Take a look inside the biggest-ever office building to be transformed into homes in New York City
160 Water Street is in the final stages of being transformed from an aging office building into luxury apartments and amenities.
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- The dual crises of vacant office buildings and a housing shortage is incentivizing conversions.
- 160 Water Street is a 1970s Manhattan office tower being converted into nearly 600 homes.
- But the high cost of conversion construction means rent is on the high end of market-rate.
The old cubicles in New York City's 160 Water Street are looking a bit different these days. That's because the old office building has a new lease on life — as a swanky downtown apartment building.
160 Water is part of a rebirth that some policymakers and developers hope can kill two real estate birds with one stone. Office buildings, especially older ones, are sitting empty in cities across the country, all while housing crises reach new, costly peaks.
And so cities like New York are pivoting, giving developers the go-ahead to turn old offices into new apartments. New York City Mayor Eric Adams has made policy supporting conversions central to his housing reform proposals and he highlighted 160 Water, touring the building last spring.
Transforming the 1970s office building into a luxury apartment tower involved extensive construction. To deal with the building's deep floor plate, the architecture firm Gensler designed three "blind shafts," or voids, that run through the center of the building. The square footage eliminated by the shafts was then used to build penthouses on top of the building, growing the tower from 24 to 29 stories tall.
The shafts were among the most challenging aspects of the construction process. "We couldn't just wall it off and leave the floor slab. We had to physically remove the floor slabs so that it became a true shaft," Robert Fuller, a principal at Gensler who led the design of 160 Water, previously told Business Insider.
But the high cost of converting commercial buildings into homes means the homes aren't affordable for most. The apartments at 160 Water are all on the high end of market-rate. Rent ranges from about $3,500 for a studio apartment to $7,500 for a two-bedroom.
At a time when many are working from home and looking for so-called "third places" to gather with friends and meet new people, 160 Water offers a slew of fancy amenities. These include a bowling alley, social lounges, a spa, and a rooftop bar.
Across the country, vacant offices could be turned into 400,000 new apartments, according to a working paper by the economists Arpit Gupta, Candy Martinez, and Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh. And with Manhattan's office vacancy rate still sitting at around 18% in November, according to real-estate firm Colliers, office buildings like 160 Water Street might be in need of new life.
160 Water Street — or Pearl House, as it's been renamed — is the city's biggest bet yet on office to residential conversions. With 588 units, and swanky amenities to match, the building just started leasing on December 8. Here's what it'll look like when construction is fully done in late 2024, according to architectural renderings from Gensler.
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The building is being transformed inside and out.
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The grand lobby — larger than you might find in a typical apartment building — nods at the building's past life. However, there is one big addition: A sweeping staircase that will lead downstairs to some of the building's many amenities, including a bowling alley and spa.
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In New York City, it's rare to find a unit that has a dishwasher or laundry; finding both is like a needle in a haystack. But that's not a problem at 160 Water Street; part of the tradeoff for living in a converted building is an abundance of amenities — it's what John Cetra, a Manhattan-based architect, previously called an "amenity war" in which luxury landlords lure tenants with communal spaces and programming.
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Presumably, some of the building's residents will commute to work in the financial district or elsewhere in Manhattan. But remote workers can use the building's co-working spaces.
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One of the ways 160 Water is duking it out in the "amenity war" is a rooftop terrace, part of the building's common space on the 28th floor.
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The building's developers previously told BI that the bar at 160 Water Street will host pop-ups with local restaurants and watering holes; for inflation-strapped residents, that might be a sweet deal — although they'll still have to pay an amenities fee.
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And yes, one of those amenities is an in-building bowling alley. While it might seem surprising to bring indoors the entertainment options New York City is known for, areas like the Financial District, where 160 Water Street is located, are defined by their office density rather than their nightlife. With a concerted push to convert buildings in areas like FiDi, or commerce-heavy midtown, it makes sense to lure residents in with pre-built entertainment.
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For the sports fans, there's a golf simulation room, a billiards room with a pool table, and a lounge with multiple TVs.
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The architects used the below-ground floors for a gym and spa, that includes a couple pools.
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The lounge epitomizes one of the big selling points that 160 Water Street, and other conversions, need to effectively pitch to potential residents: Your apartment can be a place you live, work, and hang out. As the desire for third spaces — a place that isn't your home, or your office, but somewhere you can freely congregate — grows, especially in pandemic-addled cities, office to residential conversions need to toe a fine line.
They're both of the spaces people want a reprieve from, but they're also uniquely tailored to how we work and live now. Apartment developers offering communal spaces and in-house amenities, all for the price of a fee, are betting that a hybrid-first workforce will prize the convenience and community of their new third space. If it works, it could reshape cities for years to come.