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New York City’s newest real estate trend isn’t a shiny glass tower—it’s rethinking the ones we already have. According to a new report from City Comptroller Brad Lander, more than 15 million square feet of aging office space across the city could be flipped into nearly 17,400 apartments, marking a pivotal shift in New York’s fight against the housing crisis.
That’s right: The old Pfizer headquarters? Becoming 1,500 apartments. Downtown’s former JPMorgan Chase HQ at 25 Water Street? Already mid-conversion into 1,300 units. Even the onetime home of Goldman Sachs, at 55 Broad Street, has traded its trading desks for 571 new rental units.
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In total, the report counts 44 conversion projects either completed, underway, or proposed that have gained momentum since the pandemic upended both where New Yorkers live and where they work. With hybrid and remote work emptying out Midtown cubicles and dragging down office values, developers are seizing the opportunity to turn ghosts of commerce past into badly needed homes.
A generous new tax break called 467-m is greasing the wheels of the project. Enacted in 2024, it gives developers up to 90-percent off their property tax bill for up to 35 years, as long as 25-percent of the new apartments are affordable. Critics argue that the program is overly generous in some cases: the Comptroller estimates it could cost the city $5.1 billion in lost tax revenue over the next few decades. Most of that cost is tied to Lower Manhattan buildings that might’ve been converted anyway, tax break or not.
Still, the upside is real. Conversions could soak up one-third of the city’s pandemic-era office vacancy losses and kickstart vibrant, mixed-use neighborhoods in places once dominated by 9-to-5 crowds.
And the pipeline’s only growing. Since May, developers have unveiled major new projects, including a plan to convert 5 Times Square into 1,250 apartments and a 72-story skyscraper in Downtown Brooklyn that would replace a much-maligned Verizon call center with 1,263 mixed-income homes.
Turns out the best place to build new housing might be inside your old job.