With so much attention focused on how to repurpose out-of-favor office buildings into much needed housing and other uses, experiences in Los Angeles, Dallas, New York and Philadelphia show two decades worth of converting offices into housing.
LA’s traditional downtown core was largely vacant by the late 1980s as most offices moved west to the Bunker Hill redevelopment zone. With rows of buildings sitting empty except for ground floor retail, the Central City Association, an enterprising developer and the city worked together to create the 1999 adaptive reuse ordinance.
It modified building and zoning codes to allow for the transformation of many of these structures into housing, directly resulting in 15,000 new units. And it kicked off a much larger downtown residential boom while offices have continued to languish.
Downtown Dallas has seen several older office buildings become housing and now some newer ones are being partially converted, while dozens of outmoded Wall Street area office towers turned into housing have led to an entirely new residential neighborhood in Lower Manhattan. And in Philadelphia, a host of older office buildings have been converted into hotels.
We filmed the story of LA’s adaptive reuse ordinance, part of which will appear in our second episode with an expanded version in a later segment on the subject. We also filmed LA’s Bunker Hill redevelopment saga.
Meet Carol Schatz, President and CEO of the Central City Association of Los Angeles from 1985 to 2016. Watch more videos.
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