Nation’s largest office-to-apartments conversion hits the market

This week, the country’s biggest office-to-residential space conversion – a 1,300 apartment remodel of a million-square-foot brick building in Manhattan’s financial district originally constructed to house computers – hit the market.

In a past life: The 55-year-old building, designed to look like a punch card because…well…computers, served as an operations center for a bank, the newsroom for The Daily News, and office for JPMorgan.

In its new life: You could say it’s seen the light; there are significantly more windows👆. Rents range from $3,000+/month for a studio to ~$10,000/month for three-bedroom apartments to ~$12,000/month for those penthouse views.

And the building must be keeping up with its weekly therapy appointments – because it also received a huge internal upgrade. Amenities include a fitness center, spa, two pools, bowling alley, karaoke room, basketball court, and two pickleball courts.

Two birds, one stone: The idea behind the increasing number of office-to-residential conversions is simple: ~20% of US office buildings are vacant (a figure even higher in certain areas *cough* Austin *cough*), while at the same time the country is facing a residential housing shortage in the ballpark of 4 million–7 million homes.

📈 2024 was a record year for office-to-apartment conversions. The number of apartments scheduled for conversion from old office spaces numbered 55,300, up from 12,100 in 2021 (+357%).