Finally, a smart solution for L.A.'s empty skyscrapers

Nearly 30% of downtown office spaces sit vacant following the pandemic. Here's how the city could transform them.

- JOSHUA SEAWELL

CONVERTING OFFICES into co-living spaces could ease L.A.'s housing affordability crisis.

LOS ANGELES FACES two land use crises. On one hand, L.A. is beset by a desperate housing shortage in the hundreds of thousands of units, born mostly by beleaguered low-income and moderate-income Angelenos for whom renting and homeownership is increasingly out of reach.

Meanwhile, our downtown is afflicted by increasing emptiness, with 28% of office space sitting vacant due to pandemic-era changes in the structure of work, and flight to Culver City and Century City. Angelenos may want to come home to downtown, but too few want to work there.

These twin challenges may dovetail, conveniently, into one solution: convert those empty towers into housing. Indeed, a recent report from BAE Urban Economics makes the case that vacant offices should be redeveloped to create a new generation of apartments and condos.

The conditions are particularly ripe for these in conversions in L.A. The city already has a nation-leading "adaptive reuse" ordinance that smooths the path for conversions like these, state and local leaders are eagerly reviewing other regulatory changes to further support these conversions, and a growing fiscal crisis could be ameliorated by breathing life into downtown.