{"id":2335,"date":"2026-07-10T11:10:02","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T11:10:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=2335"},"modified":"2026-07-10T11:10:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T11:10:02","slug":"new-york-construction-scare-highlights-the-challenges-of-converting-offices-into-housing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=2335","title":{"rendered":"New York construction scare highlights the challenges of converting offices into housing"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div><audio><\/audio><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>NEW YORK \u2014 When two steel columns buckled this week inside the former Pfizer headquarters in midtown Manhattan, the scare prompted evacuations and halted work on one of the nation\u2019s largest office-to-apartment conversions.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=2333\">Will MLB\u2019s outreach to Black fans with the HBCU Swingman Classic at Citizen\u2019s Bank Park resonate?<\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>It also highlighted the complex engineering behind adaptive reuse projects, which have become increasingly popular as officials try to tackle a nationwide housing shortage by transforming offices that have sat underused since the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>The plans call for turning two office buildings \u2014 one built in 1909, the other in the 1960s \u2014 into about 1,600 apartments by adding more than a dozen stories atop the older structure and redesigning and expanding the other. The buckling occurred on the 21st floor of the newer structure, and crews have installed temporary supports as officials investigate.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Engineering experts said the conversion project is complex and poses many challenges, which include making sure older buildings can safely support new loads and carving up office floors to accommodate residential living.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>But none said the high-profile setback should make people doubt the ability of engineers to complete such projects.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think it really brings into question our understanding of how to do something like this,\u201d said Ben Schafer, a structural engineering professor at Johns Hopkins University.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<h3>How do you build a new tower on top of an old one?<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>On its website highlighting the midtown project, adaptive reuse firm Collaborative Construction Management says the nine-story building from 1909 will be \u201cthreaded through\u201d with a new addition of about 30 stories of poured concrete.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Schafer, who is not involved with the undertaking, said the likely approach is to have the century-old building continue to carry its own weight while building a new structural system to support additions.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cMy interpretation would be that they\u2019re going to leave that building carrying its own load, and they\u2019re just going to poke holes in it so that they can take the load from the building that they\u2019ve put above it and bring it all the way down to the foundation,\u201d Schafer said.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Schafer said construction on the other tower presents a different challenge: punching holes in the existing floor plate to bring light into apartments, while also ensuring that the steel frame can support the newly added loads.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>City officials have not determined what caused the columns to buckle. But both Schafer and Emily Guglielmo, a San Francisco-based structural engineer, believe the failure likely resulted from the added load.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Spokespersons for MetroLoft, the project developer, didn\u2019t respond to requests for comment Thursday. But Nathan Berman, the firm\u2019s founder, acknowledged in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that the added weight from widening the top 15 or so floors of the building likely caused the damage.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Guglielmo thinks that either the original design assumptions were misunderstood, something went wrong during the design or construction process, or construction crews overloaded or weakened the structure.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Adding stories to existing buildings is common in dense urban areas where land is scarce, she said, but it requires reviewing original construction documents and inspecting the building before determining how additional floors will affect the structure.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cIn cities and towns that don\u2019t have that available geography, you\u2019re going to see a lot more of this type of a design where there\u2019s an adaptive reuse to an existing building,\u201d Guglielmo said.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=2331\">One year of inspections at Jefferson Einstein Philadelphia Hospital: April 2025 \u2014 March 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<h3>Why not just create a new building from scratch?<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>To many structural engineers, demolition should occur only as a last resort.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cTearing buildings down is a terrible waste,\u201d Schafer said, pointing out that buildings and the construction sector are responsible for about 40% of the world\u2019s energy-related carbon emissions. \u201cFrom a sustainability standpoint, that\u2019s a disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Beyond the environmental costs, demolishing and hauling away the remnants of huge buildings is especially expensive in dense cities such as New York.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>If an existing structure can safely be reused, engineers generally prefer that.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>James LaFave, a structural engineering professor at the University of Illinois, said a steel-framed building from the 1960s, like the former Pfizer structure, would typically be a \u201cvery good\u201d starting point for a conversion.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<h3>Does the scare in New York call into question other adaptive reuse projects?<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>In recent years, officials across the country have embraced office-to-housing conversions as a potential lifeline for downtown business districts that have struggled since the pandemic.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>New York, especially, has embraced this push, as officials have made zoning changes and enacted tax incentives to spur housing production. A report from the New York City comptroller\u2019s office last year noted there are 44 adaptive reuse projects in the city that, as of early 2025, had either been completed, were underway or could move forward.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Pfizer moved out of the building in 2023 after opening a new office near Penn Station, leaving the property vacant. Construction on the property began in 2024.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Joshua Harris, director of Fordham University\u2019s Real Estate Institute, said office-to-residential conversions are a key part of solving the housing shortages in New York and other cities, even if they come with risk.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cIn a certain sense, it\u2019s not terribly surprising that this happened, and we should have a little bit of grace,\u201d he said. \u201cThese are very, very complicated surgical procedures being done to very old buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cThis is part of the reality of fixing the housing crisis,\u201d Harris continued. \u201cThings like this can happen. It doesn\u2019t look as complex as putting a rocket into space, but, in a real estate sense, construction in an environment like Manhattan on 42nd Street and Second Avenue is very complex.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Guglielmo, the California engineer, said a combination of building codes, inspections and experienced construction crews makes failures like this rare.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re very fortunate here in the United States that we are not seeing these types of failures on a day-to-day basis,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re privileged to have really robust building codes that explain to us as engineers how to do our designs in a way that\u2019s safe.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Still, Harris said it is likely a gut check for the industry, as office conversions transform once sleepy business districts across the city into 24\/7 neighborhoods, like parts of Wall Street in recent years.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cIf this building has a problem, all the other projects that have been sort of greenlit, they\u2019re going to want to review to make sure that it\u2019s not something similar,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=2330\">Ryan Daly\u2019s Philly basketball roots brought him to Syracuse \u2014 with a chance to revive the Orange<\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The buckling of two steel columns at the former Pfizer headquarters in Manhattan has raised questions about one of the nation\u2019s largest office-to-apartment conversions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - 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