Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Office building to Co-Housing Conversions

[Bryan Bowen (bryan]

We have looked at it (converting office buildings to cohousing) a few times
and most recently went pretty far on one in the design process in the DC
area before falling apart.

The cost to buy plus the cost to remodel are usually more than the
justifiable sales prices, and as a result it might be more cost effective
to build from scratch (plus you get what you want). That could be different
if the building is easy to permit/remodel, the cost of the office building
is low enough, or if you already own it and have it sitting empty. So,
partnering with the building owners or developers could work.

There are also a lot of land use or building code requirements that can be
triggered by this "change of use" so there are due diligence efforts that
need to be understood. For example, in Boulder, we'd need to redo the land
use entitlement process, bring the site into compliance with current
development standards, change exterior lighting, replace all of the windows
and mechanical systems to meet energy code, add irrigation water taps, add
insulation, replace all lighting, meet egress and accessibility standards,
etc in addition to what people think of as the remodeling necessary to turn
office into units. We looked at one in Denver that didn't make it past
these hurdles.

In brighter news, we're converting a 11 bedroom 13,000 sf mansion in Denver
into a 17 bed affordable housing cooperative and that's looking like it has
legs.

Eastern Village Cohousing is rad, btw. There are great examples of this
sort of retrofit cohousing but I'm not sure that we could pull it off in
this current economic climate.

- b

BRYAN BOWEN    |    PRINCIPAL   |    AIA   |    APA    |   LEED AP

*caddis collaborative*
1521 Easy Rider Lane #102
Boulder, CO 80304
303 443 3629
caddispc.com


On Thu, Mar 21, 2024 at 5:59 AM Chapel, Thomas (CDC/NCIPC/DOP) via
Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> wrote:

> I bet there are some even if I don't know of them.  But I did read about
> some office building to student housing conversions which used the same
> kind of common/shared space model as we tend to.
>
> Thomas J. [Tom] Chapel, MA, MBA
> Guest Researcher
> CDC/NCIPC/DOP
> TChapel [at] cdc.gov
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Cohousing-L <cohousing-l-bounces+tchapel=cdc.gov [at] cohousing.org> On
> Behalf Of dkemper398 [at] gmail.com
> Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2024 4:23 PM
> To: cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org
> Subject: [C-L]_ Office building to Co-Housing Conversions
>
> CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not
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>
> In the post-COVID era many office building have become vacant.
>
> I recognize that:
>
> *       CoHousing done well has many architecturally special needs.
> *       Office to residential conversions are not easy
>
> Still, with so much office space going vacant in our post-covid world and
> with the growing recognition of isolation as a public epidemic, I'm
> wondering if anyone knows examples of office building to cohousing
> conversions.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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