GBH News Reporter Liz Neisloss had long wondered why, in an era of crippling housing shortages, we can’t turn office spaces into living spaces. When Boston launched its office conversion program, she followed the progress of the first successful venture for over a year and a half and filed this report:
“…when Boston announced its program to convert offices to residences, I was eager to learn more. In 2024, I connected with Adam Burns, head of Boston Pinnacle Properties, the first developer to jump in with a project. We tagged along, checking in over a year and a half as he and his team converted a six-story office building on Franklin Street — built in the late 1800s — into 15 apartments.
I quickly learned that even with a relatively high office vacancy rate in Boston, not every building can be transformed. Those massive glass towers I once eyed, and thought of as ideal, turn out to be the wrong shape for easy and cost-effective conversion. Experts say the best candidates are more like a collection of ‘unicorn’ buildings that meet criteria including design and financing.
Apartments need light and windows. So wide glass towers, for example, are hard to convert because they have a deep core that makes them hard to lay out as apartments. And when it comes to financing, giant office buildings are often really complex financial packages that may have multiple owners and layers of debt, making it tougher to get to a conversion.
The city recently declared the program a success and extended it until the end of this year. Developers get a 29-year, 75% tax abatement along with fast-tracked permitting, and officials point to newly approved major downtown zoning changes that removed outdated restrictions to allow more mixed-use development including coffee shops, fitness studios and entertainment venues to support growing residential neighborhoods and revitalize downtown.”
Watch the full story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xgGIThqFIE