of light, but they were able to design very nice units. I think we have a dozen of those buildings in downtown,” says Waldrup. “It’s not cheap to do right. It will take creative financing to get some of those buildings to pencil out, but I think they will be very successful as residential. Buildings like the Commonwealth Building or Kauffmann’s put the money in the right places, in my opinion, and they are 100 percent leased with a waiting list.” Beasley reiterates that office-to-residential is not feasible without the availability of tax credits to offset the burdensome infrastructure costs, but he sees no shortage of potential properties.
floor-to-ceiling glass in those former class A buildings with beautiful views that maximize daylight,” Indovina continues. That building type would introduce larger luxury units for rent, which are currently lacking in the market.” Regardless of the building typology, opportunities for office-to-residential conversion abound in Downtown Pittsburgh. Developers have noticed. After moving on from Pittsburgh in the late 2010s, PMC returned to the city and is currently renovating the Allegheny Building into 177 units. Douglas Development has proposed converting the former Easter Seals Building at 642 Fort Duquesne Boulevard into 142 units. Victrix LLC has begun the demolition on turning the former GNC Headquarters at 300 Sixth Avenue into 249 apartments. Within the past month, Rugby Realty and Hertz Investments have floated adapting the Gulf Tower and 3 Gateway Center respectively. Waldrup is confident the demand for such units exists. “The units in the Commonwealth Building are drop dead gorgeous. That is a building in the middle of a block without a ton
of decades of the century and the new buildings erected since 2007. The challenges of adapting these modern office buildings are different, but so are the opportunities. “There are two types of office buildings: pre-war and post war. Pittsburgh has a nice mixture of both. The pre-war buildings are going to have much smaller footprints and, therefore, allow for maximization of perimeter windows and a reasonable loss factor on the residential circulation. They afford window-heavy, façade-heavy, smaller units,” says Ryan Indovina, partner at Indovina Associates Architects. “Post World War II office buildings present a greater challenge because of their larger floor plates. You end up with a more centralized core, usually involving a larger number of elevators, stair towers, and circulation elements. Depending on the footprint of those buildings you have deeper façade-to-central core dimensions, which presents a challenge for today’s efficient residential unit dimensions.” “The larger footprint buildings benefit, at least in the Pittsburgh market, from having
“Outside of the large corporate headquarters buildings I would say 50 percent of the buildings in
downtown are feasible to be adapted to apartments,” he notes. “Between the ones that are too small and the ones that are too large, there is a sweet spot of buildings that could become available, particularly around the Cultural District, that would be low hanging fruit if they were to turn over.” DP
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