It is a trend from New York to Seattle: shrinking demand for office space and growing demand for housing. This week, The Conversation has been exploring the need to increase Oʻahu's housing inventory.
Converting office space to residential is one of the options. Two high-rises on Bishop Street are already in the transition process or nearly complete.
"Adaptive reuse" can extend the life of older structures and produce more energy-efficient buildings. It can also be cheaper and faster than building from the ground up.
"Especially during COVID, right, everyone was working from home, and then the office buildings seemed vacant. And there might be better uses for it," said Dawn Takeuchi Apuna, the new director of the Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting.
"As we're coming out of COVID, I think a lot of people are also coming back to the offices, so it's kind of unsettled. But it's definitely a good way to provide more affordable housing units," she said.
So how can the city be more proactive? The urban core is in flux as stores are shuttered and others eye the downtown potential — short- and long-term.
Some developers are looking to use an affordable housing tool called 201H to get exemptions from building and zoning requirements.
Apuna said the department is working with developers on solutions to lighting and ventilation requirements, while still ensuring health and safety.
"It's a whole kind of newer area that we're working through. But I think that if we all work together, we can make it work," she said. "We want very livable, walkable communities. And we're basically, project by project, trying to redevelop and make these communities."
Read and listen back to our adaptive reuse series:
This interview aired on The Conversation on March 23, 2023. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
