One Times Square is no longer fully empty (besides ground floor retail) you’re right that it is now just almost entirely empty as they’ve added an observation deck and a small visitors center/museum about the building as of January this year.
Some other buildings in Times Square keep several floors empty to use for signage instead, a minimum of which is actually mandated by the city.
A lot of the buildings along Canal Street in New Orleans, with souvenir and liquor stores on the ground floor, are empty upstairs as well.
I can think of buildings in other cities in seemingly premium real estate, including the Chicago Loop, that are notably underutilized.
Old, cramped upstairs spaces in crowded, touristy commercial districts just aren’t that useful. A small business would rather just get an office in WeWork.
Converting to housing is going to be expensive and probably also not worth it. Tourist lodging might work, but the licensing can also be an issue and tourists can be weird — no matter how much you tell people a place like that is noisy and on one of the busiest corners in the world, you’ll get reviews complaining about the noise and chaos.
One Times Square is no longer fully empty (besides ground floor retail) you’re right that it is now just almost entirely empty as they’ve added an observation deck and a small visitors center/museum about the building as of January this year.
Some other buildings in Times Square keep several floors empty to use for signage instead, a minimum of which is actually mandated by the city.
A lot of the buildings along Canal Street in New Orleans, with souvenir and liquor stores on the ground floor, are empty upstairs as well.
I can think of buildings in other cities in seemingly premium real estate, including the Chicago Loop, that are notably underutilized.
Old, cramped upstairs spaces in crowded, touristy commercial districts just aren’t that useful. A small business would rather just get an office in WeWork.
Converting to housing is going to be expensive and probably also not worth it. Tourist lodging might work, but the licensing can also be an issue and tourists can be weird — no matter how much you tell people a place like that is noisy and on one of the busiest corners in the world, you’ll get reviews complaining about the noise and chaos.
TFA as exhibit 1?
He said there are several others like this which I think is false, TFA wouldn’t be relevant.
There are several that are either nearly or partly (several floors) empty