New York's Commercial Landlords Face a Reckoning — and an Opportunity
As older office towers lose value, owners are converting them to apartments and reshaping the Manhattan skyline in the process.
New York's commercial real estate market is splitting in two. Gleaming new towers command record rents, while aging offices from the 1970s and '80s struggle to fill space — and are losing value fast.
For some owners, the crisis is an opening. A growing number of obsolete office buildings in Lower Manhattan and the Garment District are being converted into apartments, aided by city incentives aimed at easing the housing shortage. The fictional developer Keystone Holdings is turning a half-empty Water Street tower into hundreds of homes.
The conversions are complex and expensive, and not every building can be reborn. But they offer a rare chance to fix two problems at once, reshaping the skyline for a city that needs places to live more than places to work.
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