4 office-to-residential projects for 2025
By Quinn Purcell, Managing Editor
The editors of Building Design+Construction have collected over 40 recent office and office-to-residential projects, including mixed-use destinations, LEED-certified buildings, and mass timber-built headquarters.
We’re breaking down the submissions into several individual articles to highlight what makes each project special. Because these were all completed in the last 18 months or are currently under construction, these office-to-res projects showcase the latest the market has to offer in terms of amenities, trends, and construction techniques.
Below are four of the 40 projects. The full list is coming soon, so stay tuned!
4 Office-to-Residential Projects for 2025
Here are four office-to-res conversions that were completed in the last 18 months:
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55 Broad Street
New York, N.Y.
55 Broad Street is the residential conversion of a midcentury office tower in Manhattan’s Financial District into a 571-unit rental apartment complex. Originally designed by Emery Roth & Sons and once home to offices for Goldman Sachs, the adaptive reuse has been carried out by CetraRuddy.
Typical of a commercial high-rise from this era, 55 Broad Street has three different floorplates, with a large podium on the lowest six stories and two subsequent setbacks as the tower rises to 36 stories. To address this long lease span, many units on the lower floors have flex spaces and home office areas. The residential program includes an array of amenities—such as substantial resident coworking space and a new rooftop addition with a 45-foot-long outdoor pool, where the original cooling tower and mechanical plant once stood.
The building has also been fully electrified—a rarity in New York City—and is expected to be the first fully electric office-to-residential development to achieve LEED certification, according to the development team.
On the Building Team:
Developers: Silverstein Properties and Metro Loft Management
Architect, AOR: CetraRuddy
Structural Eng: GACE Consulting Engineers
MEP Eng: FMC Engineering
Construction Manager: Collaborative Construction Management
685 Fifth Avenue
New York, N.Y.
685 Fifth Avenue is the mixed-use conversion of the former Gucci headquarters in New York, N.Y. It has undergone a complete transformation to become Mandarin Oriental’s first exclusively residential property on the East Coast.
Originally constructed in two stages, with the northern steel structure dating back to 1926 and the southern concrete expansion completed in 1999, the repositioning plan presented unique structural engineering challenges to adapt the building for residential use and to support a 10-story addition above the existing composite structure.
The building's mixed vintages required significant modifications to meet residential needs. A re-massing that created multiple setbacks was required to comply with zoning and prevent the ‘canyon effect,’ and to maintain light and air around the building. Multiple top-of-house floors had to be reconfigured to accommodate temporary mechanical systems, a deep rooftop pool, and outriggers to support permanent mechanical systems at the bulkhead.
The undertaking added approximately 20,000 sf of residential space and transformed the office structure into 69 luxury condominium residences.
On the Building Team:
Developer: SHVO
Architect/Designer: Marin Architects
AOR: SLCE Architects
Interior Designer: MAWD
Structural Eng: DeSimone Consulting Engineering
MEP Eng: Lilker Associates
Construction Manager: Rinaldi Group
The Midland Lofts
Kansas City, Mo.
The Midland Lofts was once home to the corporate headquarters of AMC Theatres, Russell Stover Chocolates, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Opened in 1927, the office building and the attached Midland Theatre were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 to commemorate its 50th anniversary.
This “underutilized historic jewel” was due for an upgrade. Ten years after renovating the Theatre, Cordish Companies commissioned Helix Architecture + Design to convert the long-vacant Midland Office Building into much-needed workforce housing.
Cordish’s initial goal for the 12-story, 88,500-sf building was 117 units. Helix’s design began by leveraging the firm’s adaptive-reuse expertise to restore the historic façade, upgrading it with energy-efficient windows. Inside, Helix configured 135 apartments, significantly more than Cordish originally estimated. This helped achieve the developer’s goal of monthly rents beginning at less than $1,000, aided by the inclusion of micro-unit studio apartments ranging from 300 to 486 sf, and one-bedroom units spanning 478 to 975 sf.
“The adaptive reuse of the 1927 Midland Office Building into The Midland Lofts offered the opportunity to leverage Helix’s extensive design expertise with historic buildings to meet the current housing demand for the city’s workforce.” — Doug Stockman, AIA, Principal and Director of Architecture, Helix Architecture + Design
On the Building Team:
Developer: The Cordish Companies
Architects, Interior Designers: Helix Architecture + Design, RD Jones + Associates (amenity spaces)
Structural Eng: Leigh & O'Kane
Civil Eng: Taliaferro & Browne
Historic Consultant: Rosin Preservation/Heritage Consulting Group
Code Consulting: FSC Consulting Engineers
General Contractor: Crossland Construction
The Residences at Rivermark
Baton Rouge, La.
The Residences at Rivermark is a conversion of a historic 21-story tower into 14 floors of 168 residential units. Preserving the original Brutalist architecture enabled the project to claim historic tax credits, and construction demolition methods were studied to alter the façade without the use of costly scaffolding.
The team reused cooling towers, boilers, and equipment from the upper levels to retain the apartment units’ chilled water and a fan-coil HVAC mechanical system strategy to reduce costs. Ultimately, this benefited the building’s office tenants because the systems remained functional during construction.
The existing rough-Brutalist interior ribbed concrete walls were left exposed and layered with new finishes. Indirect lighting highlights the concrete as a nod to the building’s history and inspired the integration of new design elements, including fluted paneling throughout corridors and entries. Office and residential tenants share the building's first-floor lobby and elevator bank, so a destination dispatch-type system was implemented without changing the physical elevator structures.
“To our surprise, the mixing of the tenants has been a net benefit to the project, with office leasing improving from 70% occupancy to nearly 100% since the opening of the residential portion.” — Brooks Howell, Principal, Gensler – Houston
On the Building Team:
Owner/Developer: Wampold Companies
Architect, Interiors, Branding: Gensler
Structural Eng: Walter P. Moore
Civil Eng: Stantec
MEP Eng: AST Engineers
Landscape Architect: TBG
Acoustics: SLR International Corporation
General Contractor: The Lemoine Company