A record 55,000 apartments in Chicago and other U.S. cities are being converted from office buildings – MoneyWise

“The pandemic, and the resulting work-from-home moves, have really made some buildings that were kind of borderline obsolete, pretty much absolutes,” said Richard Whitney, vice president at Chicago-based architecture, design and sustainability firm FitzGerald. In Chicago, office vacancies in the central business district at the end of the year reached an all-time high of 23.8%. That figure is up from 21.4% at the end of 2022 and 13.8% at the beginning of the pandemic.