On: Can turning office towers into apartments save downtowns?

[llsf]

If the build ing is too wide, could we still do a mix use ? With residential on one side, and office on the other side / interior of the building ?

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[epolanski → llsf]

The best thing is actually to carve out the Os in your example, thus you don't pay property taxes on that space.

C = communal space/corridors/elevators.

E = empty

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[AtlasBarfed → epolanski]

WHy not do this

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If you make that central corridor wide enough the light will come in.

And regardless, convert these huge office spaces to huge apartments. If you get enough of those, the smaller residential apartments in the city will become cheaper.

These office buildings aren't making money. Who cares if you care out 3000 sq ft apartments out of it?

Here is another idea:

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You know what S is? Storage. Doesn't even have to be resident storage, it can be separately accessed/serviced elevators. Perfect for office space, since it involves no additional plumbing, and probably even less electricity, and about the same HVAC needs.

[TuringNYC → AtlasBarfed]

I love HN so much that we've been able to reduce this serious problem to an easy matrix representation that can be used to both demonstrate the problem and show solutions so easily.