Spring 2021 Issue - 60

Also, Gardner points to some of the challenges
associated with an office-to-residential conversion
that can cause a project to just not make sense. He
notes, for example, that a standard office building
is often two to three times wider and deeper than
a standard apartment building, creating significant
challenges with plumbing and natural lighting.
Zoning is another hurdle, since many offices are
in nonresidential areas and far from amenities like
schools and grocery stores.

Benefits of Conversion
Adaptive use might come with some headaches not
found in a ground-up project, but there are advantages as well. Wiencek's first office-to-residential
conversion was in downtown Bethesda, Maryland.
His firm worked in partnership with the Montgomery
County Coalition for the Homeless to turn a vacant
five-story office building into 32 units of transitional
housing with ground-floor retail space.
The Montgomery County Council had passed a
bill allowing disused office space to be converted
into affordable housing without any further zoning
process. Because there were no zoning hurdles,
Wiencek's conversion project garnered little attention
and avoided the NIMBY blowback that can accompany any development, but especially one designed
for formerly homeless and low-income residents.
Wiencek says at the same time, just six blocks
away, an affordable-housing developer was trying to
build new permanently supportive housing and had
to fight through seven years of resistance and bad
press.
For Stephenson at Woods Bagot, one advantage
of adaptive use is the ability to incorporate design
elements from old buildings that few contemporary
clients would be willing to pay for.
" One project we're working on now has beautiful mushroom columns, " he says. " The craftsmanship on it is gorgeous and you get this amazing
board form concrete ceiling. You won't see that in a
new building because it's too labor intensive for a
modern market. "
Similarly, Stephenson says older buildings often
have much higher floor-to-floor heights than new
construction. He says that most cost-conscious clients want minimum heights. But with an industrial
60

U R B A N LA N D

AFeature_Cohen_SP21.indd 60

or office conversion, you can get " really big spaces
that you wouldn't otherwise get. "
Dallas-based developer Ojala Holdings partnered
with the city of Fort Worth and the local housing
authority last year to convert an extended-stay
motel to 119 units of permanently supportive housing for people exiting homelessness. The project
was funded with money from the Coronavirus Aid,
Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020,
which required a tight turnaround to meet federal
deadlines.
An extended-stay motel obviously lends itself well
to apartment conversions. But still, Ojala associate
G. Hunt Neurohr says that the project was completed
significantly faster than a similar ground-up project
could have been. Because of support from the city,
the developer was able to find and close on the
property and get all the zoning changes and permitting done in about 45 days. After that, they blitzed
through the conversion of the distressed motel in
just three months, including adding new paint, appliances, fixtures, and a security system and demolishing several units to create an open club room and
offices for management and caseworkers.
" We created 119 homes in 90 days when a
ground-up construction project alone can be a 12to 36-month period, " Neurohr says. " Essentially,
we saved an entire year by converting this existing
structure. "
There were big financial savings as well. Neurohr
estimates that a similar ground-up project would
have cost at least four times more than the motel
conversion did.

Downsides to Adaptive Use
Offices are often erected on a much larger footprint
than apartments with less consideration of plumbing, natural light, and other essential comforts for
a living space. And some office buildings are just
too big for residential conversion. But, assuming a
building is not too massive to begin with, the size
issues can be overcome. For example, Wiencek's
firm designed the conversion of two former U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency office buildings in
D.C. into 560 apartments.
The 12-story structures are 110 feet (34 m) wide,
significantly larger than a typical 60- to 65-foot-wide

SPRING 2021

3/29/21 7:26 PM

Spring 2021 Issue

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Spring 2021 Issue