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One other thing, is a lot of these buildings can and may be part of the downtown +15 network. Which means you can access a bunch of downtown without needing to go outside. Unless some others have expanded recently it was one of the largest indoor pedestrian networks as well.
So it can work without having to demolish the building and be feasible for a city to do. Was the cost/demo thing propaganda or something?
Its not strictly speaking a lie that its cost prohibitive, like all things it depends on...
Building codes. Age and condition of the existing building. Layout of the existing building. Property values vs residential propery values. Current value of construction labor and materials. Fire codes.
Refiting a modern 20 story open plan building with no openable windows and a central bathroom for each floor in a city where commercial realestate is strong and residential is fair is a different story to an old 4 story with a series of smaller offices for different businesses and theres a massive oversupply of commercial and a housing crisis.
"Can't do it because of the cost/way it's built, better bring workers back" is bullshit invented by owners who prefer to push businesses to renew their contract instead of spending millions for a permanent solution to their building being empty. Long term they'll make their money back and then some!
"Work from home they say, well what if we make their work, home! Mwahaha we'll convert all this office space and trap em' that'll show em!"
I'm speculating here, but the title says "old office buildings", and the Barron building was built in 1949. Maybe there's something about older buildings that make them better for conversions?
Yup, thats part of it. They are less "empty void with a center column of utilities that you put walls around" and more partitioned into smaller units like living spaces.
The good news is that there are hundreds/thousands of these in most cities that can likely be converted.
Oh, they will have needed to run better power and water, unless Alberta building code is more lax than BC.
But that's not new. My mom loves in an office/residential convert from 1992, and it's a mess: 4 units in an old cop shop, and the single fuse box is amid the storage lockers, and she shares a single 15A run with two neighbours.
Run the AC while the neighbour runs his and all three apartments go offline.