
| Just today, one of their rail cars caught fire at an elevated
| station, and their broken fire suppression system did nothing but
| flood the ground floor when the firefighters tried to use it.
|
| Wu's push for more housing density along the city's functioning
| arteries feels more realistic. Maybe they're realizing that plan
| could also suck a lot of property taxes out of the urban center.
| abange wrote:
| I believe that part of the issue is the MBTA is a state level
| organization not city level. Wu doesn't have the power to fix
| the T. I agree that adding more load to an already crumbling
| system doesn't seem like a great idea but empty office
| buildings create their own problems by leaving "Dead" blocks or
| areas which can invite crime and decay.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| There's a new general manager, Phillip Eng, who's actually a
| transit enthusiast rather than some random bureaucrat... if he
| can't fix the issues plaguing the MBTA no general manager can.
| This is a long problem though, they're trying to fix decades of
| unaddressed maintenance issues.
| caycep wrote:
| He may be an enthusiast, but one also needs to be a Lyndon
| Johnson level of bureaucratic bulldozer, I suspect...
| jancsika wrote:
| I absolutely agree we need to discuss the topic of their
| dilapidated public transit system. But shouldn't we first solve
| the problem of how to deal with Richard Stallman's oversized
| influence on the FSF?
|
| Until we have a truly well-funded FSF filled with both
| successful projects and sustainable outreach programs that can
| reach a more diverse set of participants, I'm afraid that the
| topic of software freedom will continue to be relegated to the
| sidelines as some kind of fringe religious zeal.
|
| Until we do that, we'd just be replacing one unethically-
| proprietary fire suppression system with another unethically-
| proprietary fire suppression system. And riders will just be
| commuting back and forth between abodes wired with automation
| systems which do not respect the wishes of the users within
| them.
| beastman82 wrote:
| These are not mutually exclusive
| [deleted]
| vkou wrote:
| If you're going to hold solving the housing crisis hostage to
| having proper public transit infrastructure, we're never going
| to solve the housing crisis.
| fasthands9 wrote:
| Yeah. I realize there are tax breaks in her bill but in
| theory getting more people living in these dense areas will
| raise ridership on the subway a lot and raise taxes as a
| whole - which would pay for things like repairs which the OP
| complains about.
| stathibus wrote:
| No amount of ridership or city tax revenue would make the
| MBTA solvent. It's a sinking ship that is beyond rescue
| without massive federal intervention. Nobody in MA wants to
| say that though, because it's an admission of failure.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Feels more like a sensible compromise between a bailout for
| commercial real estate holders and helping the city to continue
| growing. In theory at least.
|
| The T definitely needs some help. But if you're living
| downtown, it's a very walkable city fwiw.
| tapoxi wrote:
| Boston isn't in charge of the MBTA, the state is, and the MBTA
| is mostly in a poor state because it was saddled with debt from
| the Big Dig.
| nix0n wrote:
| It will reduce the strain on transportation infrastructure if
| more people can live close to where they work, or have
| "reverse" commutes.
| MildRant wrote:
| I think this is fantastic. Boston desperately needs more housing.
| Let's get some increased funding for the T as well while we are
| at it.
| crmd wrote:
| Property tax represents 72% of Boston's municipal revenue[0],
| and this initiative provides a property tax reduction of up to
| 75% for up to 29 years, so unfortunately this initiative will
| not help with T funding.
|
| [0]https://data.boston.gov/dataset/revenue-budget
| gbear605 wrote:
| If it allows more people to move into the city and start
| working, that's more income taxes that can go towards funding
| the T. Much of the T's is at the state level anyway.
| natdempk wrote:
| I will probably get sniped by someone who actually knows what
| they're talking about (please correct me if I'm wrong :D), but
| my impression of the T issues is less a funding issue, and more
| a competency/corruption issue. We're building above-ground rail
| at underground rail prices for one example problem.
| kibwen wrote:
| There's a very good NYT article with great visualizations on the
| process of and obstacles to converting office buildings to
| residential:
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/11/upshot/office...
| samstave wrote:
| [flagged]
| chewmieser wrote:
| Thanks, this was interesting! If anyone is blocked by the
| paywall use this:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/11/upshot/office...
| marcosfelt wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this!
| pcurve wrote:
| WSJ recently had a good video on challenge of converting
| office building into condo.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTKjwWlhcLM
| xrd wrote:
| Mayor Wu seems like the best mayor in the US. I saw her take a
| selfie with Bad Bunny backstage at his concert. She's obviously
| got her pulse on young blood over old blood. I need to learn more
| about how she thinks. Anyone have a link?
| steveBK123 wrote:
| There was a cool OddLots episode recently where they talked to a
| guy who does Office to Residential work and some of the
| complexity.
|
| One thing he talked about, which I didn't know anyone did, was to
| actually cut through the ceiling/floorplate of buildings to
| basically "donut" them.
|
| This is necessary because many office floorplans are huge with
| modern HVAC and when converted into residential you end up with
| either undesirable or illegal apartments due to lack of
| windows/egress/etc.
|
| Apparently they've done it a few times. Of course only some
| buildings can support this, given the layout of the supports,
| mechanicals, etc.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| It's against narrative, but this is one of the ways SF's
| downtown is actually _extremely well positioned,_ assuming the
| trend of office conversions actually takes off.
|
| SF floorplates are usually _tiny_ due to historic biases of our
| Planning Commission (the dog whistle used to be 'we don't want
| a skyline of cereal boxes').
|
| In fact, looking at the data [0] most of SF's _residential_
| tower floorplates are bigger than SF 's _office_ floorplates.
|
| [0]https://data.sfgov.org/Housing-and-Buildings/Map-of-Tall-
| Bui...
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| I wonder if some interior spaces could be preserved for
| commercial, some reallocated for retail, some set aside for
| tenant mixed use areas.
|
| I don't get why one area can only ever be for one kind of use.
| WJW wrote:
| If you really want to know, I can't recommend the book
| "Seeing like a state" enough.
|
| TL;DR: For government officials who are charged with
| supervising regulations over tens of thousands of areas, it's
| already more than complicated enough if each of those areas
| has a single use designation. If you allow all of those to
| have multiple designations, it becomes too complex for humans
| to administer and so they don't allow multiple designations.
| another_story wrote:
| There are so many cities (I'd say it's the majority in the
| world), with mixed use zoning which work wonderfully. Lower
| floors are offices or businesses and upper floors are
| apartments. Why is this so difficult?
| wonder_er wrote:
| part of the reason this is so bad in the USA is indeed
| what OP named, the concept of 'legibility', as explained
| in 'seeing like a state'.
|
| In the case of the USA, though, another 'lens' on the
| legibility is that overall the people making the laws
| were neurotically concerned with keeping black people
| away from white people and enforcing segregation.
|
| 'separating uses' was a good way to also 'separate
| users', and a little barely-that-creative law-writing
| lets someone keep black people quite removed from the
| white people.
|
| I found a document from 1922 that is upstream of all
| american zoning codes - it's what got ratified in Euclid
| v. Ambler circa 1926.
|
| It's explicit goal was:
|
| "To maintain harmonious relations between the races, care
| has been given to ensure adequate separation between the
| two, with room to grow without encroaching on the other"
|
| The race-based zoning designations are gold:
|
| "R1 - white, R2 - colored, R3 - undecided"
|
| Here's a deep link straight to that portion of the
| document: https://josh.works/full-copy-of-1922-atlanta-
| zone-plan#race-...
|
| Oh, it also says:
|
| "The ordinary two or three story store and dwelling
| building is not a desirable type of construction from a
| public stand point. The regulations as applied will tend
| to reduce the number of flats that would otherwise be
| located over stores."
|
| So - there it is. The goal of American zoning was, in
| part, to eliminate 'the ordinary two or three story store
| and dwelling building'.
| mc32 wrote:
| I swear, it's impossible to please people. People are
| complaining that mixed use zoning on Taraval street in SF
| is wasting space because the street-level floors are
| wasted and they should be converted into apartments (many
| business have shuttered and ground floors remain empty in
| some mixed use buildings).
| mlyle wrote:
| > This is necessary because many office floorplans are huge
| with modern HVAC and when converted into residential you end up
| with either undesirable or illegal apartments due to lack of
| windows/egress/etc.
|
| Couldn't you just wall off the middle? I mean, you do get
| another set of windows on the inner courtyard, but it seems
| expensive to perform such major surgery on a building.
| xattt wrote:
| Donuted buildings will forever remind me of the Ponte Tower
| building.
|
| (1) https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/02
| /th...
| metadat wrote:
| _The South African Building That Came to Symbolize the
| Apocalypse_
|
| https://archive.today/qfZ91
| kibwen wrote:
| Well, we're calling them "donut holes", but they're
| actually rectangles. :P
| AlbertCory wrote:
| In Hong Kong, pre-handover, I stayed in a windowless hotel
| room.
| jxramos wrote:
| turn it into storage space I'd say
| kibwen wrote:
| If you don't use the center of the building, then you only
| have room for one "ring" of residential units, whose windows
| face the exterior of the building. If you cut a donut hole
| down the center of the building, now you have room for two
| rings of units. Furthermore, in places like NYC, developers
| are allowed to "bank" the floorspace that comprised the donut
| hole and add new construction on top of the building so that
| overall square footage remains the same.
| mlyle wrote:
| > Furthermore, in places like NYC, developers are allowed
| to "bank" the floorspace that comprised the donut hole and
| add new construction on top of the building so that overall
| square footage remains the same.
|
| Oh, yah, that's cool. You probably have a lot of systems
| surrounding the building (and ingress/egress) designed for
| that total volume.
| thfuran wrote:
| They have limits on building square footage but not height?
| Or is that a weird loophole in a height restriction?
| larubbio wrote:
| I think there are limits on both. Floor area ratio
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floor_area_ratio) is how
| it is coded into regulations. The lot size and the height
| restrictions create a bounding box that the building
| needs to fit within.
| t3rabytes wrote:
| Common in NYC to do that to say you have the tallest
| building by height even if you were only approved to
| build X floors (your service floors don't count) -- from
| the couple videos I've watched about it over the years
| (see 432 Park Ave).
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| But you effectively get another set of apartments that have
| interior windows. Sure they're not gonna have a great view
| but they're still rentable apartments
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Depending on what you do with the interior, they can
| actually be great apartments. Much quieter than street
| facing, put a nice little courtyard in the center.. etc.
| stephenr wrote:
| I would have thought it would make perfect storage space.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Depending on local laws.. windowless apartments are illegal.
| windowless bedrooms are illegal. etc.
| ethanbond wrote:
| I think they're suggesting just having dead space in the
| middle.
| dv_dt wrote:
| Why not make storage spaces?
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Because that would convert space really badly. If you're
| making 10'x10' rooms out of a 100'x100' space, it's 74%
| dead space. If a floor is more than 10,000 sq feet, maybe
| 40,000 sq feet, it goes up to to 90%.
|
| I mean, numbers are made up, but the point holds.
| afavour wrote:
| I'd be interested to see people get really creative with
| it. Throw a gym in on one floor. Cinema room on another.
| Storage units in a few more. Probably difficult to
| structurally support a pool on a floor not already
| designed for one but sure, let's throw one in there too.
| A kids playroom is maybe a little depressing with no
| natural light but it could work. Hell: keep the middle
| commercial space and put a grocery store in.
|
| Obviously once you're talking about true high rises
| you're going to run out of possibilities and I know the
| maths is still very rough. But it's an interesting
| thought exercise to think about just how many amenities
| you could pack into a building.
| mlyle wrote:
| I know your numbers are made up but presumably an
| apartment is much deeper than 10'. You'd want to make it
| as narrow and deep as practical. 20x45'? 25x36'?
|
| I get that you get (almost) twice as many apartments
| (presuming you don't build up higher), but you also get a
| massive and complicated one time cost. It surprises me
| that it could ever be worth it.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| I call this the Chicago layout -many apartments are long
| and narrow. I have assumed it was to ensure access to two
| fire escapes. Too hazard a guess, I have seen some that
| might only be 15' wide, supporting a 10x10 room with a
| hallway to access it.
| Vvector wrote:
| It's legal, in most cases, to omit an egress window in
| bedrooms in high-rise buildings--but only because the
| building includes fire-safety features (for example,
| sprinklers, fire alarm systems, and egress stairways)
|
| https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/bedrooms-
| withou...
| lokar wrote:
| Two different rules
|
| Bedrooms have egress requirements
|
| Apartments have window requirements (eg natural light)
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| For buildings where they can't cut the whole center of the
| building... maybe cutting more (but smaller) holes part way
| between the outside and the center would work. Then do vertical
| gardens up those shafts.
| INGSOCIALITE wrote:
| Typically switching from office to residential they will remove
| one elevator per bank and use the empty shaft for pipe/wiring
| riser
| pimlottc wrote:
| This looks like the episode of OddLots you're talking about:
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-07/what-it-a...
|
| They talk about converting 180 Water St by adding an internal
| atrium; it's also one of the conversions illustrated in the
| recent NYT article about the difficulties of office-to-
| residential conversions:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/11/upshot/office...
| ilamont wrote:
| We need more creative thinking like this, not just in Boston, but
| in any city where there's a glut of office space. (In North
| America, that includes NYC, San Francisco, Toronto, Winnipeg ...)
|
| The devil, of course, will be in the details. But incentives like
| this can really help get things moving in the right direction.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| This could actually work in a city like Boston (almost uniquely
| in the US). Most of those low/midrise older buildings downtown
| were likely residential to begin with.
| kibwen wrote:
| _> almost uniquely in the US_
|
| Any east coast city should have an easier time of it, because
| the main determining factor for retrofitting office buildings
| into residential is the distance between the center of the
| building and the exterior, in order to make sure there's enough
| windows in each unit. Any office building built before the
| advent of the electric light should be just fine, so there's
| plenty of opportunity in places like Philadelphia.
| glowingly wrote:
| I do not know if Boston is unique in this regard, but there
| was a lot of company housing in the region.
|
| Where I worked in Longwood (Boston), the offices surrounding
| me were massive, historic buildings with plaques
| commemorating their origin. They were originally built for
| housing nurses and doctors who worked in the area's hospitals
| (there is a concentration of hospitals in Longwood).
|
| So in this case, these were built and used as housing before
| a later conversion to office space.
|
| These are currently utilized hospital buildings. IMO, they
| are unlikely to be converted back to residential at this
| time.
| bee_rider wrote:
| How is Boston doing nowadays, overall?
|
| As an Masshole, but not a city one, I've always kinda admired the
| job they do in Boston. At least, you don't get the big dramatic
| narratives about it crumbling, like California cities, and NYC
| seems to be a bit boom-bust.
|
| Boston seems to always be doing fine. The Big Dig was a ripoff
| but that was ages ago, and the T smells like piss but that's par
| for the course, right?
| ollien wrote:
| It's fine. The T is as bad as ever, shutting off sections for
| weeks on end for repairs. Rents are through the roof. But
| things aren't all bad, it's still a fun city.
| whymauri wrote:
| My favorite thing about the MBTA is it's one of the least piss-
| smelling subway system in the U.S.
|
| I wish it moved like the MTA, though lol. I might be willing to
| make that tradeoff... maybe.
| doctoboggan wrote:
| I lived in Cambridge/Somerville from 2013 - 2019 and always had
| the feeling that downtown was only for office workers during
| business hours. There never seemed to be anything to do after
| hours as all the workers left downtown at 5pm. If this proposal
| takes off it would be really nice to see a lively downtown on
| the evenings and weekends.
| pivo wrote:
| I live downtown (Leather District) and work downtown (Post
| Office Sq.) I think there's really quite a bit of stuff to
| do. Not NYC stuff to do level, sure, but definitely not a
| wasteland after dark either.
|
| I do agree, there are some beautiful old office buildings
| around here that would probably make great residential
| buildings. That would be even better for the area.
| mrDmrTmrJ wrote:
| Fun fact - The Big Dig can pay for itself if they ever toll on
| 93 like they do the Mass Pike
| natdempk wrote:
| We're not building enough housing, COL/rent is high to the
| point where it makes it hard for many smaller businesses to
| thrive, the MBTA is an embarrassment, we're not laying enough
| fiber, the roads could use some work, but overall things are
| stable and fine. I just wish there was more of a standard of
| excellence all around.
| kgc wrote:
| Maybe just make the middle a datacenter that uses that modern
| HVAC. Datacenter doesn't need windows.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Plus Boston is a big biotech city. Chilly winter day? Fold some
| proteins.
| cs702 wrote:
| Great news -- especially for the investors who own all those
| office buildings, and the banks that lent money to them.
|
| Their government in Boston has just announced it's about to save
| them from otherwise certain financial distress.
|
| The polite term they're using to describe such generous
| government help is "public-private partnership."
| kbos87 wrote:
| It's far and away in the best interests of the people who live
| in these cities for these spaces to be repurposed. Wouldn't
| want to cut off our nose to spite our face.
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