Filling the Knowledge Gap: Guiding the U.S. Government on Office-to-Residential Conversions

In January 2024, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) made a significant commitment to accelerate the adoption of innovative practices and policies to increase affordable housing. As part of this commitment, Gensler was awarded funding to analyze office-to-residential conversion activities across six U.S. cities, test the financial feasibility of these conversions, study policy and incentives, and build an online community guide to allow local policymakers to estimate the impact of potential conversion policies on their community. Now, Gensler is putting together a panel of experts—directly involved with HUD—to discuss the ongoing analysis, share preliminary findings, explore how Gensler and its partners are advising the government on the topic, and debate what must be done to unlock additional affordable housing in the United States. The session will outline the team's approach to the analysis; highlight the initial findings in one of the six identified cities; present the recommended changes to city, state, and federal policy; and provide an update on how HUD and one of the key cities is going to adopt the policy.