Agreed. This is a good idea overall, but the implementation smells like a bailout of commercial real estate developers to me.

if the offices are empty, why not use that money for a government program to guarantee down payments of first time home buyers?

The Biden administration is doing that also, it just doesn't make as good a headline.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/10/16/white-house-announces-new-actions-on-homeownership/

Refitting office space to make it liveable is actually super expensive. Commercial spaces don't have the electric, plumbing, or insulation typically required or expected by residents. It can be cheaper to gut or even tear down the building in order to add the necessary MEP and framing, which is why you see developers are still building new rather than converting old commercial spaces. The money will encourage redevelopment which is far less wasteful and combats sprawl.

That said, I agree with you that you could make the money available to buyers instead of developers, but developers are the ones ~~paying the bribes~~donating to campaigns.

Developers won't do it though. Otherwise, we'd already have this happening. What they do now is call it a loss and get a break on their taxes.

I lived in a building thay was mixed residential/office space in Buenos Aires. It was really good, during the week you saw movement in and out so it felt alive, ar night and weekends was pretty empty and calm, and you could throw parties without bothering the neighbors.

One floor should reserved for roller skating.

uxury apartments in premium locations is the first thing I would think of too if I were a developer, but their target buyers don't sound like the sort of people who currently suffer from the housing crisis.

It'll have a domino effect, more apartments in Manhattan means less people in Brooklyn, Queens, etc. meaning prices go down in the latter boroughs. I live in Jersey City across the Hudson from Manhattan and a large part of the residents here are just people who can't afford to live in Manhattan.

are many people going to want to live in expensive converted office spaces if they don't work near there any longer?

Yes, I used to live in a converted office building in Newark NJ (not far from Manhattan) and really loved it. And yes people will always want to live in NYC and especially Manhattan. Many people, myself included simply prefer living in cities. I've also looked for apartments in Manhattan and it's completely different than anywhere else.

Former Commercial Zoning = Inner City

People are going to fight bare knuckle for that kind of residence at a reasonable price. They charge out the wazoo for small apartments in that area.

It's not that there might not be plumbing, it's that there is zero plumbing in most office buildings aside from one clustered section for floor where there's 5 to 10 toilets for each gender.

On top of that, you have completely different mechanical systems. An office building for instance may have one single mechanical system for the entire building, whereas an apartment would need separate mechanical systems for each individual apartment.

Then you have the kitchens, bedrooms and interior partition walls that are vastly different than an office building, plus the requirements for exterior windows which precludes larger office buildings with deeper floor plates from being converted at all without demolishing the interior portion of the building. Curtain wall systems that may or may not be compatible between an office and residential building (non-operating windows)... Not to mention the stair and elevator systems are probably not going to work either.

So in the end you're probably looking at gutting the building down to the structure and removing every piece of the building including the outer envelope, roof, all of the electrical plumbing and mechanical systems... In the end it may or may not be cheaper just to build a new building from the ground up.

Source: am architect. And yes, I have done conversions like this in the past.

I wonder if it would be possible to require all future construction to be designed in a way that it could easily be switched between commercial/residential. Like each floor of an office building has to have plumbing roughed it to support x number of toilets/showers on each floor, stuff like that.

More supply is more supply. It'll probably drive rent down a bit, assuming the plan works. This makes little difference to unemployed homeless people and does nothing to address the fact that many wealthy people see homes as a tool to secure their capital, but it's not nothing. Hopefully it will help some people who are on the brink be a bit more secure in their housing.

Libertarians: Always finding the rarest of occurrences to continue their dismantling of government and the systems that gave them everything they have. lmao

But there is zero reason why I shouldn’t be able to run a 7-Eleven and sleep on a cot in the back if I so choose.

Why can't you? I don't believe that there is any law saying you need to have a home in a residential zoned area (anti-homeless laws say that you cannot use public space as a home).

As far as I know, zoning laws just say that you cannot sell or rent out a property in a commercial district as residential. That is a false advertising/minimum allowable quality law, much like you cannot sell the meat of an a diseased animal. Commercial areas likely don't have the infrastructure (schools, utilities, safety) for people to live in.

And take public transportation!

I worked in a few skyscraper type offices and they are pretty awesome. The view was always crazy and there were always good food options nearby right in the middle of the city. You could make a nice house in there. Just need the bathroom and kitchen to be near the center of the building. You could probably fit 4 nice size units on each floor of my old building. But they would want to make a ton of tiny overpriced ones instead so they will say there isn't enough plumbing lol.