From cubicles to kitchens: How empty offices are becoming homes

"The room looks like your typical office suite: white walls, low ceilings, gray carpet worn thin from years of foot traffic. But for this vacant office outside Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C., real estate developers see potential. Matt Pestronk is the president of Post Brothers, a development company that bought the entire office building back in 2021, along with a neighboring building. Instead of making updates to attract new business tenants, Post Brothers decided to convert the old offices into more than 500 apartments."

"Cities across the U.S. are grappling with two parallel problems: too much empty office space and not enough housing. Nationally, office vacancy rates reached roughly 20% in 2024, after years of employees working from home. At the same time, the national housing shortage is in the millions. Cities like Washington, D.C., are now betting that by turning vacant offices into homes, one crisis can help solve the other. Post Brothers has completed half a dozen office-to-residential conversions so far. Its project in D.C., which broke ground last month, is the largest such conversion in the city to date."

An office building near Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C., purchased in 2021 along with a neighboring property, is being converted into more than 500 apartments by Post Brothers. The project adapts existing structure to accelerate delivery, replacing a 1960s concrete facade with a lighter limestone-like aggregate and installing larger, more efficient windows. The conversion follows several completed office-to-residential projects by Post Brothers and is the largest such effort in the city. The work responds to roughly 20% national office vacancy in 2024 and a multimillion-unit housing shortage, aiming to provide housing and reuse surplus office space.

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