64 office buildings in NYC could become new housing

The owners of 64 New York City office buildings are interested in converting their properties into housing, according to new data from the Department of City Planning.

City Planning Director Dan Garodnick said the owners or their representatives each contacted the city’s Office Conversion Accelerator Program, which is supposed to serve as a one-stop shop to help building owners navigate complex rules and building codes by connecting them with representatives from various city agencies. The effort is meant to support Mayor Eric Adams’ goal of turning offices into 20,000 apartments over the next decade and alleviate the city's housing shortage.

So far, four buildings involved with the accelerator program have successfully converted to residential apartments or begun construction, for a total of about 2,100 new apartments, according to Garodnick. The owners of another pair of buildings — 650 First Ave. and 980 Sixth Ave. — have received permits to begin renovations, the city planning department said.

Garodnick called the office conversions a “win-win-win.” “They offer relief to struggling commercial real estate, they create much-needed housing and also help us create more vibrant 24/7 neighborhoods in our central business districts,” he said.

About 18% of Manhattan offices were still vacant in the first three months of the year, according to the most recent quarterly report from commercial real estate firm Colliers. Meanwhile, housing availability across the five boroughs remains exceedingly scarce.

Just 1.4% of apartments were empty and available to rent last year, city data shows. The rate is under 1% for units priced below $2,400 a month .

The office conversion plan aims to produce thousands of new apartments, but none so far will be within reach for low-income New Yorkers who bear the brunt of the city’s housing shortage. An available studio apartment at 100 John St., one of the recently converted office buildings, rents for $3,695 a month, according to StreetEasy .

At 55 Broad St. in the Financial District, developers Silverstein Properties and Metro Loft are also turning an office tower into 571 luxury units. The two firms declined to say how much units there will cost, though the median rent for a one-bedroom in the Financial District is close to $5,000 a month, per StreetEasy .

Architect John Cetra said tenants will likely begin moving in this fall, and showed off the unit configurations and roof deck during a recent tour.

The building, which opened in 1967, used to house a bank and the headquarters of Goldman Sachs. Cetra said the challenge for architects is finding the most efficient way to fit apartments, Tetris-style, into the existing structure.

“You can get totally wrapped up in the details of how it works," he said. “How do they interlock? How do they nestle into one another? It’s fun.”

The rooftop offers views of Brooklyn, Governors Island and, a few blocks away, another office building undergoing a similar transformation. The building at 25 Water St. used to host the offices of the New York Daily News but will soon reopen with more than 1,300 apartments, making it the biggest office conversion project in the country.

Cetra said he expects new city and state rules will allow developers to target office buildings outside the Financial District, especially in Midtown. “We're already looking at some buildings that would have not been possible to be converted,” he said.

A spokesperson for the city's planning department said the four in-progress projects that are receiving assistance through the accelerator program are all located in the Financial District, where developers have been turning offices into apartments for the past two decades.

Garodnick said he hopes a massive property tax break approved by lawmakers in last month’s state budget agreement will encourage developers to set aside about a quarter of the units for individuals earning an average of $80,000 a year.

The city is also proposing changes to allow office conversions anywhere that residential development is permitted. And the Adams administration wants to lower the age of offices eligible for conversion — to any building built in or before 1990, up from 1961 in most of the city and 1977 in Lower Manhattan.

A proposed neighborhood-level rezoning in Midtown would unlock even more office space and force developers to make a portion of new apartments affordable to low- and middle-income renters, Garodnick said. “Those are opportunities that would not exist without the changes that we're talking about,” he added.