prptblog tackles the problem of wasted “dead” space in office to resi conversions. We took to the streets today to ask end users how developers could turn a liability into a social and financial asset.
What should this be used for?
Office-to-residential activity is up, and there has been a lot of interest in the subject. Most of the discussions to date (e.g. this report by EC Harris) have been around the viability of office to residential conversion, and suitability of floor plates. Generally people feel that you end up with lower value, low quality space than purpose-built resi.
Even if the building is suitable on the whole, there may well be dead space that is not suitable. And what should you do, for example, if the ground floor is retail (so no GPDO rights) or parts of upper floors are unsuited to resi because floorplates are too deep to allow natural light in.
The developer’s preference may be for residential, or income-producing commercial, but if this is not possible, then you may end up with a liability.
But this can’t be right. So we set about answering the question – how to make an asset out of dead space?
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