Converting offices and business buildings into housing: still under-exploited potential

A favorable context

The ZAN and ZEN objectives, the obsolescence of some of the buildings, telecommuting, the necessary densification of the city, its rebalancing between employment and housing, the search for greater diversity, so many elements that constitute a context particularly favorable to the development of transformations of non-residential buildings into housing.

A surge in office vacancies after the health crisis

Office space, at the origin of 53% of the housing produced in reconversion from 2013 to 2021, constitutes a specific and unavoidable challenge for the development of these reconversions.

Recent developments, teleworking, spread of flex office, have been an opportunity for companies to optimize their real estate strategies, increasing office vacancies: from 2,6 million m2 at the end of 2019, just before the crisis, to 4,4, 2 million m2022 by mid-XNUMX.

A generalization that needs to be accompanied

This context cannot mask major obstacles to the transformation of millions of m2. Thus, for a community, a business building generates more tax revenue while weighing less on local public services. An investor will have to undertake more expensive technical studies, to which are added greater risks of unforeseen events, the possible presence of asbestos, different standards, loss of surfaces, etc. all aspects that increase the cost of an operation. Support, financial and technical, could quickly double the operations.

This is why the Paris Region Institute wanted to better understand this source of transformation and identify the real contribution to be expected, in the near future, from this method of production. Find here the quick note of the Paris Region Institute.

A change of paradigm on the part of the players in real estate production, the integration of the potential for reversibility of buildings from their design, the integration of this issue into urban planning documents, all prerequisites for a desired generalization.

• 1.900 homes authorized per year for reconversion of business buildings over the 2013-2021 period, of which 53% from office space
• 800 transactions recorded since 2013 for a total of 873.000 m² converted
• 2/3 of reconversions in Paris and in the inner suburbs including 32% in intramural Paris
• 28% of reconversions in the Ile-de-France are the result of social landlords (46% in inner Paris)
• 4,4 M m² of vacant office space in Île-de-France by mid-2022, including 1,1 million m² of long-term vacant buildings (more than 2 years)