The capital city is facing one of the greatest challenges of the present: to respond to the demand for housing in the face of rising housing prices and changes in the use of urban real estate. In this context, a proposal arises that could change the city’s outlook, which consists of converting up to 1.5 million square meters of office space, currently located in residential buildings, into housing, thus adding some 25,000 more units to Madrid’s real estate stock.
This initiative, promoted by the Spanish Office Association (AEO), has a twofold objective: on the one hand, to relieve pressure on the residential market and, on the other, to transfer business activity to complexes specifically designed for this purpose. According to the president of the AEO, José María Álvarez, there are more than 250,000 square meters of office space in the main districts alone, where in reality there should only be housing, which represents a unique opportunity, especially if the legal processes that allow the change of land use are expedited.
The plan to transform offices into housing in Madrid.
The plan is aligned with recent regional and municipal legislation, which already authorizes the conversion of tertiary land into affordable rental housing, simplifying procedures and reducing construction times to less than three years. In addition to increasing supply in consolidated neighborhoods such as Chamartín, Chamberí, Retiro and Salamanca, the conversion would allow companies to relocate to new, more efficient and sustainable offices, adapted to post-pandemic realities and the rise of teleworking.
The challenges, however, are mainly due to the modification of urban planning, the obtaining of licenses and consensus with neighbors -in many cases, offices and homes share a building-, as well as the adaptability of the infrastructures themselves to residential uses.
On the other hand, a new mobility problem could arise if offices in the capital were only established in one area, especially in the northern area, in buildings specially designed for them, as suggested by the AEO. In addition, this would create practically uninhabited areas outside working hours and other neighborhoods would be left as dormitory cities.
