Episode Eight: From Office to Residential

The Arcfluence crew dives into the transformation of office environments into residential and mixed-use spaces, reflecting on the broader shifts driven by recent societal and technological changes. They explore the challenges and solutions associated with adapting office structures for new uses in the evolving landscape of urban development.

 

 

 

Nino: And action!!! *laughter*

Nick: Welcome to another episode of the Arcfluence podcast, where we talk about how design impacts the way we live, work, and invest. I'm Nick Karakaian, your host, and here are my co-hosts, Paul Fatkins and Nino Samardzic. Hey guys, how's it going?

Nino: Hello. Hello. Hello. Is that thing working, Nino? Yeah. Yeah, it does work actually now.

Nick: And what are we talking about today, Paul?

Paul: Yep. Well, this is episode eight. Yeah, I think so. We're starting to get, we're almost in double digits. Oh, almost. Oh, I don't know. More of the same. No, well, something different. What are we talking? It's actually a pretty hot topic.

Nick: Very relevant topic. Especially the last three years. I'll go ahead and say it. We're going to talk about how commercial spaces are going to residential, specifically office.

Nino: Yeah. And it's specifically in the big city, downtown areas. Yep.

Nick: Yeah, we have a lot of these blighted areas that have been ignored for many years, and now we have all these, um, activations and new city projects that are coming alive into a lot of major cities and mid sized cities.

Nick: Now we're seeing people come back to the city. And it's interesting because we go, during COVID, we see, we saw this mass exodus. Exodus, yeah. And now we're seeing people come back, and I guess it's kind of finding out, um, this Z Gen. Generation who wants to be downtown? Um, investors on what's, what, who are the, who's going to be renting these spaces?

Nick: Um, what's the, what's happening with commercial spaces in general and, and kind of discussing why it makes sense. Cause we're kind of in a law on a commercial investment. There's a lot of money out there, but I know a lot of investors are having, are, are pausing to say like, are there, there's, it's hard to find a really great deal right now in the commercial space, even though it's maintaining, there's still some demand too.

Paul: the other thing to factor into, I mean, within the last couple of years, right, everything's been reinvented and restructured with even how people work and, you know, whatever they're doing, it's like you used to wake up, get ready and commute into work, right? You're in your office space, you have lunch downtown and then you go back home at the end of the day, right?

Paul: Three years later, after COVID. Yes, some people are coming back into these downtown centers. So there is some migration back to the city centers, but at the same time, there's also a lot of people still working from home and still not doing that traditional, you know, wake up, commute and commute back type, uh, you know.

Nino: My company's actually still trying to kind of reinforce that like office culture and be all back in the office. So we can actually still face and face communication. Collaboration is still crucial. They're still keeping the open policy, like, uh, two days or one day a week, you can actually work from home. And in some instances, uh, many companies just to keep their, like a pressure workforce, they're allowing them to still work from home, which now Cause the big problems because many of these once occupied office space are sitting empty in these big cities, not bringing revenue.

Nick: they're being leased. So now you're, you're dedicating all this, all this money towards a office space that you don't even own. And it's not being utilized by your employees. Exactly.

Paul: So a lot of within, since it's been a couple of years now. Right. That we've gone through the pandemic hitting, and then, you know, year after year, after year, after a lot of these companies, like you said, Nick, they're not fully utilizing the office space.

Paul: Right. And it's just something that's weighing on their books. So they've decided to cut a lot of that space out of it. And so now you have a lot more vacancies that are also existing within these office spaces that are in these, you know, downtown centers, which

Nino: actually hurts the city because there's no income taxes, uh, anymore from all these.

Nino: And now they're looking at different policies, maybe changing the policies, uh, to maybe find the, and looking for different solution, how to can actually resolve this problem. And one of them is potential, uh, conversion of the office space to residential living in downtown area.

Paul: And I know some like cities like Columbus are not necessarily hit as hard with issues like this.

Paul: But I know cities like San Francisco. And New York, like, you know, you, you spent a lot of time in New York in your early days, Nick, like those cities have been especially hit hard with these vacancies and you know, the amount of office space that's available within those cities.

Nick: Yeah. They really dropped their prices on the square footers.

Paul: Although I'm, I've heard recently, it's starting to come back.

Nino: Yeah.

Paul: Um, I know within a couple of months ago, I heard a number for San Francisco and I think it was, um, over 20 million square feet of space that's vacant. Right. In the downtown center. It's like almost 30 million square feet of space. So I mean, again, like when you get into a major metropolitan area like that, you're talking to a significant amount of space that's just sitting there, right.

Paul: Not used because a lot of these companies have decided to let their workforce stay remote most of the time. Yep. And even like they'll set up like a hoteling station where instead of having a hundred thousand square foot office, they've reduced it down to like a 30, 000 square foot telling station.

Paul: Exactly. And so then you have people that pop in and share. Uh, workspace that's common, right? And then they're just not in the office every single day.

Nino: It's just a shift of the walk. Well, uh, work culture, because even now I like, uh, you can see a lot of companies just hiring people to work remotely, uh, on even long distances.

Nino: Sure. I know what I'm saying. And that was like, even before COVID and now it's all thanks to all this technology.

Nick: And we're, we're doing it.

Nino: Exactly. So it was like, uh, I just. People find it more convenient, you know,

Paul: it's convenient for the worker and it's convenient for the company as well. Right. I mean, obviously it's the same thing for, like you said, we're doing it like gladly.

Paul: We give a laptop to somebody to work out of Cleveland. Right. No problem. Right. If you're efficient and able to work up there...

Nino: That's pretty much, I mean, it's still, there are some like a pros and cons and the only time we'll actually tell how much like, uh, certain companies are being hit by this change of the, of the, of the war culture, you know?

Nino: You know, on the end, it's probably one of the trend that's still going to linger for a quite a long.

Nick: I also think it's, I mean, there's still, there's still some creativeness that the investors are trying to come up with to make this work. So it's not necessarily converting an office space to a hundred percent residential.

Nick: Yeah. Yeah. They're seeing, Just mixed use, mixed use, exact feasibility studies on what's going to work the best. And what's going to be the smartest move to see the most return on their investment.

Paul: I mean, we'll get into that, but that leads to a whole nother host of issues that you have to take care of that.

Nino: Yeah.

Paul: I was going to say, you said you think it's going to be around for a while. How long do you think it's just going to be this way? Or you think. We'll hit some point where maybe we restructure how we're working.

Nino: Uh, I usually see when you look through the history that, uh, trends have no tendency of reversing back to old.

Nino: Yeah. You know, you think going forward, I think this is just going to, this is a trend that will never change. We just have to like a live with it because honestly, even when I was talking with my wife, who's actually at home, uh, two days a week, We pay less daycare. She can do like, uh, on a, on a, like, I mean, she doing little lunch break, she can do all laundry and stuff and, uh, like, uh, you know, set up the kids to do the homework and go back to work.

Nino: So it was like, uh, I'm seeing that we'll actually transition to some kind of hybrid. System that, uh, we just have to find a way how to deal with it. I don't think we're going to return back to it. Looking at civilization, we never turn back...

Nick: well, this is, this is also why we're seeing more. Requests for home offices and for midterm rentals, short term rentals, flexible spaces, stuff like that.

Nino: I mean, some industry definitely like, uh, for example, I know I'm working a lot of in healthcare and there is a lot of encouragement trying to do telehealth. Uh, it didn't really like, uh, Uh, leave to up to the expectation yet, uh, and still like, uh, because I see the tendency when we like a design, this exam rooms, there was a, how we see how through the time and very short period of time, we reducing the number of these telehealth rooms that telling me that this system didn't really take care of.

Nino: Pick up in healthcare environment. There's still kind of people depending on, on touch and feel face to face contact. So some industry may have less prone to this change, but some of them actually like, uh, like a sales management, I think these are actually affected the most.

Nick: Yeah. And I think it also, it's just a matter of time too, to see how that evolves because eventually, you know, my father who doesn't want to get on a computer or, or at least, you know.

Nick: You know, it's, you know, the rest of us are going to be on board because we're going to be used to working this way.

Nino: Oh, yeah. I mean, that's, that's, that's, as you said, I mean, we, maybe when we get older, we're not going to be on a, on a top of. That day, like, uh, like, uh, uh, uh, technology, but you're going to be in completely capable of using technology we're using today, which already gives you a lot of, uh, work, uh, online capabilities.

Paul: I know for me personally, it's like, you know, We've been in this house now for about a year. So it's like before we came here, the office was always kind of like a secondary thought, like, Oh yeah, I can set up my desk over here and kind of work over here. I think even at one point in school, it was like in my bedroom, which is, which is terrible.

Paul: You got to separate where you sleep and where you work for sure. Because otherwise you're just like...

Nick: and now you can't see yourself without this space.

Paul: Well, yeah. So going, it was like, again, that mentality shifted. Right. And it's, I need something dedicated. I need, I need it to be my own, like escape area to where I can go and get work done.

Nick: Yeah. So for me, who lives downtown, Sarah and I have a beautiful office. I was going to ask, like, but we work together and I'm like, now I'm thinking, how can I have my own office?

Paul: But how important was just even the conversation of having the office in the home? How important was that conversation recently compared to five years ago?

Paul: Much more important.

Nino: Yeah, now it's more, way more game changer.

Paul: Now, even, how you talk to me about your standing desk, you know, Oh, that's really good.

Nino: I wish my desk is standing. So one thing also that, that maybe you mentioned the mix use, I think that's going to be, because. Okay. We all working from home, we feel more comfy cozy.

Nino: I don't have to dress up. I'm still in my PJ and I working, but eventually I'm going to need that socialization, you know what I'm saying? So, I mean, some of ours is still going to be like a computer, me and games and my virtual world, but majority people depend on socialization. And, uh, I think, uh, enhancing that, as you said, investors have to be creative.

Nino: They have to lure people back to the space, to the public space. I think the role of the public space and, uh, uh, idea of mixed use idea of the work meeting, uh, uh, walking distances, I think is going to be key because People, I know like a other day I was traveling to work. I was stuck in a traffic for a one hour, 15 minutes.

Nino: I was late in a meeting. I came all like an irritated, uh, if I just irritated. Yeah. Can you imagine that at all? Oh my goodness. So I was surprised.

Paul: Always gets me excited. A

Nino: And if I stay home, I won't be like losing like an hour and a half in the traffic. I will be on time with my meeting and I will have things done.

Nino: So, but so even commute has to be revolutionized, or maybe we just stick with the walking distance.

Nick: No, I agree. We used to, I mean, I think, I feel like when I meet with a client and we mark up the drawings in real time, after when we're reviewing a preliminary drawing set, they appreciate that. However, um, we're now finding now that technology is catching up, we're now finding like we can have a meeting on teams.

Nick: And then go use Bluebeam to do edits in real time. So now, and it's all to scale before, before it's me doing some messy sketches. That Oh, yeah. I believe I'm still using your sketches have improved over time. Oh, well, thank you. Of course. They've they've been practicing. I'm now at a seventh grade reading

Paul: level.

Paul: Yeah. You started at like a second grade level. So yeah, it's improved. I don't know where that came from. All right. Yeah.

Nino: Great. Yeah. So let's, let's talk about that, uh, conversion to look up. So what actually triggered for office space to actually convert to residential? I think the main reason, major reason is there is vacancy of opens of the office space and there is a need for housing.

Nino: But the problem is. There is a need for affordable housing. So, and that's why I think this is the key, how to actually rev revitalize, uh, the downtown area because now you have all these services that you desperately need within the walking distance.

Paul: But I think that's where the cities have to step up Exactly.

Paul: And incentivize the developers zoning.

Nino: ....because when you see. When you see, and I usually say like the good example when actually, uh, modernism, uh, get fully implemented is American city. That's a zoning. So you sit in the car, you go for entertainment, then go to work, then you go to the suburbia to, for, for dwelling and relaxations.

Nino: So you cannot do all these things without the car. So CDS to step up the game, start, you know, we see the initiative, especially in the, in the, in the Columbus area with all zoning is going to give up on enforcing this hub orientated, mixed use, a little, uh, Pockets in a city when people can. Walk, socialize, work, uh, exercise, do majority stuff they need within walking distance.

Nick: And see for me, that, that feels normal because I grew up in New York city for most of my adult life and that's the way it was. Right. So that's what you're missing.

Nino: When I came back to Ohio and I'm like, and I live downtown, I have to drive. And that's, that's like the only no key and Paul, maybe you can speak on that is like a, how we can, and what, what are actually, because not all, uh, office space can be converted to the, to the, and still be affordable.

Paul: Yeah. So just, uh, the number to throw out there for New York, I just saw it on my cheat sheet here. 94 million square feet for New York City. So I mean, like, yeah, three times more than San Francisco. Anyway, um, yeah, not all can be converted. Right. But I mean, like, I will say this, um, and I think Nick can agree with it as well.

Paul: The housing demand that's out there just in general is, is a reason why a lot of people are starting to look at offices for conversions because Pretty much everywhere across the country, housing demands, the builders can't keep up.

Nick: They're not building enough houses to meet the demand...

Paul: but, but your requirements for what you need for a residence or dwelling is, is very different than an office space.

Nick: Also, I think you are seeing some incentives coming through municipalities because here in Columbus, they're, they want that bigger tax base. And with all these new housing developments on the perimeter of city, it's not necessarily benefiting them.

Nino: because they have to develop the transportation or they're going to have, or they're going to have zillion cars on the street.

Nick: and they're getting, they're getting all this.

Nick: We want a new symphony and, and all these city amenities cost money. And rather than raising our taxes that are already kind of on the high side, it makes more sense to grow that tax base by increasing density.

Paul: Well, and that's also why the cities shouldn't incentivize developers because right now, if a property is sitting vacant, they're not getting funds from them.

Paul: Right. They're losing money right away.

Nick: I mean, even just with current. Market interest rates and things like that. There needs to be more incentives because it's hard to find a good deal.

Paul: That's another catchphrase that I like the urban doom loop. You guys heard of that? So it's, it's basically this bad cycle that you get into where the vicious cycle, yeah...

Paul: your vacancies start to increase and the amount of people that are there occupying the spaces goes lower and lower funding for the city goes down.

Paul: And then all of a sudden they can't reinvest back into infrastructure and other things and amenities. And it just keeps going to where all of a sudden now it's, it's a broken system.

Nick: Well, that's why I'm excited for Columbus because we have all this business development coming in with Intel and all the other companies.

Nick: Um, I'm actually, if you guys are going to be around this month, um, March 19th, um, it's a Tuesday we are going to be in coin is going to have a speaker. Um, that's going to talk about all the, all the growth development that's coming. Um, it's going to be so much fun. Actually, this might even air after, nevermind.

Nick: We're recording, recording too far.

Nino: I was actually, uh, I think that's a person who actually you work in my previous room. I may be wrong, but I listened that, that, uh, I think it's, uh, the name of the presentation is Intel on Intel. And, uh, it's a very, very good presentation.

Paul: I mean, the amount of housing development even needed, Right.

Paul: Just for the Intel effect that's going to happen within Columbus is going to be huge. It's 40, 000 jobs just for that. So I feel like that we're already, we already have a housing market that is booming and constrained, right. And has demand. And now all of a sudden you're injecting this large investment into it.

Nick: Right. And there's several other companies that are moving like support companies, like the people who do the uniforms and all this other infrastructure.

Nino: And like a challenges, if you can talk a little bit more about challenges in that conversion is like a, you have like a multi story building.

Paul: So, yeah, let's go back to the chat.

Paul: So like in a typical office building, right? So I've done a couple of conversions, actually. I don't know if you even know this. So even before all of this hit. Um, San Francisco 100 Van Ness for with my previous firm that I worked for in Chicago. We did an office to residential conversion there. And then when I was leaving, um, the firm, we were basically in the middle of converting Tribune Tower in Chicago from the offices there from all the, you know, Printing and, you know, journalism times, basically all of that was long gone and they converted all those offices into residential as well.

Nick: Sure. I mean, this has been happening for quite some time, but I think COVID really accelerated this.

Paul: But your typical floor plate is, is a pretty large open floor plate. You usually have a core with elevator stairs, stuff like that. And your restrooms, you usually have one location for your restrooms.

Paul: They're all grouped together. Now, you know, if you're converting this to a bunch of different apartment units, how do you think the restroom layout is going to be for that? Right? Yeah. Exactly the same. No. Yeah. So, I mean, like even right there, just reconfiguring the bathrooms, it's a huge undertaking. And that's why not all towers and vacancies are ripe for the picking, right?

Paul: To convert over into residential units, because you're talking about a massive cost in investment into restructuring how that floor plate works.

Nino: And how are you going to make that affordable living?

Paul: Yeah. And that's just residential. You mentioned mixed use before. Sure. Sure. Now, all of a sudden, if you're, Oh, I want to have a restaurant here and I want to have some, I want to keep some of the office spaces.

Paul: Oh, and I want to do something else. You know, now you're talking about all these different uses in just even how people get up and down to these different uses and how that elevator system functions.

Nick: Separate the lobby, separate the elevators. I know New York City has designated certain buildings specifically for like hotel style, short term rental living so they can maintain that common bath.

Nick: Idea and they have rooms, so you can, you can rent these rooms and there's shared....

Nino: almost like a hostel. Yeah.,

Nick: I don't want to use that word. I know...

Nino: but yeah, that's what people can relate to. What I actually was, I was actually reading the article on this one and there was actually relate to New York city, uh, existing office stock and they actually seeing that especially buildings.

Nino: That are built before, uh, all these beautiful inventions, such as air conditioning, which is before second world war, uh, this tower was a lot easier to convert than the a hundred van. Yeah, because this buildings didn't have like a really deep, uh, like, uh, floor plates, because soon as you actually move forward.

Nino: So far from the window, you're actually reducing the number of 20 foot candles And your 20 foot candle like lighting interior lighting was a key number that you don't want to go under it because then you don't longer have a A category a office space, then your category B, and then you having less a return on investment.

Nino: So they actually realize that this old, older building that they have don't have this deep plates. They still, uh, relied on natural ventilations, which is key for residential area. So you have all these like operable windows. So these are actually much better, uh, um, candidates for this conversion. And top of that, they have that historical feel.

Nino: Sure. So these are actually can be not only affordable, but even high scale residential living areas.

Paul: I'll, I'll, I'll throw it out to you. You have two houses in downtown, right? One was built in 60s, 70s. Another was built right at the turn of the century, like 1910, something like that. Which house would you be more interested in character wise?

Nick: 1910.

Paul: Yeah,

Nick: we celebrated ornamental architecture a lot more back then it wasn't so expensive now. And now we, we do developments for profit, which can hinder some of those interesting details during that time.

Paul: Yeah. During that time too, with offices as well, there was also this whole trend to seal everything up tight.

Paul: So again, he mentioned operable windows, right? You didn't have that with a lot of these office buildings. They were completely sealed up, you couldn't even open them.

Nick: Yeah, well, because one person jumps out of a window and everything changes. But also back then when you're designing, they didn't, they didn't have this technology.

Nick: So of course you're going to have natural lighting. Of course you're going to have natural ventilation. Yeah.

Nino: Because as soon as we have like, uh, like air conditioning, now it's like, It's all about four plate and how it's all numbers. Yeah. Okay. I'm just want to, I want to extract as much square footage from this lot that is already expensive and multiplied by X number of stories.

Nino: That was the logic. You know what I'm saying?

Nick: You were limited on how high you could go to and then you'd also need light. Cores in the center.

Nino: Exactly. Now, now you have this, like, uh, after like, uh, like a second world board and like a better technology, better structural systems, and you can go really, really high.

Nino: If some of these, some of these newer structures, if power were to go out and emergency power didn't take on, yeah, you would be caught in the dark in the middle of the day.

Nino: Very deep, very deep, very far away, very deep, like a plates. So it's, it's, it's, so these

Nick: older buildings are more, uh, candidates. It's a more can,

Nino: because as you can see, like a depth of the typical apartment building is like a.

Nino: Three times less than the regular office space, especially from these fifties and sixties, even seventies buildings. Yep. Because first, uh, awareness of the environment. And before that, we were just using our resources like aimlessly. Uh, and first like, uh, kick in our tea was like a, during the seventies, during the oil crisis, then we actually start switching our, like, uh, starting being aware that like, uh, our energy and our, like, uh, sources are not like a limitless.

Nino: And that, that actually start triggering the effects on, on the, on architecture and everything. So, yeah. So it's very hard to convert the big office spaces from 50s, late 70s. It

Paul: just, it still blows my mind though, that, that somebody thought it was a great idea to seal up the building as tight as possible and to allow for zero ventilation, right?

Paul: And do you know what also? I know exactly why. Yeah, people jump out a window, but you can make it so the window doesn't open all the way.

Nick: It's less that, honestly. Yeah, yeah. It's more. That's what makes the headlines. Right. Yeah, but it's less that it's more like, how can we get maximize our square footage to make the most rentable square foot exactly.

Nick: But having an operable window has nothing to do with, yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Nino: also there is like a, this, because you know, they try to like, uh, to reuse as much of the existing gear in their air conditioning systems. It wasn't like, especially for offices is not a hundred percent return.

Nino: You always have like a 20 or 30 percent of the, of the reuse. Air, which triggers the, the, the sick building syndrome, as we all know about it, because we all like a sealed everything, we put everything on technology and suddenly this reuse air start hitting people, they start having migraines, poor concentration, less natural light.

Nino: And back in days, we only have like a neon lights and Halligan lights. You know what I'm saying? Yep. Which have that like a negative effect on concentration and everything. You see how we can, uh, apply the dead day technology to the full extent to benefit us. And now we see how that actually wasn't really beneficial for us.

Paul: I think you talking through all that is, is a lot of the reasons. I mean, like some of that exists today, right? Depending on the office. Yeah. But I mean, like, again, like the design that goes into some of these offices. They're just rehashing stuff,

Nino: rehashing stuff. And it's like,

Paul: it's buildings that have been around from the fifties and the sixties and the seventies and the eight, you know, and they're just, they're doing like an interior renovation, but they still have, you know, they're still sealed up.

Paul: They're still designed a certain way.

Nino: Yeah. And I call them a dinosaur. So the age is same things with like a, these, uh, like a. I mean, I have nothing against, uh, fifties, sixties and seventies. I am, I'm actually the seventies music freak. I love that period. Uh, and, but like, uh, for example, like, uh, look at all these, like, uh, malls building that time with all this giant parking lot around them.

Nino: I mean, these buildings struggle to be reused.

Nick: What malls they're no longer around. Yeah.

Nino: So it was like a, you see many of these giant dinosaurs, single story dinosaurs still like, uh, like, uh, many of them sitting empty, you know, or they're just being like a torn down and, uh, and we have to find the creative souls who can actually reuse the stocks or create something, something more engaging.

Nick: So I think that, I think it's important to recognize that having. it actually a good, a good counterpart would be like empty houses on a street that are boarded up.

Nino: Yeah.

Nick: Bring property values down. Yes. It, it, you know, it increases crime. Um, same thing in the commercial realm. If we're having places sit vacant, it's going to encourage bad behavior.

Nino: and, and we already see that especially in America, downtowns are struggling.

Nick: So in order to activate those spaces, again, we need to get people. Moved into those buildings.

Nino: Exactly. So we have to, and it's not like a, like, it's not like a one way to resolving the problem that it has to be multidisciplinary way to, to cure, uh, the American downtown area.

Nino: And, uh, and one of step will be that, uh, conversion of the office space to something more meaningful, something more affordable, something more reading, walking distance.

Nick: I think you hit it on the head there too. It was like, if we're. I think the cities are going to give more incentive to, um, like affordable housing.

Nick: Yes. Um, I know there's low interest loans that are available. If you're, if you're going to do specifically that and you're required to do that for so many years. Um, And again, I'm just trying to find if, if I'm thinking from an investor's mindset, I'm like, well, I'm only going to do if it's worth it to me financially.

Nick: Right. What's the financial motivation.

Nino: Yeah.

Nick: And I think that we're serving our cities and people who need it by providing those amenities. Yeah.

Nino: Because you still have like a core amenities there. I mean, you still have like a well known, like a healthcare system in downtown area that there are still like a there for hundreds of years.

Nino: Yeah. And, uh, that can actually perfectly, uh, serve this, uh, this new community, this new, this new people, this people who's going to live in this.

Nick: And I would also challenge you this, uh, when I lived in New York city, I lived in a building, it had a bank in it, it had a supermarket, it had affordable housing, it had.

Nick: Wealthy people and I had middle class people the fact that all these all these types of functions are in the same space No, you didn't notice there was no blight. There was no problems. Like we we'd live there in harmony, right? I love living downtown in Manhattan Yeah Like it's beautiful and I feel like I don't know that I'd want to designate a building strictly for this No more strictly for that.

Nick: That's why I'm motivated by the mixed use which is why I think you can pull it off There is definitely some pull there. You can sell these luxury penthouses for top dollar and then have a rental, a few, a couple floors of rentals. So what do you think,

Nino: what do you think? Why, why, uh, European counterparts have no crisis in downtowns because of the mixed use.

Nino: Right. Well, they're not, I know there is also historical core in it and they're full of tourists, but yeah, which, which actually drives locals nuts. But. Uh, there is another problem. They also

Nick: don't realize how, what a benefit it is.

Nino: I know, but it is, but there is like everything else in life. The balance is the right thing, but you see when we talk about these buildings in fifties, sixties, and seventies, no balance, just.

Nino: Pure a hunger for a profit, create a problem on it, resolve the problem short term, but resolved like long term, long term suffering

Nick: and exactly that's going to cost more in the long run.

Nino: So, yeah. And I, I think that it's, it's a multidisciplinary action for a city and city. I think the cities around the United States, even in Columbus area are recognizing that.

Paul: I agree.

Paul: It's, you know, it's a global. I mean, you mentioned like stuff in Europe, but I mean, like there's cities like London cities like Frankfurt that are also struggling with the same issues that we're struggling with here. You know, um, I know there's a tower in Frankfurt, uh, Frankfurt. Furt, well, yeah, yeah. Um, there's a tower that's there that again, mixed use Paul.

Paul: Yeah. We went there, we went there, visited a lot different now than it was then. Sure. But, um, 2019, they opened a new building, which they completely reinvented how the elevator system worked. Right. And again, it was, they found the way to reinvent the use of the elevator system so that they could have a building that was mixed use, right.

Paul: Right. And have it function appropriately. Um, so again, it's like, I think people need to also get creative with how they're finding the solutions. I think cities are realizing it, right? So they're looking at tax abatements and zoning regulations and things to change on their side to make it. You know, um, attractive for developers to develop things.

Paul: Developers are looking at it, how to restructure something, uh, the most effective way, cost effective way, efficient way possible, right. To, in order to basically turn a profit for them. Cause yeah, like you said, Nick, nobody wants to dump money into something if it's going to lose money. Um, and then, yeah, like these other companies are finding ways to reinvent how systems work within the building.

Nino: I think it's a good idea, especially when you're mentioning the elevator, which is. Important things in multi story buildings is that vertical communication. I know there was like a, now once again, working one of these big projects, they have this, like, uh, in this elevator systems, this curative capabilities, then like, uh, it's almost can predict what certain types of population using the building we are actually in certain time you use the elevators.

Paul: The function on your phone, like, have you guys experienced this? Like you get in your car to go somewhere and it kind of knows you're going there. It predicts where you're going to go and then it like already enters in your destination. Yeah. Have you, have you had that? Actually, I have that.

Paul: Yeah.

Nino: Especially if you're going home, we will automatically, as soon as I put like a six, five automatically will give me like, yeah. So what you're talking about is the same thing with this elevator system. installing this one, uh, uh, very high tech hospital now is going to be this, like, but you know, many of patients, they're going to have this like a wrist bands and stuff, and we'll actually read the wrist band and we'll automatically tells you what elevator going, what department you going, we'll send you to that color and, and the same things can be much more curated.

Nino: Friendly for a users in this tall buildings and it's going to have multiple functions.

Nick: It's another layer of security too, for the residents.

Nino: Exactly. And I think that's a key. It's a key. Security is another key, which Paul says, like Evan, everything degrading the security brings the crime. And if something is active, you have, we all know from the school's eyes on a street, then, you know, when you have lights, when you have people buzzing around, we'll actually, you know.

Nino: Scare crime away. Yep.

Nick: Absolutely. I think that's why there's less problems, like less violent crime in New York city. And a lot of these because,

Nino: because, yeah, I mean, I think that, I mean, we have like a process of gentrification and, and that work well in a big city. And I think the, the, the New York is a good example.

Nino: I mean, compare time square now from time square before nineties. It's a huge difference. Sure. It is huge and just start from security. And I don't, I don't want to tell you I was in time square on every corner. You were exactly what you're talking about on the court, specifically the corner. And now there's a police station.

Nino: Yeah, exactly. So, and it's, it's almost like a, that's when you say that you have to break that visual circles to create healthy organism because city is the organism. You know, and if you, if you like, uh, if start the cating, we'll start the cating very fast. Like a human body that the, if you don't care.

Nino: Yeah. Don't care if your body is going to start decading rapidly. Cities are even more sensible and, uh, and, and I think that's, that's one of these crisis that you always going to hit in our civilization with COVID was one of them will just trigger it and just, you know, have to bring smart people together and create solution.

Paul: Yeah. I'm glad you pointed that out. Cause yeah, historically there's always been some challenge that we faced with housing, Whatever. Right. And it's like, we have to respond to it. We can't just sit and, Oh, it's going to be okay. Right. So, yeah, I think cities need to take an active approach. Developers need to take an active approach, even architects.

Paul: Right. Like we're having a conversation today. We can't just sit by, it's like, we have to find a way to voice.

Nino: It's our opinion, honestly, and because, uh, we are so passive and I keep telling you guys, I feel so sorry why I have to give up on the residential so easily. And it's, and as I said, it's so hard to reverse the trends.

Nino: It's very hard. It's almost impossible. So you have to be on, on, on, like on, on, on, on top of your game. You have to bring, because investors, they only worry about money, but also. So. Yeah. You have to tell them which kind of, because they usually look the short term. Yeah. Look at your long term games. Yeah, exactly.

Nino: And you can create that with a smart design because design is that they can actually bring people more together. They be calling in my company, they call that search for impactful design. So I think that's, that's a key need for every architect and every young student of architecture to start thinking about it.

Paul: Oh, and you know, you need to look at the examples that have worked, right? Yeah, exactly. There's, there's a few examples in San Francisco and Chicago and Frankfurt, right? Exactly. And

Nino: even modern building can be changed. What actually tears me apart, like, especially in American cities is how easily we give up on existing, on existing, uh, because you know, like, uh, American city is not like old as in European city and you're, you're like a building stock is not, you know,

Nick: Sure.

Nick: Well, the American city is designed around the automobile. Exactly.

Nino: Well, I mean, like, you still have like a, these beautiful buildings. Yeah, sure. They're like a Torn down and something glass towers being built. I mean, you know what I'm saying? I think that trend needs to be reversed because we see the beauty in this historical, you know, vestiges of the cities.

Nick: there's also examples like in New York where they'll preserve. I think we talked about this before the Hearst building where they, the Hearst tower, they preserve the exterior of the original structure and they build a glass tower inside of it. Yeah, exactly. There's compromises on top of it. And look at

Nino: the, look at the, what is the name of this park that was actually built on a former railway, elevated a railway?

Nino: It's a highline. Highline. Yeah. Which is great. I mean, the nominal example. That is a great, great. So it was actually the, it was like a, we're

Paul: starting to get a whole nother topic now...

Nino: but this is a good example. When, when, when. When someone convinced the investors to keep this, and now it's a major attraction in the city.

Nick: And now you can build your infrastructure around those, which you can turn into a profitable Exactly.

Paul: I think that's why people, so this adaptive reuse idea, right? I think that's why people are like, well, we have this existing office stock. Why can't we just take it and use it for residential? We need, we need people, you know, to have houses to live in.

Paul: Yeah. Let's just convert it.

Nino: I think all these buildings, they have a stories you can tell and people love stories.

Nick: I also, I also think like we're, we're now experimenting with all these new types of construction, like 3d printing and things like that. So if we have these existing superstructures, these steel superstructures, there's the potential to remove those guts and compliment and plug and...

Nino: plug and play.

Paul: Yeah. So a hundred Van Ness, like it was a brutalist kind of. Precast concrete panel system that was on the outside of the building. I mean, like it was like a full gut and we completely reskin the entire building. And again, it was a glass box at the end of the day, but still it was, you know.

Nino: It's a more efficient glass and had opera windows.

Paul: It looks like a glass skyscraper versus like some fifties brutalist concrete tower. So, I mean, there's ways to do things and reuse and do it in a smart way.

Nino: I love modern architecture. Nothing against the glass, but you know, today's glass versus previous glass. It was single glaze windows with the, with the air conditioning, a hundred percent on.

Nino: So, so yeah, that they will not even pass today's codes.

Nick: Yeah.

Nino: Great stuff. Great stuff. I can't, I think we can talk about this like a forever. But we have to have to stop at some point. Sounds like you want to stop. Nino sounds

Paul: like, well, yeah, I was going to say, we'll save the adaptive reuse stuff for another day.

Paul: Yeah. I think that's

Nino: a phenomenal topic that we can actually talk about.

Paul: The train station in Chicago, we actually looked at putting, uh, residential units on top of that. So again, similar thing, keeping the base intact, reusing parts of that.

Nick: I could talk forever, but like a lot of those bridges or stations or hubs is, is perfect for the activating that space with people. Yes. So you can put storefronts, residential, and then now we have these common spaces that connect maybe a downtown area to a neighborhood. Yeah. That a highway potentially divided. Yeah. Yeah.

Nino: And you know what? Many businesses will be triggered for that because they have ease of communication with this.

Nino: You know, it's, it's like a, you will see the tendencies in the cities that they're building stuff on top of these, or these communication hubs.

Nick: And I think there's going to be more opportunity for that in the next few decades as automobiles become autonomous. Yes. And you know, Transportation gets a little bit more organized and calculated with AI.

Nino: I was actually, I was actually listening to the interview that, uh, the, uh, creator of remats. Uh, you, you know about that car reac remits? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he was, um,

Paul: it's Ian, right? He's a Ian

Nino: fellow. So, yeah. Amazing car. I mean, I can understand creation a hundred percent. Uh, so he's like hug was talking about that.

Nino: Uh, many people build, not need the car in a sense, like owning the car because owning the car is expense. Many people would like to have autonomous car just to use it as needed. Yeah, and, and, and it was like, uh, and, and that expense on the car and maintenance of the car, unless you're like, uh, like, uh, the petrol head and love to have like a fancy Ferrari that you can use on, on, on weekends.

Nick: then you go outside the city and you're on the track or on the country roads. Exactly, and because you're going to use this like a self driving vehicles, I won't even call them vehicles, that's going to give you from point A to point B. And for me, instead of sitting and staring at the windshield and who's going to hit me, if I'm going to hit someone, you get some work done.

Nino: I have some work done. Exactly. Like a sitting in a, in a train. Honestly, that's, that's, that's a type of commuting that I can do.

Nick: All right. I think we're going to wrap up there from this one. Um, It's been fun.

Paul: You guys.

Nino: Yeah. Always.

Paul: Yeah. If you have a project that's a converting office space to residential, reach out.

Nino: Reach out. We're going to help you.

Nick: Good plug, Paul.

Paul: Yeah. We'll see you guys on the next one. Take care.

Nino: Take care. Bye.

Paul: This has been the Arcfluence podcast. As always, you can get more information and additional content on arcfluence.com. Please subscribe on the platform of your choice and leave us a review.We'd love to hear from you.