‘Dire need’: Some Massachusetts suburbs starting to convert empty offices into housing

BOSTON — The high cost of housing continues to be a big problem across Massachusetts.

High vacancy rates in office buildings are another issue of concern.

The city of Boston has launched a program to encourage developers to convert under-utilized office buildings into housing in the downtown area.

The vacancy rate for commercial property is hovering around 20% in Boston.

So far, conversion applications have been filed with the city for 20 downtown buildings, which would create 760 units of housing.

Now that same idea is starting to take hold in the suburbs.

“It’s a really difficult time to own commercial real estate, and that was certainly true downtown and in the cities for a long time, but now it’s trickled down to the suburbs and that’s a big concern for us,” said Greg Reibman, President and CEO of the Charles River Regional Chamber which represents dozens of businesses in Newton, Needham, Watertown, and Wellesley.

17 Hartwell Ave. in Lexington is now slated to be turned into 312 rental units. Town officials say construction should begin this spring.

A trio of dated office buildings on Militia Drive is now before the Lexington Planning Board with the idea of turning them into 300 apartments.

“I think we need every tool in our toolkit to address the housing shortage in Massachusetts,” said Jesse Kanson-Benanev, Executive Director of Abundant Housing Massachusetts, an advocacy group looking to expand the region’s housing supply.

“The focus on converting under utilized or vacant offices or other commercial properties into housing is a really important tool.”

He said Massachusetts is in a deep hole, and while office conversions can’t solve the problem, every little bit helps.

“In the 30 years prior to 1990, we built 900,000 homes in Massachusetts. In the 35 years or so since 1990, we’ve actually built about half as many, just over 450,000 homes. That’s at a time when our population has been growing steadily.”

Swapping commercial property for residential units isn’t an even trade for cities and towns, but Reibman says it still needs to be pursued.

“If you have a commercial property, you’re not only getting more tax revenue, but you’re also having less expenses because you’re not putting kids thru schools. But the reality is, right now, we have a dire need to build more housing. And at the end of the day, we’re not going to bring employers here unless they have confidence that there’s a workforce for them.”

Reibman told Boston 25 News some mixed-use projects that were bout to start construction have gone back to the drawing board to reduce the amount of office space and to add more housing.

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