Special Briefing: Revitalizing Downtowns by Turning Offices Into Homes

With working from home persisting even as the COVID-19 pandemic wanes, our panel of experts discuss how to attract more people back to center cities, and the keys to increasing street life, bolstering commerce, and preventing further losses in municipal property and sales tax revenues. 

Our panel of experts includes Maria Torres-Springer, New York City Deputy Mayor for Economic and Workforce Development; Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, Earle W. Kazis and Benjamin Schore professor of real estate and professor of finance, Columbia University's Graduate School of Business; Amy Cotter, director of climate strategies, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy; and Heather Long, columnist and Editorial Board member, Washington Post. 

Notable Quotes: 

“We have to build together. This is the type of work that no one level of government and no one sector of the economy can do alone. It is a model for what public-private partnership needs to look like and it’s what’s needed given the crises that we are facing in the city.” - Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer 

“Make no mistake: This is a win-win for the public and private sector. We turn the corner and start building much-needed housing. At the same time, the government will generate a lot more tax revenue from this because the tax revenue is going to be falling dramatically from these old office buildings that are losing value.” - Stijn Van Niewwerburgh 

“It is not too soon for any central business district to start thinking about how it responds to a decline in their office market. And I would suggest that the first thing they can do is to avoid deterioration and further destabilization of the districts in which there is a preponderance of office uses.” - Amy Cotter 

“We have written that we think this is generally a good plan, however, it’s going to be very very tough in the interest rate environment that we are in and given the vast need of buildings that need to be converted to achieve all of those end goals.” - Heather Long 

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Special Briefing is published by the Volcker Alliance, as part of its Public Finance initiatives, and Penn IUR. The views expressed on this podcast are those of the panelists and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Volcker Alliance or Penn IUR.