Despite having one of the highest office vacancy rates in the nation, Houston has a stubborn history of building new rather than repurposing aging buildings. Since 2017, CBRE has tracked just 11 projects converting Houston office buildings to other uses, and the city led the nation in new real estate construction over the past decade. Eight of those 11 projects were announced or started in the last four years, more than double the number started in the four years prior, per CBRE. But for building owners to jump on the adaptive reuse train in earnest, they will need incentives. And those have been slow in coming. 
Nationally, conversions of older, unmarketable offices to residential, hotel and other uses is gaining momentum due to pandemic-influenced remote work and a long-term flight-to-quality trend.They are relatively new to Houston, though, where land is still plentiful. It’s also hard to make such projects profitable, which is why incentives must be on the…  Read the full story here. | 
