“Hug Fest”: Massachusetts Embraces Conversions

Housing developers and local residents often find themselves at odds with one another, but when it comes to conversions in Massachusetts, one developer only sees a giant “hug fest.”

Conversions are growing in popularity in the state and its biggest city, Boston, according to Bisnow. Developers and relevant stakeholders recently discussed the prevalence of office-to-residential conversions at an industry event.

While conversions come with challenges — especially when it comes to penciling out the adaptive reuse of a property built with another purpose in mind — they can be developed quicker than new construction and sometimes face less blowback from the community.

“So why adaptive reuse? I call it anti-NIMBYism,” WinnDevelopment managing partner Lawrence Curtis said at the event.

“When you take an old office building and convert it into housing or an alternative use, or you take an old mill and you turn it into housing or an alternative use, or an old high school, you get what I call the hug fest. People actually want to see it done.”

As of last month, Boston has 15 office-to-residential conversions in the works. Those projects are expected to deliver 762 units.

It’s helpful to developers that the state and their municipalities are putting support behind conversions. The state government launched an initiative to accelerate conversions, while MassHousing allocated $1 million in planning funds for technical assistance.

The state has awarded money for Synergy’s 198-unit conversion in Worcester, KS Partners’ 80-unit project in Boston and Dinosaur Capital Partners’ 110-unit project, also in Boston. An official from Dinosaur said the project wouldn’t have penciled out without state funding and the city’s office-to-residential payment in lieu of tax program.

But challenges remain. Getting projects going is still difficult: of the 15 conversions approved in Boston, construction has only started on one of them, a project which landed financing 15 months ago.

Additionally, conversions aren’t making a major dent in the state’s housing shortage. In February, the state reported that it would need to increase its housing supply by at least 222,000 units from 2025 to 2035.

— Holden Walter-Warner