Once-vacant office’s $100M transformation
Converting a cold, corporate office building into a warm, livable place is mired in challenges.
But the recent $100 million transformation of a 52-year-old office high rise in downtown Houston into a 372-unit apartment community offers a case study into how one developer overcame many of the common hurdles.
For any office-to-residential project, finding a good building is half the struggle. Only 25% of office towers can make successful conversions, according to architecture firm Gensler’s analysis of 1,000 office buildings across North America.
Florida-based DeBartolo Development picked the 20-story tower at 1801 Smith because it checked the boxes for a successful conversion: rectangular, narrow floorplates; ample parking; recently refurbished elevators; working mechanical and electrical systems, and a desirable location. The seller, John Quinlan, was also willing to move out remaining tenants in the tower, making it easier for DeBartolo to launch redevelopment sooner.
Once a building is identified, the question then becomes, “How do you take an ugly, defunct building and turn it into something that’s leasable?” said Eddie Mastalerz, principal at ARC3 Architecture, the architecture firm for 1801 Smith. In the case of the building now known as Elev8, the converted tower had to offer a luxury residential experience that could compete with other new apartments downtown, he noted.
A major challenge for any conversion is the building’s geometry. Picture a typical office tower with an elevator and stairs at the core of the building. The spaces nearer the core don’t have access to natural light, presenting architects with a design challenge.
At 1801 Smith, what otherwise would have been been unusable, dark space near the interior was turned into a mix of rentable storage units, coworking and amenity spaces. Every apartment has large floor-to-ceiling windows, but windowless spaces were turned into secondary bedrooms, larger bathrooms or closets.
Elsewhere, vestiges of the onetime office space were revamped with a more residential feel. Where a tall, grand lobby welcomed workers and visitors, steel structures now divide the space into two levels, creating several two-story units with windows more than 20 feet high.
In other units, dead space between the tower and the adjacent parking garage turned into oversized outdoor patios. Former parking spaces turned into an outdoor hangout nook with grills and a turfed dog lawn.
Elev8’s ground floor was filled with amenities, including a pool with a roll-up glass door to provide an indoor-outdoor experience. (An air conditioning chiller unit atop the building prevented installation of a rooftop pool.)
The design also had to enlarge the building’s plumbing and sewage capacity within the limitations of the existing structure. Fortunately, the style of 1801 Smith’s concrete slab flooring allowed the developer to install more toilets, showers and drains without damaging the building’s structural integrity, Mastalerz noted.
In the end, the team salvaged much of the building that otherwise would have wound up in a landfill, said Ed Kobel, president of DeBartolo.
“It’s a labor of love,” said Kobel. “In a strange way we’re sort of carving off this ugly-ducking building and turning it into something that adds values to the city.”