The Covid pandemic has changed the office landscape. With more people working from home, companies need less office space. As a result, some developers are turning office buildings into residential buildings. Yahoo Finance's Dani Romero spoke with Joey Chilelli of the Vanbarton Group, which is turning a New York City office building into apartments.
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Video Transcript
- Yahoo Finance's Dani Romero joins us live from 160 Water Street. Danny, take it away.
DANI ROMERO: Brad, you're taking a look at the view of the future of housing in New York City. There's been a big push statewide, not only here in New York City but across the country, about converting office space into residential housing. And to get a closer look at what this building has in store, I'm joined with Joey Chilelli, managing director of Vanbarton. Thank you so much for joining us.
JOEY CHILELLI: Thank you for having me.
DANI ROMERO: And your team has been really hard at work. And so, what are you looking forward to with this conversion project?
JOEY CHILELLI: The most is just creating a vibrant environment for new residents, new housing supply for the city, and really reshaping the phase of Water Street.
DANI ROMERO: For this specific project in the financial district, what has been the biggest challenge?
JOEY CHILELLI: Just taking an office building, creating, with all the complexities that go into that, and creating residences that people will love and are marketable. And that you come into, and you don't realize that you're actually walking into a former office building.
DANI ROMERO: Conversions can also become complex at times. So what has been, would you say, the misconceptions when it comes to converting office space to residential housing?
JOEY CHILELLI: Yeah, I think a lot of people think that it's too complex, too costly. But it really is just creating a new building from an office building. And making it so that people don't realize they're coming into an office building. Like I just mentioned how you want to come into a space and feel like you're home and not that you're coming through a former office building. Those are the biggest complexities.
DANI ROMERO: And so New York State leaders, the lawmakers, they're falling pretty short on these proposed tax benefits, those breaks. What is your response into that.
JOEY CHILELLI: I think, simply put, the inaction of lawmakers is causing and exacerbating the issue with the rising rents. And so the inability to at least look at rezoning and enact something that would help more office buildings to be able to be converted or industrial sites or even changing the date. Where South of Murray street in lower Manhattan 1977, in certain zoning districts, you can convert. But in Midtown, that's 1961.