Adelaide's Lord Mayor has called for ageing empty office spaces in the city to be converted into residential apartments to help ease the housing crisis. But some experts and the state's peak property body say the process isn't that simple and can often be more costly than constructing a new building.
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00:00 These signs are a common feature on buildings across Adelaide.
00:06 While many are struggling to find a home in what's now the tightest rental market in the
00:10 country, city offices like these are lying dormant.
00:14 And another new office tower is set to be built in the CBD.
00:17 Whilst it's good to have new builds, it seems a terrible waste not to deal with the old
00:22 property we've got.
00:24 About one in five offices in Adelaide are vacant, according to data from the Property
00:28 Council of Australia.
00:30 The city's Lord Mayor has called for some of those to be converted into residential
00:34 apartments in a process called 'adaptive reuse'.
00:38 We've identified another 150 or so buildings that we think have the potential for conversion.
00:43 The state government says it won't stand in the council's way.
00:47 There are some barriers against it, but they're not government barriers, they're more technical
00:52 and physical barriers or finance barriers.
00:55 But experts say the task of converting offices into apartments isn't straightforward.
01:00 The really big challenge is finding the right office building to convert.
01:05 A building that's got the right floor to floor heights, a building that's not too deep and
01:10 that is slim enough and a building that's in the right location.
01:13 The property council says developers must also jump over more regulatory hurdles and
01:18 deal with higher costs when converting existing buildings.
01:22 Whether it's improving office stock as is or embarking on what is a huge challenge in
01:27 adaptive reuse, office to residential, the environment currently in the city isn't one
01:35 that's conducive to taking on more risk.
01:37 We've got some financial markers that say that it is stacking up and obviously not for
01:44 every building.
01:45 The city council says it currently has about 30 dwellings in the pipeline.
01:49 [BLANK_AUDIO]