What we build · Adaptive Reuse
Converting a Building That Was Something Else
Office, hotel or warehouse converted to residential. Occasionally excellent value and frequently more expensive than building new, and the difference is decided by the existing structure.
Bring the site, the unit count and the drawings at whatever stage. You get a range, the drivers, and an honest read on the pro forma.
Self-perform
Dewatering, SOE and deep foundations in house
Licensed
General contractor, licensed in the state of Florida
GMP
Open book, with the contingency visible to you
Draws
Documentation your lender can actually process
The floor plate decides everything
Residential needs light and air at every unit. An office floor plate designed for open plan is often too deep to yield good units without a light well or losing the core. That single geometric fact determines feasibility more than the condition of the building, and it is knowable in an afternoon.
Floor-to-floor height is the second constraint and it is as unforgiving as the plate. Residential needs to run mechanical, plumbing and drainage through ceilings that an office building never had to accommodate, and a tight floor-to-floor leaves nowhere to put any of it without losing ceiling height the units cannot spare.
What to test before anything else
- Floor plate depth and whether units can reach light and air.
- Floor-to-floor height, which has to absorb new MEP.
- Existing structural capacity for residential loading and new openings.
- What the conversion triggers — accessibility, life safety, energy.
- Existing conditions: asbestos, undocumented alterations, dead services.
Doing the test fit properly
Lay actual unit plans onto the actual floor plate, with real corridor widths, real core positions and real light and air requirements. Not a yield calculation from the gross area — a drawn arrangement that could be built.
It takes an afternoon, it comes before the appraisal and before the pro forma, and it answers the only question that matters at that stage. If the plate does not yield units, nothing else about the building is relevant.
How we handle it
- 01Test-fit units against the actual floor plate before anything else.
- 02Survey structure and services rather than trusting as-builts.
- 03Establish what the change of use triggers, in writing.
- 04Price with a stated concealed-conditions allowance.
- 05Sequence to keep the envelope weathertight throughout.
Do the test fit first, before the appraisal, before the pro forma, before anything. If the plate does not yield units, nothing else about the building matters — and that answer takes an afternoon rather than a month.
Said plainly
Where we stop
If the structure needs substantial reinforcement and the conversion triggers full code compliance, new construction is frequently cheaper. We will run that comparison honestly even though the conversion is the more interesting job.
FAQ
Common questions
- Is conversion cheaper than new build?
- Sometimes. Frequently not, once structure and code triggers are counted. Test-fit first.
- What kills most conversions?
- Floor plate depth. Units that cannot reach light and air make the yield unworkable.
- What gets triggered?
- Accessibility, life safety and energy code, commonly across the whole building.
- Are as-builts reliable?
- Rarely. Survey before designing — it is much cheaper than discovering it later.
The terms
GMP & Contract Structure
gmp contract multifamily construction
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Lender Draws
construction draw package lender multifamily
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Contingency
construction contingency multifamily how much
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Schedule Risk
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Material Escalation
material escalation clause construction contract
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Next step
Find out what is actually wrong with it.
An inspection, photographs of what we found, and a written scope. If the honest answer is that it can wait another season, that is the answer you will get.