America’s adaptive reuse boom hit new heights in 2024, turning a record number of old buildings into apartments as demand for housing met a glut of underused properties. Nearly 25,000 apartments were completed from converted structures last year, which is about a 50% greater amount than in 2023 and double the total in 2022.
Hotels once again led the way, accounting for more than one-third of all new conversions, while office spaces made up nearly one in four. Developers transformed more than 9,000 hotel rooms into apartments, setting an all-time record, and repurposed nearly 6,000 former offices into housing. School buildings and old industrial sites also saw renewed life, with classroom conversions quadrupling compared to the year before.
Where Conversions Are Happening Most
Chicago topped the list of cities turning outdated buildings into homes, edging out the previous leader of the charge, Manhattan. Four Chicago projects alone added 880 new apartments, including the redevelopment of a landmark Sears store into housing and retail space. Denver followed closely behind, doubling its output from the previous year, while Philadelphia and Dallas also completed large-scale projects that brought hundreds of new apartments to their downtown areas. As for Manhattan, it slipped to fifth place, though it still delivered nearly 600 new apartments from office conversions, including one of the largest such redevelopments in the city’s history.
Baltimore took the lead in hotel conversions, transforming two downtown towers that were once part of the city’s Statler Hilton into 550 apartments, representing the biggest single hotel-to-housing project of the year. In Florida, Kissimmee and Jacksonville also made major gains by repurposing aging hotels into much-needed rental housing.
Predictions for the future are tentatively hopeful, as the momentum currently shows no signs of slowing. As things stand now, about 181,000 apartments are currently planned or underway from adaptive reuse projects across the country, which is an impressive 19% increase from last year. Most of these will come from former office buildings, followed by hotels and industrial spaces. Manhattan leads with roughly 11,000 units in the pipeline, ahead of Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. These developments make clear that adaptive reuse will remain a key strategy for easing housing shortages while reviving urban centers.
