0:09

Hello and welcome to CBRE's Talking Property

0:11

podcast where our team of experts, our

0:14

clients, and industry specialists share

0:16

insights into the way we live, work, and

0:18

invest through the lens of commercial real estate.

0:21

I'm Kathryn House, CBRE's Australian

0:23

Communications Director, and I'm your host for

0:25

this latest Talking Property episode. Today

0:28

we'll be talking about adaptive reuse: in

0:31

a nutshell, the potential to convert empty or obsolete

0:33

office buildings into other uses. It's

0:36

a really hot topic right now amid Australia's

0:38

housing crisis, given the scope to reimagine

0:40

some of these CBD offices as apartments.

0:43

And it's not just residential uses that can

0:45

be considered at a time when office vacancy

0:47

rates are at the highest level since the 1990s.

0:50

For instance, a York Street office building in Sydney recently

0:53

sold for $52.5 million with plans for an

0:55

upper scale hotel conversion. This follows the

0:58

unveiling of luxury hotel Capella Sydney, a leading

1:00

example of adaptive reuse involving the

1:02

former Department of Education building. Meanwhile,

1:06

in Melbourne, Australian Unity has repurposed its

1:08

high-rise headquarters into a premium assisted

1:10

living and aged care complex, which has just

1:13

been completed. Repurposing

1:15

office buildings aligns with the race to net zero,

1:17

given the much lower carbon emissions involved

1:20

compared to, say, doing a knockdown and rebuild. And

1:22

proponents are also heralding adaptive reuse

1:25

as one way to create more dynamic 24/7

1:27

cities. So to talk about the

1:29

opportunities, the inherent challenges,

1:32

and how to accelerate change, I'm

1:34

delighted to be joined by the Principal and Commercial

1:36

& Workplace Sector Lead at Hassell Ingrid

1:38

Bakker, the Executive Director of Business

1:40

NSW David Harding, and to give

1:43

us an international perspective by Zoe Bignell,

1:45

head of CBRE's UK Development Advisory

1:47

Business. Thanks for joining me

1:49

today.

1:51

Hi Kathryn. Great to be

1:53

here.

1:54

Hi Kathryn. Good to be here.

1:56

So Ingrid, Hassell recently completed a

1:58

comprehensive audit of the Melbourne CBD on

2:00

behalf of the Property Council of Australia. The

2:02

study identified that 86 buildings are ripe

2:05

for adaptive reuse and could create up to 12,000

2:07

new homes. Can you tell us a bit more

2:10

about what the study uncovered and

2:12

how much of an impact do you think adaptive reuse could

2:14

have in addressing the current housing issues

2:16

in Melbourne and other major Australian

2:18

cities?

2:19

Yeah, thanks Kathryn. We started

2:21

this study mainly because we were looking at

2:24

a particular B grade office

2:26

building and we were working with a developer to try

2:28

and attract a tenant to that building

2:31

and we did a whole lot of work to make

2:33

sure they were going to finish, and it was all going to work. And

2:35

then the services engineer came in and said,

2:37

if we're going to meet their Green Star requirements

2:39

and their NABERS rating for energy, we're

2:42

going to have to completely replace all

2:44

of the services and that's going to cost a

2:47

gazillion dollars. So it

2:49

kind of made the project fall over and that

2:51

got us thinking about, well what happens to

2:53

these buildings that aren't able

2:56

to be upgraded to A grade or

2:58

premium grade office, but they can't

3:01

just be sitting there empty either. So that got

3:03

us really thinking about what those buildings

3:05

could be. And this

3:07

particular building just happened to be exactly the

3:09

right sort of scale and dimension

3:12

to suit apartments. And that's the key. You

3:14

hear a lot of people saying you can't

3:16

convert offices because the floor plates are too

3:18

big and it's too deep and you won't get enough

3:21

natural light. And that's true, you

3:23

can't with a lot of office buildings. But this

3:25

particular building was around 24 metres

3:27

wide, which is kind of perfect for getting

3:30

two apartments complying with

3:32

the Better Apartment Design Standards in

3:34

Victoria or the A D G in New South Wales.

3:37

And I'm sure there's other apartment guidelines

3:39

all over the world that are similar,that have

3:41

a maximum distance of window

3:43

to rear wall of the

3:46

apartment of being nine metres. So if

3:48

you do two metres of balcony, nine metres

3:50

of apartment, two metres of corridor, nine metres

3:52

of the other apartment, and then the balcony again,

3:55

you get this magic number of 24.

3:58

So then we started thinking, well, I wonder how many

4:00

other buildings there are in the city that

4:02

are around that sort of dimension that could work.

4:05

And I thought there might be half a dozen. And

4:07

that's when we did the audit and found there were 86

4:09

of them, then we kind

4:11

of discounted that some of them wouldn't work

4:13

because they might be jammed up between other

4:15

buildings or just not have great

4:18

access to natural light. So then we

4:20

thought, well if we just assume that 40 of

4:22

those 86 buildings could be converted,

4:24

and each site was

4:26

roughly yielding around 250 to

4:29

300 apartments each, that then

4:32

gave us that number of 10,000 to 12,000

4:34

new apartments in the city. And that's

4:36

when we started to understand the scale

4:38

and potential and what that could

4:40

do to the city to really add some life, particularly

4:43

in some of the areas where it's got

4:45

a bit sort of quiet and scary and the

4:47

retail's struggling and all of those things.

4:50

So the key to activating

4:52

cities is having that 24/7 city

4:55

and that passive surveillance that residential

4:57

gives you to keep it safe. And

5:00

that's what we thought. This is a great opportunity to

5:02

really revitalise the city. We've

5:05

definitely been having those conversations in locations

5:07

all over our practice and everyone's

5:10

been really interested in it. So we are looking

5:12

at some case studies in Singapore. In

5:14

Brisbane, we've been talking to a lot of people

5:16

in Sydney as well. And I

5:19

was recently in Perth and the conversation was

5:21

quite active over there as well and also

5:23

in San Francisco. So, it depends

5:25

on the planning conditions

5:27

in each city. And some cities

5:29

obviously allow more height

5:31

or more density than others.

5:34

And that's something that we're looking at as we

5:36

move through the different locations to

5:38

see whether this can work in different cities.

5:42

So Zoe is the same push for adaptive reuse

5:44

happening in London. I heard you talking recently

5:46

on a podcast with The Economist about some London

5:48

office space being converted into laboratories

5:51

given the growth that's happening in the life sciences

5:53

sector.

5:54

Yeah, it's really interesting actually because a lot of

5:56

what Ingrid has just been describing

5:59

is chiming with what's happening over here in

6:01

London. I mean, inevitably we

6:04

know that the real estate office market is

6:06

cyclical, but occupier preferences at

6:08

the moment is really leading to

6:11

a polarisation in our market with a flight

6:13

to quality. And what this is doing

6:15

is hastening obsolescence of a

6:17

growing proportion of our market, particularly secondhand

6:19

office space. And there

6:22

are three core reasons for that. One is

6:24

the pandemic, we are

6:27

embracing hybrid working and when we go

6:29

to the office, we

6:32

want it to be different. We want it to

6:34

be a home away from home. Secondly, a lot of the larger corporates,

6:37

particularly in London, the

6:39

highest occupational requirement on their

6:42

agenda is green sustainable

6:44

space, environmentally friendly space. And that's

6:47

true of funds as

6:49

well and landlords. So

6:53

space that doesn't have that is becoming

6:56

vacant. And also there's lots of regulations

6:58

coming into the UK Energy

7:00

Performance Certificates that are required

7:03

with office buildings and secondhand

7:05

buildings. It's very expensive to

7:08

get those buildings up to space. So

7:10

inevitably it leads landlords

7:12

to think about, well, how can we repurpose these

7:14

assets because we are being precluded

7:17

for affordability to transform traditional

7:20

offices into offices. So what else can we do? A

7:23

lot of what I do now is not thinking

7:25

about demolishing a building and

7:28

rebuilding. It's about how can we repurpose

7:30

whether that's for residential hotel

7:33

or life sciences. Life sciences

7:35

in London, particularly are a growth

7:37

sector. And a couple of years ago, life

7:40

science occupiers had a

7:42

very narrow view on the type of accommodation they wanted

7:45

and they'd only go into new build. But

7:47

the market and the conversion

7:49

market's become much more sophisticated now. And

7:53

there's lots of evidence, particularly

7:55

around secondhand office

7:58

buildings where you are near transport hubs or

8:00

where you are near centres of excellence, for

8:03

example university colleges or

8:06

hospitals where you could create that knowledge ecosystem.

8:09

There's, if you've got a secondhand office

8:12

building, occupiers are willing to

8:14

work with the landlords to convert that

8:17

into life science abled

8:19

space. But you know, one thing I

8:21

would say is secondhand space. I

8:24

mean it's double what

8:26

it was pre pandemic. So it's quite heightened

8:29

in London at the moment. But not

8:31

all office space can be converted

8:34

to an alternative use even

8:36

if there is a willingness because there are other

8:38

factors in play - planning,

8:41

affordability, as Ingrid was saying, it's

8:43

can the building be readily

8:46

adapted to an alternative use.

8:48

Access is the key thing in London

8:51

because unless you know where you

8:53

live somewhere, you need to be able to access

8:56

your place of work very readily. And

8:59

so a lot of the space that's redundant

9:02

is in the outer parts of London where

9:05

you may be relying on one piece of

9:07

public infrastructure rather than a

9:10

neglected mix.

9:12

David, I know adaptive reuse is a topic

9:14

you are particularly passionate about to help Sydney

9:16

become a 15-minute walkable city. Can you

9:19

tell us why you think that's so important and the role you

9:21

think adaptive reuse can play in creating true

9:23

24/7 cities?

9:26

I've been listening to Ingrid and Zoe and I'm

9:28

really just agreeing with absolutely everything they've

9:31

said. Smart cities have been

9:33

hedging against totally office bound CBDs ever

9:36

since the smartphone was invented, ever

9:38

since we got rid of paper, all

9:40

kinds of things were leaning against this

9:43

kind of dial or movement of

9:45

everyone to go to the office and everyone to go home

9:47

at night. And that over time has been

9:49

moving us away from this

9:52

concept of a 45-minute commute,

9:55

an hour commute, an hour and

9:57

a half commute being a reasonable way to spend your

9:59

day to this 15-minute walkable city. Of

10:01

course, actually what we want

10:03

is a city that's full of the laughter of children,

10:05

the barking of dogs, all of those

10:08

things that make a lively and

10:10

atmospheric and revived and active and

10:13

safe city, work

10:16

is not just a place full

10:18

of empty towers at the weekend

10:20

and suits during the week. So

10:26

if we accept those as facts, then

10:28

we ultimately come to

10:30

a point where we say, how do we mix up our

10:32

cities? How do our cities

10:35

that work 24/7 be

10:37

created in a space that only

10:39

work nine till five Monday to Friday

10:41

for so many decades? And some cities

10:43

of course have been dealing with this a

10:46

lot better than others, for a lot

10:48

longer. Ingrid talked about Singapore, or

10:50

Singapore I think going back eight

10:52

years or so now, instituted a review of

10:54

no less than 6,000 towers. They

10:56

were looking there to

10:58

improve their credentials when it came to

11:01

environmental factors, but also putting in

11:03

an almost ban on

11:05

towers being knocked down. The premise

11:08

was that all towers could be

11:11

repurposed or improved in one way

11:13

or another. We're a long

11:15

way behind that in Sydney. We're a long way

11:17

behind that in Melbourne, but certainly London's out there. Zoe

11:22

absolutely is at the heart of a city that's repurposed

11:25

towers for many decades. But ultimately behind all

11:27

of this is the need

11:29

for reinvestment. We can't just sit there

11:32

and look at our lower grade towers that come either knock

11:35

down and become empty spaces in our

11:37

cities. We need to reinvest in them.

11:40

We need to revalue our cities in more ways than

11:42

one. We need to, as I say, bring all

11:44

of the generations back in. We need to have

11:47

them pumping all the way through the weekend. We

11:49

need to have people in the streets through the night in

11:51

a safe kind of environment. And for that we need to

11:54

have more mixed-use towers. They don't need to be all

11:56

residential, you know, so Zoe’s made some

11:59

really good points there around that in London. Ingrid said,

12:01

if you've got very big floor plates, you can't

12:04

use them for residential. We're proposing from Business NSW, and

12:06

we've been on this for a long

12:09

time, that we just need to lift the planning regulations

12:11

to allow invention, to allow innovation, to allow

12:13

that reinvestment to come in and

12:16

whether it's educational space, whether it's medical

12:18

space, whether it's research space, whether it's advanced

12:21

manufacturing, whether it's luxury housing or whether it's

12:23

affordable housing for key workers, we need to

12:26

look at them all.

12:32

So this is a question for all of you. Do

12:34

you think planning is one of the biggest hurdles

12:37

here?

12:38

I mean look, to be fair, the planning,

12:40

the local planning authorities here in the

12:42

UK are trying to mitigate the

12:45

housing crisis and it is a housing crisis over here

12:47

and we have something that's called permitted

12:49

development. So secondhand office

12:52

buildings and you don't

12:54

have to get planning to convert those spaces into

12:56

residential, but there are

12:59

area thresholds and it's 1,500

13:01

square metres, so only very

13:03

small buildings that can circumnavigate

13:05

that the planning system so

13:07

to speak. But it has worked, I

13:10

mean since 2015, 2016 when

13:12

permitted development came in, I think there's been

13:14

something like 21,000 homes that have

13:17

been delivered. But lots of those are small

13:19

scale and what we're looking a,t or the

13:21

regulatory bodies are looking at

13:23

now, is increasing that threshold to 3,000

13:26

square metres. And again,

13:28

that will help expedite, I mean I've got

13:31

this fact in the back of my head that in the

13:33

US for example, 89 of

13:36

the office to multi-family conversions that

13:39

have happened of an average building of

13:41

185,000 square

13:44

feet. So it gives you a sense that

13:47

it can happen if you increase the thresholds.

13:50

The reason why the 3,000 square

13:52

metre threshold isn't coming quickly is

13:54

because we have affordable housing

13:57

needs in the UK, which is really

13:59

important for social housing and to

14:01

create that mixed use balance of user

14:04

that David was just talking about. And there's

14:06

a concern amongst the government and

14:09

local authorities that if you increase the threshold, then

14:11

you're going to be mitigating the amount of affordable housing

14:13

you can bring in. And that's really important for

14:16

affordability purposes. The other,

14:19

I mean whilst yes, the local

14:21

planning authority are trying to

14:24

help, we have something that's called

14:26

commercial activity zones in London

14:28

particularly. And so local

14:31

authorities want to protect employment uses

14:33

in those central activity zones.

14:36

And there's a concern that if

14:38

the use flips from employment to

14:40

residential, but yet the office, the

14:43

employment cycle comes back and there's more

14:45

demand for offices, have they mitigated their

14:48

ability to respond to that in the future. So

14:51

there's this real conundrum around

14:55

trying to expedite housing

14:57

to deliver on that housing crisis, but

15:00

also not be in a position where you

15:02

have a future growth where employment growth may go

15:05

to in the future. And I get it,

15:07

I understand it, but housing is

15:10

so, and the crisis here is so rife. I think

15:12

that the right compromise is unemployment

15:15

because we have some clusters of

15:18

office space that works really well. We have regeneration

15:20

sites in London where you can weave

15:22

in commercial accommodation to help bring

15:25

in that employment level necessity. So it's

15:28

all one of balance. It's not easy. But

15:30

I think my main theme at the

15:33

moment in speaking to these regulatory bodies is you've

15:35

got to have a balance and there's not

15:38

one size fits all approach to planning that's going

15:41

to work. You need to be agile and respond to

15:44

what developers and what end users

15:46

want. Because the most important

15:49

thing here is not having buildings that are obsolete

15:51

because that stymies your high street or

15:54

your townscape.

15:55

Yeah, I totally agree Zoe. And one

15:57

of the most encouraging things that's been happening

15:59

through this piece of work that we've been doing is

16:02

we've been having some great discussions with

16:04

government about the potential

16:06

of this adaptive reuse and

16:09

they have been incredibly keen to

16:11

understand what do they need to

16:13

do to unlock any potential

16:16

issues or to get rid of hurdles. So

16:18

we've had some great round table discussions with

16:20

City of Melbourne and Department of Planning to

16:24

really explain and talk through some of

16:26

the key issues. They're open to discretion

16:28

around some of the current planning codes

16:30

and also to the apartment design

16:33

guidelines and looking at

16:35

each site for its merit. And we

16:37

did a couple of examples to show what would happen

16:39

if you complied with the current

16:42

planning scheme and then what would

16:44

happen if we had some discretion and we were

16:46

able to demonstrate that you'd get much more efficiency,

16:48

a better building, you know,

16:50

if you did have that discretion. So that's

16:53

been really encouraging and I think, there's a

16:55

housing statement about to come out in Victoria from the

16:57

government all around exactly the same. We've

17:00

got a housing crisis here too, Zoe, I

17:02

think it's pretty much a world issue, but we understand that

17:05

there is going to be an allowance

17:07

in there or an understanding that adaptive reuse

17:09

is one of the answers too.

17:11

We're not saying it's the only answer, we

17:13

just say it's one of those answers. And I think to

17:16

Zoe's point before, what we've found when we looked

17:18

at these buildings that would be great

17:20

for adaptive reuse, that was only six

17:23

and a half percent of all the buildings that

17:25

were built before 1990, all the office buildings.

17:28

So there's still a lot of office buildings that are available

17:30

for office workers and for

17:32

that employment. You know, we're not saying

17:35

let's convert every office building in the city

17:37

to houses. It's

17:39

a small proportion but then can generate quite

17:42

a large number of apartments. One

17:44

of the things that we also looked at was that

17:47

around that 300 apartments in

17:49

a building tends to be what

17:51

the build-to-rent model is based on

17:53

that they sort of need a critical mass of

17:56

around 300 apartments from an operational

17:58

perspective. So we think the

18:00

build-to-rent model can also be a great way for some

18:03

of the institutional investors to get involved in these

18:05

sorts of products. Given that

18:07

the commercial market is going through its

18:10

sort of downward dip at the moment.

18:14

David, are you seeing the same willingness

18:17

to consider planning concessions in Sydney?

18:20

Yes. Look, I think, there are more issues

18:23

than just planning. We see in

18:25

Sydney that we need to have a meeting

18:28

of minds between state, local government,

18:31

developers themselves, operators, and

18:34

of course the finance behind. The key here

18:37

is that we need to have at this reinvestment, revaluation for

18:41

a lot of our stock that requires not

18:44

only new money, but new thinking,

18:46

new thinking from the planning departments, which

18:49

need to think outside of the constraints

18:52

that they've been working on for the

18:54

last 20 or 30 years. It's a finely tuned

18:57

machine in Sydney. Certainly, it's been very

19:00

successful for decades to build the wonderful harbourside

19:03

CBD that we've got, but

19:05

the fundamentals have now changed and we have

19:08

to adapt to that. So planning is absolutely key,

19:10

but alongside the planning, we

19:13

also need to be able to bring different valuation

19:15

models forward before they've been proven.

19:19

So valuations are a really

19:21

key area. If you don't know what a

19:23

building sells for, how do you value it?

19:25

This needs to be dealt with alongside a very

19:28

much more open view of planning. Of

19:30

course safety codes and all these things needs

19:32

to be taken into account, but the

19:34

old-style zoning which says here be

19:37

commercial and here be housing is

19:39

certainly very, very outdated. Even

19:42

here be industrial usage in the modern

19:44

era is completely different from how

19:46

it was when the planning rules were

19:49

written. So we absolutely kind of

19:51

welcome what's going on in New South Wales with a

19:53

new look at planning. We think it'll open things up,

19:55

but the market must move as well. Some is

19:58

the money. We have to realise that mixed-use

20:00

towers don't make you such a quick buck. They

20:03

do make you a different kind of a buck. It

20:05

takes a lot longer for that money to come through. It's

20:07

a lot safer, it's a lot more resilient in the

20:09

long run, but it runs slower and lower

20:12

as far as returns to concerned. All

20:14

these things need to come together because

20:17

otherwise we're just going to get wrecking balls

20:19

in our city. These older towers are just going

20:21

to get knocked over.

20:23

Yes, I completely agree with David there and

20:25

it's the balance point, isn't it,

20:27

that I think that what I'm

20:30

hearing is that there's a willingness amongst the

20:32

planning authorities to support housing

20:34

delivery. And that

20:37

is absolutely true here in London,

20:40

but that's only one piece of

20:42

the jigsaw because there are pressures around supply

20:45

chain, there's construction cost escalation,

20:47

there's higher borrowing

20:50

costs, there's removal of what used

20:53

to be helped by schemes here in the UK. So

20:55

government has also got to come to

20:58

the table alongside planning authorities and collectively discuss and

21:02

all ease that word

21:05

compromise or incentivisation that can

21:07

start to expedite and

21:11

give developers the confidence to deliver

21:13

because it's affordable so

21:15

to do. And also it's affordable for

21:17

the likes of us to buy these units.

21:20

And this comes back to your point,

21:23

David, around affordability and running commercial financial appraisals to

21:25

make sure you've got that

21:28

cost return balance right.

21:32

It's an interesting point around just

21:34

how much intervention do we need here, such as say

21:36

tax incentives. We're seeing certain cities

21:38

around the world really come to the party on this

21:40

front. I was reading about a task

21:43

force in New York calling for legal and regulatory

21:45

reforms to increase conversion opportunities,

21:47

the City of Chicago offering developer subsidies

21:50

and California passing legislation to

21:52

facilitate adaptive reuse. So

21:55

is that intervention and incentive piece just

21:57

as important as planning, do you think?

21:59

Well, I think in, in the Sydney scenario it

22:02

is. I don't think that government

22:04

coming out with an open checkbook ever

22:07

is the best way to drive innovation. I

22:09

think government empowering this

22:12

revaluation, this reinvestment by

22:14

making the rules applicable to the age that

22:16

we live in is probably more important.

22:18

But I certainly wouldn't be against incentives

22:21

for smaller businesses to co-locate

22:24

back into CBDs to challenge

22:27

that kind of donuting effect.

22:29

And where it comes to say key worker

22:31

housing, which is a terribly big

22:34

problem for most of the cities in the world. Absolutely. Why

22:36

doesn't the government get behind

22:38

it? We certainly should be talking about it as

22:40

though it's a need that we need to deal with

22:42

right now. And if people did want to put

22:44

in temporary incentives, tax breaks and the like

22:47

to get the ball rolling, then

22:50

that's great. Obviously in the long run, if government

22:52

needs to shore up the model, then it isn't

22:54

working, it's not the right model and we need

22:57

to go back to the drawing board.

23:00

And Ingrid, I think you were going to say something before as

23:02

well.

23:02

Yeah, totally agree with David, but I

23:05

think one of the key things is actually a

23:07

value being put on the carbon, the

23:10

embodied carbon that's in these buildings.

23:13

If we can value that carbon and

23:15

there's some kind of reward or

23:18

incentive or tax break or whatever you

23:20

want to to call it for the developers

23:22

that choose to reuse

23:25

the existing concrete in a building.

23:27

And that embodied carbon has some kind of

23:29

value, because at the moment it doesn't. And when

23:32

we've done the feasibilities on our case

23:34

studies, they don't stack up

23:37

straight away. We're doing a whole series of tests with

23:39

a couple of our developer friends at the moment to

23:42

see if you got some kind of uplift and

23:44

we're able to build lightweight storeys above

23:46

the existing building to increase the yield,

23:49

would that then tip it over to being

23:51

something that would stack up? And that's something

23:53

we're testing at the moment. But I think until

23:55

there's some kind of value put on the

23:57

reuse of the structure,

23:59

we'll be in an uphill battle. A

24:01

lot of the cities around the world and Melbourne's

24:04

got a very aspirational target

24:06

of net zero by 2040.

24:08

We're not going to get there if we don't reuse

24:11

the embodied carbon that we've already got.

24:13

One final question, and I know we've covered a

24:15

lot of ground today, but I'd love for each of you to

24:17

name the one thing that you think would help accelerate

24:20

adaptive reuse in our cities .

24:23

I think it's agility amongst

24:26

the local planning system here. And

24:29

you know, we have local plans, but sometimes

24:31

a one size fits all around policy, it

24:33

just doesn't work. One thing

24:36

I would like to weave into this conversation is

24:38

that a number of our local

24:41

plan authorities where there is an office

24:43

building, they don't insist, but

24:46

we have a policy that

24:49

states that you need to market a

24:51

building for 12 or even 24 months

24:53

to demonstrate there's no demand from

24:56

office occupiers. Now 24 months

24:59

is a very long time, and by

25:01

that time, you know, the residential developer

25:03

that has an idea for that building has moved

25:06

on to something else. And so the opportunity's lost.

25:08

So I think as, as I say, coming back to

25:10

this point of being agile at a

25:12

point in time where there is this appetite amongst

25:16

a landlord or developer to

25:18

introduce residential, that they

25:21

can respond to that quickly and that

25:23

which may mean that there's a need to compromise on policy,

25:25

but because there's a wider

25:27

socio economic game attached to it.

25:30

Yeah, I probably went a bit early. I think the value on

25:33

carbon is the key, but if I have to say

25:35

another one, I think collaboration between

25:37

all the different parties. So government, you

25:40

know, the planning departments, the

25:42

different city councils and

25:44

the developer sector, you know, everyone that's

25:46

involved really need to get behind it.

25:49

What I'm trying to get generated in Melbourne is

25:51

a live case study. So trying to find

25:53

a building that we can get behind and test

25:55

some of the potential hurdles. One

25:58

of them we know is also going

26:00

be around the building codes. So, the

26:02

building codes aren't really designed to

26:05

work with adaptive reuse. And that's been

26:07

some of the experience already in some of the

26:09

adaptive reuse projects, that there's no building

26:11

code. So it'd be great

26:14

if the building code can sort of adapt to

26:16

suit. But yeah, I think collaboration, if

26:18

everyone can work together, we'll get there.

26:22

Well, for me it's a couple of

26:24

things. I know you said one thing, but it really

26:26

is this rezoning major portions

26:29

of our old-style CBDs into

26:32

a new definition of mixed

26:34

use. We need to lift the lid on

26:36

the innovation, let the investment come back

26:38

in, let the creative people like Ingrid

26:41

loose, with much less constraints

26:43

in a world that needs

26:45

to be much more nuanced, much more

26:47

resilient and frankly bring a lot

26:50

more colour to our towers. And the second

26:52

thing that you probably are not going

26:54

to allow me to do, but I'm going to do it anyway,

26:57

is a transformer tower competition here in Sydney. We are

26:59

going to be helping with a

27:02

competition here, a design competition involving young architects, young

27:04

engineers, and indeed young building

27:06

management to look at our

27:09

towers that we've got

27:12

here in Sydney that are facing the wrecking ball and come

27:14

forward with the best designs to transform those

27:16

towers into something that are beautiful, useful,

27:18

resilient, and frankly, environmentally sound

27:21

for the generations to

27:23

come. We're going to

27:26

call it Transformer Tower and we hope you

27:28

can all join in.

27:32

Thank you so much for your time, Ingrid, David and

27:34

Zoe. It's going to be interesting to see how this all

27:36

plays out, but it does seem inevitable that

27:38

we'll see a growing number of adaptive reuse projects,

27:41

which will help reenergise our cities both locally

27:43

and globally. I particularly love

27:45

this recent quote from the CEO of Canadian

27:48

Real Estate Company, Ivanhoe Cambridge. “The

27:50

best building for the planet is the building that you

27:52

don't build”. Thanks for tuning

27:55

into this latest episode of Talking Property with CBRE.

27:58

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