New York City's mayor just conceded defeat to remote work--and declared war on the housing crisis. He

[Hestia]

7. Too big? Too small? No, these office buildings are just right for housing

Too big? Too small? No, these office buildings are just right for housing
https://www.fastcompany.com/90866323/too-big-too-small-no-these-offices-are-just-right-to-become-housing

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It’s time to admit it: Most empty office buildings are not turning into housing. That simple recipe for pandemic lemonade—offices people no longer use, combining with central urban locations where people want to live—is blissfully ignorant of a wide range of architectural and economic factors that make the vast majority of office buildings simply unsuitable as housing.

But while most are either too big, too new, too crowded, or too technically complicated to convert to homes, there’s a Goldilocks zone of office buildings that are just right for turning residential: Typically, they’re mid-rise, modestly sized structures built before World War II, with at least two sides fronting open areas or streets in neighborhoods near, but not directly in, the city’s dense financial center.

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“Office buildings are sometimes hard to convert to residential because the floor plate’s big or they’re wedged between other buildings and don’t have enough street exposure,” Bloszies explains. Having two or more entire sides of a building facing the open space along a street allows light and air to penetrate more easily than one shadowed and suffocated by neighboring structures.

Urban density, especially in a city like San Francisco, makes for a lot of buildings—prototypical high-rises with modern, so-called Class A office space—without that access to the elements. But Bloszies’s analysis found that there are many structures that don’t have those issues, mostly four- or five-story prewar buildings that have operable windows and nestle into neighborhoods instead of towering above them. These properties, Bloszies says, are perfect candidates for conversion.

“On the technical side we haven’t learned anything new that we didn’t quite know before,” he says. “It’s simple, straightforward stuff, like you need light and air."

more at link

Read where plumbing is a huge issue for converting - the floors weren't made for residential plumbing and those have to be redone, which is a lot of money.