How to Tell if Your Office Building Is Worth Converting

The office-to-residential conversion wave has grown from a niche experiment into a full-blown movement. But for most owners, the idea of converting an underperforming office building starts with a nagging question: is my building even worth converting? The fact is that not every office tower is destined to become housing. For all the headlines about downtown conversions, only a fraction of buildings actually make sense once the math and mechanics are factored in. The industry has learned that figuring out which ones can work, and which ones can’t, isn’t just about design inspiration, it has to do with the details of the building. Gensler has created a scoring system, called Conversion+, to answer that question quickly and with confidence, long before anyone cuts a check for a feasibility study...