3L Real Estate Pursues Office-to-Resi Conversion in Fort Worth

A Chicago developer with a knack for adaptive reuse projects has targeted a building in downtown Fort Worth for an office-to-residential conversion.

3L Real Estate aims to transform the 330,000-square-foot building at 115 West Seventh Street, formerly home to Fort Worth National Bank and Oncor Electric, into more than 300 apartments, Bisnow reported.

The project, set to cost an estimated $30 million, is expected to start in August and take a little over a year to complete. The estimated cost would be less than $100,000 per unit. The ground-floor retail space will remain intact.

Office-to-resi conversions have proliferated in recent years due to a struggling office sector that’s been hammered by remote-work trends, coupled with a need for more housing in urban cores. Older office buildings with high vacancies are often seen as prime candidates for such projects.

However, office-to-resi conversions in downtown Fort Worth are relatively infrequent due its strong office occupancy rate of roughly 90 percent. In contrast, the office-to-resi movement has exploded in Dallas, where office vacancies stand at 26 percent. Office conversions in Dallas are expected to yield more than 3,000 apartments, ranking third in the nation.

While not as common compared to other big cities, a handful of developers are still finding ways to repurpose outdated office properties in Fort Worth. Icon Lodging, for instance, is planning a $33 million conversion of the former XTO Energy Building into a Residence Inn. Other downtown buildings like the Sandman Signature Hotel and The Sinclair have similarly transitioned from office use.

3L Real Estate, meanwhile, is at the helm of several other adaptive reuse projects. In Dallas’ West End district, the firm is turning the former office building at 501 West Elm Street into apartments. It’s also converting an office building in downtown Milwaukee into a mixed-use residential building, according to its website.

—Quinn Donoghue