D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has made office-to-residential the hero in the city’s story of downtown reinvention.
But with millions of square feet of older offices now obsolete, developers and city officials need to think beyond that residential box, panelists said at Bisnow’s Office Repositioning Summit last week.
“Just like retail shouldn’t be on every first floor of every building, residential shouldn’t be on every block of the city,” Roadside Development Managing Partner Richard Lake said at the event, which was held at The Westin Washington, DC Downtown.
There are five downtown office-to-residential conversions in the works and 11 more planned, Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Nina Albert said in her opening remarks.
But she joined panelists who said an array of redevelopment types — from hospitality to education to updated offices — are often faster, easier and more cost-effective, as well as necessary to bring people downtown, with more than a fifth of all offices in the city vacant
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Emily Wishingrad over at Bisnow
