PRIVATE REPORT LABEL MARKET
Adaptive Reuse: Should Retrofitting Be the Future of Real Estate?
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While we often talk about trends that we feel confident are making their way into the future of commercial real estate, we would love to say without a doubt, that adaptive reuse is one of them. Is retrofitting the future of real estate? Some, not all, experts say yes. Should it be? We would say a resounding yes. While new build construction has many benefits, adaptive reuse is moving on from being considered solely for historical buildings or revitalization. While it takes an experienced team and a targeted strategy to properly retrofit an asset, the benefits range from cost savings, sustainable construction, historical or cultural preservation, community building, and repositioning properties left vacant from cultural or economic shifts.
We feel and sound like a broken record when we say that things are certainly shifting. During any real estate upheaval, adaptive reuse becomes even more attractive. During the recession of 2008, many condo buildings were undersold or entirely empty, and condo conversions to rental or hospitality were happening across the US.
Photo Info: Fairlakes Fairlakes, Virginia
“While it takes an experienced team and a targeted strategy to properly retrofit an asset, the benefits range from cost savings, sustainable construction, historical or cultural preservation, community building, and repositioning properties left vacant from cultural or economic shifts. ”
“Converting office complexes into multifamily, mixed use, or live/work properties is a direct response to the supply/demand issue that real estate is currently experiencing.”
Forward thinking developers in Phoenix were buying up decades old, dilapidated apartment properties that still had good bones to reposition and provide affordable housing in prime urban areas of the valley. Empty retail spaces were being converted to offices and churches. While our market today is different, one commonality is the surplus of empty buildings due to cultural shifts. Two main factors are contributing to the low occupancy of existing office buildings: the urban to suburban migration, and the rise in employee telecommuting.
Current conditions have left landlords and companies scrambling to figure out what to do with buildings that are either now obsolete or in need of downsizing. And while we hope some of these buildings can be retained for their original use, the ones that can’t be make prime candidates for adaptive reuse projects. Converting office complexes into multifamily, mixed use, or live/work properties is a direct response to the supply/demand issue that real estate is currently experiencing.
Photo Info: Cabana Phoenix, AZAt Private Label we are certainly not strangers to repositioning assets, and from a design perspective, we like a good story, of leaving a building better than we found it and affecting the community in a uniquely positive way. One project we are currently working on is converting three high rise office buildings into live/work for rent apartments. The lower levels of each building are being outfitted with state-of-the-art super amenities, like a recording studio, fitness pods, a virtual reality lounge, and duckpin bowling lanes as well as conference rooms, teleconference rooms, and an indoor/outdoor amphitheater. The original office infrastructure lends itself well to providing the necessary building programming for multifamily units, needed parking, existing restrooms, and public to private square footage. On many projects we’ve had the opportunity to uncover design features that deserve to be retained and not bulldozed. Adaptive reuse, when done correctly, gives us an opportunity to stay true to a building’s innate character and that can only enhance the final product. We hope to see more developers in the future continue to look for ways to reuse and adapt where possible.
Photo Info: Skyline Falls Church, VA
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At Private Label we are certainly not strangers to repositioning assets, and from a design perspective, we like a good story, of leaving a building better than we found it and affecting the community in a uniquely positive way.”
