Rising housing demand and sustainability goals have developers looking for opportunities to adapt old or underutilized buildings into something more valuable.

In Los Angeles, adaptive reuse has helped to create thousands of new housing units. Bay Area cities like San Francisco have also seen a rise in adaptive reuse projects due to high office vacancies and a desire to preserve historical architecture, utilizing initiatives like the Commercial to Residential Adaptive Reuse Program to streamline this process.

California-based McCullough Landscape Architecture has been working on projects throughout the Golden State for more than 25 years. CEO David McCullough said adaptive reuse is more than just converting a space — it's about creating an environment people want to live or work in.

“What companies have started to realize is instead of strong-arming people back to the office, the better way to do this is to put people in environments that they want to come back to,” McCullough said.

McCullough will be speaking on a panel discussing innovative adaptive reuse, positioning and repurposing strategies at Bisnow’s Northern California Adaptive Reuse, Repositionings and Conversions Summit in San Francisco on Nov. 18.

Click here for details.

Bisnow spoke with McCullough about adaptive reuse trends he is seeing, how architects can repurpose their strategies to appeal to tenants and what his company is doing to help drive this sector.

Bisnow: What trends are you seeing in Northern California?

McCullough: Tenants want to be a part of something, not just go back to the office. For a while, the solution was to convert all the warehouses to offices. And while that has been fairly successful, we need to broaden our horizons and be more creative.

We’re starting to see adaptive reuse expanding to the suburbs, where there are office campuses with dated, brutalist buildings. With a little creative energy and inspiration, these buildings can be turned into some interesting environments.

Our clients are saying that the cheaper and less risky solution is to tear down and build new. However, an existing infrastructure has a certain history and connection. I think what has happened is that people love the authenticity these elements bring to the property.

We’re seeing a lot of drive for this adaptive reuse concept in the Bay Area, particularly in San Francisco.

Bisnow: What advice do you have for architects who are repositioning their conversion strategies to align with evolving tenant expectations?

McCullough: There's less appetite nowadays for gimmicks. Architects need to start with the history of the place and go from there. I've seen this scenario quite a bit, where our clients may have an interesting space, but they layer on gimmick after gimmick, losing its authenticity.

While it’s OK to give examples of what the spaces could be, there still needs to be a personalized and customized touch to it that not only reflects the branding of the company but also the culture that’s moving into the space.

Bisnow: What adaptive reuse projects is McCullough working on that meet the needs of modern tenants?

McCullough: We’re working with a client in Redwood City who's been around since the 1980s.

We started our relationship with an adaptive reuse of a full city block plaza in downtown San Diego that was really successful. Then we moved the project to the Bay Area, where the client also saw the same thing as us: the value of exterior spaces. The client is enhancing exterior environments to connect with the interior spaces they're leasing in Redwood City.

We’re in California. If we're not taking advantage of our outdoors, then I think we're missing a huge opportunity. People are beginning to see the added value of this, and one of the easiest ways to stay competitive is to connect people to outside spaces.

Bisnow: Why did you decide to attend Bisnow’s event?

McCullough: One of the reasons why I like to attend Bisnow events is just the incredible caliber of people that typically speak there. You get people from various sectors and areas of expertise coming together with different points of view.

It’s exciting for me to be involved with something like this, and I want to make sure that we're discussing things that not only McCullough sees as valuable but also are appealing to the movers and shakers in the industry.

Click here for more details.

This article was produced in collaboration between McCullough Landscape Architecture and Studio B. Bisnow news staff was not involved in the production of this content.

Studio B is Bisnow’s in-house content and design studio. To learn more about how Studio B can help your team, reach out to studio@bisnow.com.