CINCINNATI — As downtown landscapes continue to change after the pandemic, developers are taking to abandon office buildings to give them new life. And now, Ohio’s major cities are at the forefront of the trend and hope to change the landscape of downtowns going forward.
What You Need To Know
- The Mercantile building in the heart of downtown Cincinnati is being remodeled from office space to apartments
- The building will have 171 apartments, a fitness center, a rooftop, a re-imagined Mercantile Library and more
- The building is one of many office spaces across the state and country being converted to apartments from office space
- Cincinnati has the fifth most converted apartments in the country
Imagine living in the heart of downtown Cincinnati.
“Behind us, we have the historic mercantile building along with what is known as the Formica building," Matt Reckman, the president of property management for Model Group, one of the developers of the Mercantile building, said.
The buildings, which once housed office space, are being transformed into 171 apartments.
“It's going to change how people interact with the downtown," Reckman said. "Which is going to open up different uses that we can put down here that historically may not have worked to really just change how the city operates.”
Reckman shares all that the upgraded building will have to offer.
“A lot of it is taking what was here historically and kind of bringing it back to its former glory," he said.
The historic building will keep some of that charm- like the arcade and the Mercantile Library, a members-only library that boasts an impressive amount of collectible books.
“This space truly is it's one of one like there's only one mercantile library and other places can have the roof deck, the pool, and other things, but this can't be replicated," Reckman said.
This project isn’t the only one in Cincinnati- in fact, it’s become a trend nationwide. According to a recent study by RentCafe, Cincinnati ranks as the fifth-highest city with the most converted apartments in 2023. And Cleveland is the fifth-highest city with the most converted apartments specifically from offices in 2023. It’s a way to change the trajectory of downtowns that have been desolate since the pandemic.
“The design of office buildings in general are pretty challenging," Reckman said. "Most of them are fairly square. What drew us to these two buildings, in particular, is they're more of a rectangular shape, which means you can do what's called a double-loaded corridor, so you can get windows on both sides and you maximize the amount of, net leasable square footage for a building.”
For new apartment renters at the Mercantile, they can move in as early as August.
There are plenty of amenities, like a rooftop.
“You get the river, you get the Reds stadium and you get the Bengals stadium here," Reckman said of the view.
And the convenience of downtown, Reckman is hopeful this will be the future of downtown living in Cincinnati.
“We need more apartment units," he said. And with office, the office space after COVID has just totally, almost crashed. And there's going to be a new shifting that's happening. Office is still going to exist, but it's going to be much smaller. It's going to look different. And, I think with that happening, it opened up these buildings to go through a change of use.”
Dayton has also seen a resurgence of conversion apartments, including The Arcade, which finished construction last year, and Centre City which is slated for reuse with a hope to convert it into hundreds of apartments.