NEW YORK – Too much office space and not enough housing has continued to fuel efforts to transform office buildings into affordable (or luxury) housing. Developers in New York have been doing this for about two decades—converting about 30 million square feet of office space into residential living. However, the pace has quickened in recent years.
Carol A. Sigmond, partner at New York-based NOSSAMAN LLP can see the Manhattan skyline from her office window. She has encountered the conversion issue as a construction lawyer and a New Yorker, and she knows the challenges.
“There are not a lot of really suitable buildings for conversion,” she says. “A big issue is zoning. A bigger problem is complying with the multiple dwelling act. The city housing code, requirements for operable windows, and very heavy floor plates in modern buildings all make conversions complicated. Many buildings that are underutilized are really not going to be suitable for conversions, unless there are changes in the multiple housing code—and I don’t see that as likely.”
The conversion trend is not limited to New York, with multiple big cities doing their best to expand housing in the wake of reduced office usage. An article in RentCafe reported that 90,300 apartments were in the process of conversion nationwide at the start of 2026—up 28% from 70,600 a year earlier. That percentage marks a record for office-to-apartment projects.
Sigmond contends that conversion projects largely resemble other construction ventures, but attorneys would do well to pay even more attention to planning and approvals. These collaborations with engineers, construction managers, and developers are crucial in getting the proper approvals.
“When you’re dealing with conversion as opposed to new construction, you have all the issues that you would have in any renovation project,” Sigmond says. “How accurate is the information that you have about the base building? Has someone done a thorough enough review of conditions? Specific concerns include the floor plate and the floor-area-to-window ratios.
“There are some conversions going in more modern buildings, but the floor plates got heavier and the style of the facades doesn’t lend itself to open windows,” Sigmond continues. “It really has more to do with the layout and whether or not you’ve got the necessary floor-to-window ratios for the multiple housing code—and whether you can get the proper bathrooms and kitchens in.”
Wall Street Journal reporters detailed conversion projects in a Dec. 2025 article, declaring: “Most office buildings were too wide and mechanically complex to repurpose into apartments with kitchens, bathrooms, and bedrooms. New York developers are solving those problems with new architectural hacks—cut-through notches, carved lightwells, and strategic wall-offs of interior cores…”
Safety Concerns
The dense streets of the big apple make safety a huge concern, and New York City officials recently told developers to pause construction at a high-rise edifice in Midtown Manhattan that is being converted to apartments.
A late July article in the New York Times reports that, “The building is at least the third office-conversion project totally or partially shut down by the city since July 7. (The Buildings Department issues some 7,000 stop work orders every year.) On that day, two steel columns buckled at a large project on 42nd Street at the site of the old Pfizer building. It led to fears of a collapse and the evacuation of thousands.”
What About RTO?
When Amazon required all corporate employees to work from the office five days per week starting Jan. 2, 2025, many thought the return-to-office (RTO) movement would start to reverse the movement toward vacant office buildings. Sigmond acknowledges the RTO mandates, but she points out that the hybrid work trend (some days in-office and some at home) is still prevalent.
Yet another factor is office sizing. “Think about the old days when you were an attorney in a law firm,” Sigmond remembers. “You had these monster offices, but you didn’t have monster offices because you needed a lot of floor space. You had monster offices because you might have seven file cabinets and three bookcases for various papers. That’s not required anymore. The entire operation for my team is two file cabinets. Everything else is in the cloud.”
Real estate agents are ultimately on the front lines when selling residential and/or renting out commercial space, and they have made it known that office space in 2026 is a different animal than in past decades.
Brad Winkelmann, owner of Arlington Abodes Realty & Property Management wrote earlier this year that the office is changing. Specifically, businesses are seeking flexible floor plates, hybrid-ready infrastructure, and co-working or shared space options. He writes that, “properties near transit, with amenity-rich settings, adaptable floorplans, and strong occupancy will outperform older, single-use office buildings.”
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