Panel: Office-to-residential conversions offer opportunities but face high code, cost and zoning hurdles

A panel of architects, developers and city staff told the City of Boulder Housing Advisory Board on Jan. 22 that converting vacant office buildings to housing is possible in some locations but typically requires sizeable work on building systems, fire and egress upgrades, zoning amendments and creative financing.

The panel was moderated by Holly Hendrickson, senior project manager with the city’s Housing and Human Services division, and included Pete Weber of Coburn Architecture, Jeff McMillan (planner/project manager/developer), and Phil Scholl, founder of Danube Construction. The panel presented three recent case studies — the Geological Society of America (GSA) building conversion led for Boulder Housing Partners, Ready to Work conversions in Aurora and Englewood, and an in-progress conversion at 1525 Spruce Street — to illustrate technical and regulatory trade-offs.

Hendrickson said the city’s white paper and the panel’s experience both show office-to-residential work is “market tinkering” rather than a silver-bullet solution: “I consider this concept... a market tinkering solution. Like this isn’t gonna shape our housing market,” she said, cautioning the board that conversions are a niche tool that can help in the right location.

Panelists emphasized three recurring barriers: (1) building systems and deferred maintenance — elevators, HVAC, electrical service and roofs often must be largely replaced; (2) code triggers — changing a building’s use typically triggers compliance with much of the current building and fire code; and (3) land-use complexity — many older office properties sit in Planned Unit Developments (PUDs) or have Comprehensive Plan designations that require lengthy amendments.

Pete Weber, the architect working on the GSA conversion for Boulder Housing Partners, described how the GSA’s deep floor plates, skylight “light wells” and generous internal circulation both created constraints and enabled successful unit layouts. “When you make the conversion, when you change the use in a building, essentially, it's a trigger for everything coming up to... current code,” Weber said, noting that keeping features such as the distinctive light wells helped the project but also required trade-offs to reduce non-rentable circulation area.

The Ready to Work examples in Aurora and Englewood showed a different approach: nonprofits converted simpler, lower-cost office or industrial buildings into communal shelter and program space with dormitory-style sleeping pods and centralized services. Panelists said those projects succeed because the operating model accepts different unit standards and because local governments provided donated property or other supports; the Aurora Ready to Work site, for example, was donated or transferred at minimal acquisition cost and relied heavily on grants.

At 1525 Spruce Street — a locally proposed conversion to six for-sale condominium units in the western half of an existing mixed-use building — developers described long review timelines and PUD amendment requirements. Jeff McMillan and Phil Scholl said the project required coordination with existing condo owners and an amendment to the PUD and the city’s land-use map; McMillan said the amendment process proved lengthy and uncertain enough that the team had considered walking away at an earlier stage.

Panelists and staff suggested policy levers that could increase the feasibility of conversions: clarifying and streamlining PUD amendment pathways, targeted fee waivers or credits (for example, credits for prior commercial linkage fees), and proactive mapping in the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan where residential uses are appropriate. Phil Scholl said pre-application responses from staff often lack a firm answer on entitlement questions and recommended better up-front certainty for applicants.

Several board members said the panel reinforced that conversions will not solve Boulder’s housing needs at scale but can be useful in particular situations, including for supportive or transitional housing where programmatic models accept different unit layouts. The board agreed to consider a working group to develop concrete policy recommendations and to fold the panel’s key findings into a future report to City Council.

Panelists recommended early technical assessments (electrical service capacity, elevator and egress requirements, and embodied-carbon considerations) and careful financial underwriting before purchase.

The city staff update that followed the panel also noted the Alpine Balsam / Upper Goose Creek infrastructure work has begun this year, and that Boulder Housing Partners’ permanent affordable housing on that site may not be ready for Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) application until mid-2026 because FEMA flood-plain approvals and related infrastructure work must be completed first. Staff said construction of the greenway and the city’s pavilion building conversion will precede housing construction, which is likely to start in 2027.

The board thanked the panelists and asked staff to draft possible council-facing policy recommendations that reflect the technical, regulatory and financial barriers the panel described. The board and staff said they would aim to bring a draft to the February meeting for refinement and possible referral to a small working group.