In the 2010s Seattle briefly legalized SRO-like "pod apartments" of 300-400 sq ft, and several were built. A friend of mine rented one for several years and it was fantastic. But nothing makes NIMBYs throw a shitfit like the word "SRO" and they were eventually made illegal again.

Large parts of the floor would be illegal to hand to anyone due to lack of natural light: They are only reasonable for offices because most of the floor doesn't have full walls, or said walls are transparent. They are also in locations where you might not want to live anyway, as there's minimal commercial support around the building for the services you would need if living in a weird, limited apartment.

It's a bit like how suburban commercial areas are now in trouble because there are fewer companies interested in the big box anchors, and without them many a strip mall stops making economic sense. But there at least the anchor is just a big empty box, not an 8 or 9 digit investment.

There have been some attempts to convert office buildings with large rectangular floors into long, narrow apartments so every apartment has a window. It's possible, but difficult.[1]

Plumbing and sewerage turns out to be a huge headache. Large office buildings often have all the plumbing and sewerage in a small vertical core. The rest of the building is just flat slabs on columns. Adding a sewer line means punching through the floor and hanging pipe in the space above the apartments below. If you're in SF and want to see what that looks like, park in the 4th and Mission garage on the lower level, where you can see the plumbing from the restaurants above hanging from the ceiling. Also, sewer lines are gravity fed, with a 2% slope typical. Long pipe runs get lower along the run, so you probably have to put them along a wall. Then you have to hide and soundproof that stuff, although you might be able to get away with leaving it exposed if you market to hipsters or sell it as low-income housing. If the original building has enough ceiling height, it's easier.

Then there's HVAC, exhaust ductwork for kitchens and bathrooms without windows, partitioning the electrical distribution for the individual units, fire breaks between units, etc. Overall, it's maybe 30% cheaper than a new building, and all custom work requiring experienced people. If botched, it can be more expensive than a new building.

One company that does such conversions admits they're building tomorrow's slums.

And then there's the fundamental problem that if jobs are leaving the downtown core, why have more housing units there?

[1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/analysis-heres-what-it-...

The regulatory process in Seattle is fairly painful, which raises the bar for even some of those smaller, older buildings. It'd help to change that, even though it wouldn't consume the majority of the surplus.

It's not easy, but some people are trying it! https://www.npr.org/2026/02/21/g-s1-110595/from-cubicles-to-...

Apparently it's really expensive to convert to meet reasonably sane residential standards.

Add in required shrubbery, section 8 housing set-asides, rent control, etc., it becomes unattractive -- especially if the jobs have moved to business friendly suburbs

The bipartisan housing bill that Trump has refused to sign included provisions for encouraging this.

might depend how different the codes are. could be a really expensive retrofit. Residential and office put different stresses on infrastructure.

I live in a converted office building I. Downtown Chicago . But it was built in 1913. Newer office buildings are less practical to convert due to larger floor plates. Older office buildings are smaller or have light wells etc.

On top of the architectural challenges and efficacy of it, you have to contend with the terms of the bank loans that apply. Those are why the buildings "can't" lower rents to attract new business.

If they sign a lease at a new lower rent it basically triggers a re-check of "can they repay the loan based on their rental income?", which comes back as "no". That trigger _doesn't_ occur if you just leave the building empty, with _no one_ paying rent, because your last mark to market rent was high enough.

Fundamentally changing the type of tenant in the building would presumably trigger that check as well.

It's a shell game that eventually leads to the loan defaulting, but both the bank and the building owner are happy to pretend they can't see the train coming down the tracks at them.

For an example of this in Seattle that everyone was calling years ahead of the collision, see the Martin Selig sagas https://deepnewz.com/real-estate/seattle-developer-selig-war...

On top of architectural issues like plumbing and access to windows, cities like NYC have programs where converting economically obsolete offices to residential exempts the building from property taxes if at least some units are for low-income renters.

NYC appears to be at least somewhat ahead on converting older office stock to residential stock, and I don’t expect the current administration would attempt to slow that down (it has no particular political valence in the city that I can discern).

Seattle here. The problem isn't that there's too little "planning" or "zoning". Where that's relevant, there's too much. The city has used those tools over and over to slow growth and tack on requirements for businesses.

I'm not aligned with the new mayor's business-hostile policies. But as far as making the city better for walking, things are going very well. We've been narrowing crossing distances, improving sidewalks, putting in concrete separation for bike lanes, we even finally kicked cars out of Pike Place Market. There are parks improvements in progress across the city to improve restrooms and fix dangerous spots. And the number of people in tent encampments has dropped dramatically, it's become rare and short lived in most of the city.

I suspect that we will continue to recover, despite the capital gains tax. It'll just be slower than Bellevue.