[Wattleigh]

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/pro...al-conversion/

How $100M turned a vacant downtown Houston highrise office into luxury apartments

By Marissa Luck and Amelia Winger
Feb. 19, 2024 6:00 a.m.

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 highrise 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 would have otherwise 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.