alt Hacker NewsHistorically we did this with suddenly unused industrial buildings in cities. Liverpool and London's Dockland warehouses, New Yorks lofts in lower Manhattan.
When it is suggested today modern planners and developers say it can't be done. What changed?
Replies
nickdothutton • today at 5:41 PM
Regulations. I have some small experience with this, although I'm not a professional developer. The regulations for residential properties, whether built for purpose or converted, make this very difficult (and therefore costly) in the UK and I presume other countries.
Industrial buildings tend to be much easier to renovate, because they're filled with big open spaces.
Commercial office buildings are optimized for seating space, so you get a lot more interior walls already built and often shorter ceilings then industrial spaces. That's a lot more renovation to add in all the necessary plumbing for showers and toilets and often laundry in every unit.
New building codes mean that everything has to be done right to today's standards, not yesteryear's, so it becomes cheaper to demolish and rebuild than retrofit, especially if the building has a lot of interior space that doesn't have access to exterior walls for mandated windows.