Adaptive reuse may be key to more city apartments

As lockdown restrictions ease across the nation, early signs of the “new normal” suggest there will be a significant long-term reduction in the office footprint of commercial businesses. This has renewed calls to convert empty CBD offices into residential apartments. Australia’s largest apartment owner-developer, Harry Triguboff of The Meriton Group, recently commented to The Australian that commercial city towers left vacant by the pandemic should be converted into apartment blocks. 

“The value of our city has dropped. We have unusable real estate in the best position. Something has to be done quickly,” said the veteran developer who builds around 1,600 apartments a year. 

In April 2020, Leanne Hodyl, Managing Director of Hodyl and Co, conducted a built form review of the CBD for the Victorian Government. The review found more empty offices and student accommodations in the city than there was the demand for either, expressing concern about a lack in tenancy demands. “There’s definitely not a high demand for apartment living in the city [as of April 2021], we’ve lost international students, we’ve lost immigration,” she expressed to The Age. However, with borders expected to reopen soon (allowing Australian capital cities to regain their global status), this may no longer be a point of concern. 

Similar adaptive reuse initiatives have been implemented in major cities around the world, including New York, Hong Kong and London - playing a significant role in reinvigorating the cities. 

NSW Chief Economist Stephen Walters has commented that the central business district would never return to pre-Covid days as an increasing number of people continue to work from home regularly. He expressed that recovery initiatives must embrace bold new methods to overcome the shifting nature of how people work in large cities. “We are not coming back in 100% five days a week, so the reality is the demand for office space is not going to be what it used to be,” he said.  

This new normal of working from home (at least some days of the week) serves as an opportunity to convert excess commercial office spaces into liveable apartments. 

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