Colorado-Real-Estate-Journal_330353

26 / BUILDING DIALOGUE / March 2023 ELEMENTS Conversions The Shoe Doesn’t Always Fit: Converting Of ce into MF A s we kick off 2023, we want- ed to provide insight into one of the most popular and dis- cussed trends of the past year, con- verting office space into multifami- ly dwelling units. We’ve conducted extensive research on the topic and are actively designing a project that will convert an existing eight-story office building in downtown Denver into 116 dwelling units. Adaptive reuse is not a brand- new idea, but it has significantly picked up steam over the course of the last 12 months as seen by the massive number of articles depicting the decrease in office build- ing occupancies coupled with a shortage of apartments. It’s safe to say that this technique sounds like a win-win solution to solve both problems. Especially from an en- vironmental standpoint, reusing existing buildings is much more sustainable than demolishing and rebuild- ing foundations, structures, skin and egress systems. However, the reality can be more complicated. On paper, converting the surplus of office space into much-needed dwelling units seems like a no-brainer, and depending on the project’s details, it can be. It’s sim- ilar to how tenant improvement/office projects often are thought to be easier to design and construct than new-builds, whereas the exact opposite can often be true. Based on our experience with this adaptive reuse, although an office building may have existing compo- nents that would be helpful and cost-effective to reuse for residences, some of those same “helpful components” also can cause unexpected headaches and cost down the road when fully vetted. From the outset, the basic layout of office buildings can be markedly different from what residential proj- ects need. That’s because they have different needs that influence how they’re both configured. For example, apartments typically require longer, narrower build- ing footprints. Office buildings are more flexible in this way. They require workplace strategies that respond to coworking layouts and private, heads-down work and teaming spaces – all of which can be laid out in ways that residences cannot. So, it’s critical to evaluate each project and the particular existing building on a case-by- case, detail-by-detail basis. This is especially true when you take a building design that typically was intended to solely function as an of- fice building and then try to convert it into apartments. For instance, consider the systems inside and services provided to an office building. They simply are not the same as a multifamily residence. Just visualize all the additional bathrooms located inside every unit or the number of kitchens provided to all of the units. It’s easy to encounter insufficient existing water and sewer ser- vices to the existing office building. Upgrades to utilities (i.e., water, electrical, gas) may be required. Those seem like isolated and quantifiable costs, but they can in turn expand when those components need to be run up and through the building – especially if the existing struc- ture needs significant adjustments to accommodate in- creased primary service/riser lines/shafts running up the interior of the building. A more recent obstacle has evolved from the 2022 Den- Martin Goldstein Founding Principal, Venture Architecture The interior of an existing office building in downtown Denver that is in the early stages of the design process to be converted into multifamily dwelling units. An example floor plan layout for a multifamily project prioritizes access to exterior walls/windows for the dwelling units.