Cincinnati is about to get a lot more apartments in the next year thanks to plans to convert vacant office space into housing. The Queen City is No. 7 in the U.S. for the most future conversions.
The new report from RentCafe, a nationwide service for listing rental properties, projects nearly 1,300 apartment units coming online by the end of 2022 and beyond.
This is important during a housing shortage, says Doug Ressler, manager of business intelligence with Yardie Matrix, a sister division of RentCafe. He says building reuse was in high gear before COVID, but the pandemic accelerated it.
He points to millennials and Generation Z as the target renters. “You’ve got a combination of (those) two renters and millennials that are continuing to rent longer durations; and then of course, you have some degree of percentage where the boomers are offloading houses. And so, you see these people moving into rental types of housing units,” he says.
Where are these new future developments in Cincinnati?
RentCafe and Yardie Matrix project three office buildings, one financial building, one factory and a library development will be converted into apartments.
Freeport Row: 1617 Elm at the northwest corner of Liberty and Elm in Over-the-Rhine
Second National Bank: 830 Main Street
Central Trust/PNC/Fourth and Vine Tower: 1 West Fourth Street
Crosley Building: 1333 Arlington Street in Camp Washington
Mercantile Library Building: 414 Walnut Street
Ressler says apartment conversions are easier from office space because it gives renters more amenities, unlike vacant hotels. “The upper middle-class renters, the lifestyle renters, they want a little bit of green space. They want a patio now. They may want to have connected parking to the existing structure.”
Don’t look for building conversions to slow down. Ressler says with more people working from home there will continue to be available office space. Even vacant strip malls are being repurposed. Medical office buildings and urgent cares are going in those places.
