Alexandria is leading the way in converting office space to apartments and condos, according to RentCafe’s annual Adaptive Reuse Report.
RentCafe found that Alexandria is ranked 4th among cities nationwide by number of apartments that from office conversions between 2020-2021.
Alexandria is also the 3rd U.S. city in the top 10 cities with the most converted apartments in the first half of 2022, with 648 conversions completed from January to June 2022.
"Our analysis shows that adaptive reuse apartments were growing faster than new apartments — 25% versus 10% — during the same timeframe," according to RentCafe.
Why Alexandria? “The residential market needs significantly more density in the areas of the largest cities, where the demand is greatest and where the tallest office buildings are located,” said Doug Ressler, manager of business intelligence at Yardi Matrix. “Existing building architecture is the critical starting point. Not all buildings are equally threatened by the work-from-home revolution. Larger office buildings in abandoned central business districts are better suited to conversion than the often-smaller office complexes distributed around the suburbs.”
In Alexandria, the owners of 1101 King St., a mostly vacant office building in the heart of Old Town, are considering converting the building to apartments. A converted office building in Old Town North at 801 N. Fairfax St. opened to residents in 2021.
Prior to construction, a major planned project in the Eisenhower East neighborhood decided to switch from plans for an office to a large residential project. And with the US Patent & Trademark Office vacating 800,000 square feet of office space in the coming years, the Carlyle District could see more residential use.
The data from RentCafe does not take into account office buildings that are demolished entirely to make way for residential, which may be happening at 2121 Eisenhower Ave. and possibly, eventually, at the Victory Center a few miles down the road.
The full RentCafe study is available here.
