BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — After another year of moving frenzy in Boston, some residents settled into the first ever office-to-residential apartment units in downtown.
George Giunta and Ernestine Tiongson are among the first residents of 281 Franklin, a former office building that is now a 15 unit apartment building, including three affordable housing units.
“We saw the vision they had for the building [and] seemed like a great program,” Giunta told WBZ NewsRadio. “We’re super excited to be in an area like this.”
For Tiongson, she’s been waiting for move-in since February.
“It’s [kind of] been like a long time coming but we were excited about the vision of the program,” she added.
According to the city's website, the Office to Residential Conversion Program is in response to the post-pandemic workforce shift as more companies opted for remote work and many commercial spaces became vacant.
As a result, the city introduced this program to revamp these empty spaces to increase housing availability in Downtown.
“Not only is it helping us with our housing goals; not only is it helping us reduce the commercial vacancy rate, it’s also just bringing activity and energy to Downtown as a residential community and a neighborhood,” Mayor Michelle Wu said.
There are currently 141 units under construction at three other locations, including 129 Portland Street, 263 Summer Street and 615 Albany Street. Around 800 office spaces have been approved to be converted under this plan.
WBZ NewsRadio’s James Rojas (@jamesrojas.bsky.social) reports