Office-to-Residential in Dallas-Fort Worth — market context
Office-to-residential conversions tripled nationally since 2022 — 70,700+ units in the active pipeline. Dallas sits at #2 in delivered conversions, trailing Manhattan by four units. The funnel underneath that ranking is structural: DFW office vacancy is 26%. SB 840 enables residential in commercial zones without rezoning. SB 2477 proposes to exempt conversions from impact fees, public hearings, parking minimums, and traffic studies. The legislative environment is moving directly toward this category in Texas — and Dallas is where the regulatory infrastructure and the supply of convertible inventory both exist.
Office-to-residential isn’t a single discipline. It’s adaptive reuse preservation skills, multifamily delivery scale, and preconstruction judgment converging on the same site. ANDRES has documented all three. Mosaic — 440 apartments out of the Fidelity Union Life Building, 1960s office tower. Dallas Power & Light — 158 lofts out of a 1931 Art Deco headquarters. Gables Republic Tower — 1954 office building converted to luxury apartments, three major awards. Corrigan Tower — vacant 1952 mid-century high-rise, 150 units, LEED-certified. Four separate structural eras. Four separate residential outcomes. One general contractor.
Conversions require a Complexity Walk before contract — PM and superintendent on site identifying the three to five conditions that will define the project. Mechanical risers don’t match residential plumbing stacks. Floor-to-floor heights run short. Window-to-wall ratios designed for office daylighting create unit programs the original architect never anticipated. ANDRES’s $100M historic tax credit experience on The National translates directly into the office-to-residential pipeline — same regulatory paperwork, same parallel NPS review, same team that has cleared it before.
