Of the million square meters of empty offices in Brussels, 80% cannot be converted into housing according to a study by perspective.brussels. What twist the neck of some simplistic speeches. A good deal for property developers.
This is a study that will remove a few cartridges from opponents of new real estate. Perspective.brussels has just analyzed the conversion potential of the million square meters of office space currently unoccupied in Brussels. It shows that the speeches put forward by some to oppose new projects or the urbanization of certain wastelands do not hold water: converting the stock of empty offices…
This is a study that will remove a few cartridges from opponents of new real estate. Perspective.brussels has just analyzed the conversion potential of the million square meters of office space currently unoccupied in Brussels. It shows that the speeches put forward by some to oppose new projects or the urbanization of certain wastelands do not hold water: converting the stock of empty offices into housing to solve the housing crisis will clearly be insufficient. Perspective notes that only 35 buildings out of the 314 that are completely empty can be transformed. That is a total of 197,531 m2. The majority of these buildings are, moreover, already the subject of a rehabilitation project. And in many cases, the office function is maintained. Only a handful of buildings remain off the radar of developers, which is never a good sign… “This analysis shows above all that this million square meters of empty offices does not mean that these spaces can be mobilized immediately, notes Antoine de Borman, director of perspective.brussels. Any empty building is not automatically likely to be converted and, if necessary, not necessarily immediately. Resolving the housing crisis therefore requires creation of new housing, within the framework of thoughtful, mixed projects that are well integrated into their environment.” To arrive at this amount of 200,000 m2, the authors of the study subtracted offices located in houses and apartments, those less than five years old or located in industrial areas and which are not completely empty. The fact remains that given the expected annual growth of 2,500 households over the next 10 years, this reconvertible stock represents only one tenth of the effort required to meet housing needs (250,000 m2 annually). Other avenues will therefore have to be explored, especially since conversion is estimated to be much more expensive for real estate players and rarely compatible with a good quality of life for the occupants.
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