[excellent]
Let’s buy one and convert the entire building into one giant laser tag arena.
Can part of it be skatepark laser tag?
Yeah that’s on the 2 levels below the Blade vampire nightclub Laser tag floor, above the bouncy castle kingdom.
Or a giant indoor maze that takes multiple days to finish. Elevator to the top, pack in a backpack or supplies. Complete challenges for coins that can be used at ‘trading posts’ or too unlock levels. Have trick stairwells and stuff, levels that dead end where you have to go back up and find amother way down.
imagine the maintenance costs, staffing, pee in corners, insurance policies, people freaking out, fighting, etc
It’s be more useful to turn it into an apartment complex, but way more fun to turn it into a giant laser tag arena
I’d live in a place with laser tag downstairs, the profits go toward upkeep.
Just keep two levels of storage between to buffer the sound.
We can compromise and do both. It’s definitely big enough for both.
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I’m riding the high of my hometown converting an ol office building that is a historical part of our skyline into a shopping center on the bottom floors and apartments above it.
I get that this isn’t always feasible but I’m feeling optimistic
That’s awesome!
We’ll just buy the building next door and turn that into apartments.
I call bullshit on remote work being the sole reason.
Remote work is a choice. Some want to work remotely, and some prefer a flexible hybrid model, where they can come into an office.
Obviously, there’s a lot of office space around, but I would bet my left nut that there are plenty of companies that would love some prime LA real estate, especially companies outside of the US that would love a presence in the country.
So, the problem isn’t remote work, it’s prohibitive rent, whether logistics or prices. I know that American’s aren’t fond of immigration, but this would probably solve the rental problems, and restrict some of the brain drain that comes from people not needing to be in LA to work.
Rent is the primary factor for sure, but I think you’re downplaying the impact remote work has, and/or not realizing the demand from employees for remote work. Many are taking pay cuts if they can remote work, and that does affect the labor market.
Good
Holy fuck! Wins are rare, but they are nice to see.
Here’s hoping this is the start of a trend. Next step retrofitting.
Good.
This is great! Only the rich suffer!
They surely won’t find other ways to make up this loss of wealth. And they surely won’t take it out of our hides.
Trickledown economics only flows up.
Maybe they’ll start investing in single family homes instead
They’ll extract everything they can from us under all circumstances.
At least this way they get less.
Good. Aren’t we supposed to be excited at the “free market” at work?
No, we need a rescue fund right now! It can’t be true that the elite has to suffer under the tyranny of the working class!
not like that ™
¢urse$
Not like that /$
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Convert it to vertical indoor farming.
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Because there’s a massive homeless crisis in downtown LA and people need food, not to be forced to commute into the most congested area of the city to stare at hungry people. So maybe they should make food there too.
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You don’t fix problems of food distribution or food cost, just by making production more local, especially if you’re also making production more expensive
No, not “just by”, but lack of production capacity is a huge contributor to food deserts like downtown LA.
I was just at my grocery store yesterday, looking at all the amazing and reasonably priced food choices from around the world, and I really find that hard to believe. When I go to a farmers market, I see things for double or triple the cost of grocery store produce because local farmers already can’t compete on price. What’s unique about LA that it can’t have cheap potatoes from Idaho, cheap lettuce from California, cheap oranges from Florida, cheap bananas from Nicaragua, etc? How has anyone come to the conclusion that using the most expensive land for farming, and spending hundreds of millions on a verticals infrastructure, will ever be sustainable, much less cheaper?
Where there are grocery stores, do you not have these things? Isn’t the problem more that a food desert does t have a grocery store?
It’s because people (large capital) have decided that the area is to be used for business, not for living, despite the fact that lots of people live (and suffer) there. There are a couple of grocery stores in downtown LA, but they’re inadequate to address the general societal collapse that has been Skid Row for the last 40+ years. Food deserts exist despite the fact that there are plentiful options elsewhere. That’s why they’re deserts. It’s entirely social.
I’m not sure anyone is starving because of a shortage of food. It’s not 1980s Ethiopia.
Right and people starve due to political and logistical reasons now. The politics are “this space is for office work” and the logistical ones are where we fail to account for how people actually live.
The hard part will be water lines for so much active water use. A sink and a few toilets is one thing but rigging an irrigation system that also has drainage for leaks or overflows requires space and lots of upfront renovation costs that will be paid back over a very long time. It’s a difficult financial proposition.
You’re not running showers out whatever that needs fresh water and the goal would be to reuse that water over and over. You only need to get the water in there to begin with, then your pumps will move it around.
The problem is a constant fight against gravity. You’ve still got to pump the water effectively to the top of the building every day. And there’s still the issue of getting sunlight to the plants.
The question really becomes whether it’s more economical to just use traditional irrigation techniques upstream and ship the produce in vs converting a skyscraper into a very inefficient farm space.
Vertical farming usually uses LED lighting, not direct sunlight. And I think the idea is that once the water is present on a given level it gets recirculated and reprocessed there, so it wouldn’t need much additional pumping.
Vertical farming usually uses LED lighting, not direct sunlight.
That’s one method of bringing"sunlight" to plants. Another would be to grow them outside.
And I think the idea is that once the water is present on a given level it gets recirculated and reprocessed there, so it wouldn’t need much additional pumping.
Even if all you do is pump all the water from the floor of each level to the ceiling of the respective level, you’ve done the exact same amount of work as pumping all the water for the top floor back to the roof in the first place. Only you’ve done it with a hundred pumps and a hundred times the points of failure and repair rate as a single pump for the entire building.
You’d be so much farther ahead to just install a reservoir on the roof that gets filled by a single pump and let gravity feed the lower floors. Much the way we already do for flat farming.
And then you’ve got to make up for the inefficiencies lost in planting and harvesting. Vertical farming brings nothing to the table except a smaller footprint in a world where that’s not a real advantage.
A far better use of empty office buildings would be to convert much of the space into full-time living space.
I really don’t see much beyond “it doesn’t look perfect to me so it’s a bad idea and we shouldn’t even try” in your arguments.
Great way to grow local and buy local with next to no pesticides.
I think you’d be surprised to learn that vertical farms do actually exist already. The problems you’re imagining have all already been overcome. Having a hundred pumps actually isn’t a big obstacle to having the system function well.
I’m not imagining any problems. The difficulties I’ve outlined are genuine issues that have to be addressed. I think you’d be surprised to learn how much difference there is between a thing existing and it actually operating efficiently.
Love the idea, but how much CO2 you willing to put into that project? It’s gonna cost. Big time.
Ever built or installed anything? It costs far more energy to retrofit than to burn it down and start fresh.
Or maybe housing or both
Yes, another “good” comment here. Fuck any company or team that could support remote work but chooses not to
Good.
Good. Fuck the commercial real estate industry.
Fuck the realestate industry period. It shouldn’t be commodified to the point where there are more empty houses up for rent, airbnb, or sitting empty as “investments” than there are homeless. Foreign companies are allowed to buy up realestate and literally extract wealth from the country for something that’s supposed to ultimately be owned by the country (hence no escaping property taxes or eminate domain)… It’s such a limitedly regulated mess that any such “free market” cannot responsibly control.
We should ban foreign nationals and corporations from owning real estate here, with reasonable exceptions.
No exceptions except immigration. Your corporation needs a factory? Fine, the land and building will be owned by the US and you will pay to rent it.
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Not society, but rather a bunch of detached money pushers
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You just wrote what they wrote, but blamed “society” instead of the actual assholes making the profits
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Remember that not every unit the census counts as vacant can have someone move into it. Their definition is honestly kinda weird. Some units are under construction or repair. Some are legally tied up in a divorce or estate sale. Some actually have people in them, such as non-dormitory student housing or housing for seasonal workers.
According to the census, 14.5% of vacant units for rent are vacant for less than a month, and 20.6% are vacant for more than one month but less than 2. The median vacancy has been on the market for 3.7 months, and less than 20% of vacancies have been on the market for more than 1 year.
Having a lot of units on the market for a month or two is a good thing; it means people can move to an area and find housing. You’re not going to house homeless people by sticking them into an apartment for a month or two between paying tenants.
It’s also a good thing because low vacancy rates are associated with rents going up. And the rent being too damn high increases homelessness.
Do you think those houses would’ve gotten so run down if there was soneone living in them to see the need and do maintenance?
Those houses are still in-flux instead of occupied. Do you even listen to yourself? Those houses are livable and not occupied… In factm houses in turnover is BAD because that means prices going up for renters and tax increases for owners.
It is BAD to run housing like we do. Full stop. What I said is factuallu true abd you think those houses being in turmoil is better than being owned?!
Why is having housing in flux a bad thing?
The goal should be to have affordable housing and low homeless rates.
Why should my goal be for each apartment to be moved into the day the previous occupant moves out? What’s the point?
Do you think those houses would’ve gotten so run down if there was soneone living in them to see the need and do maintenance?
I don’t think you understand that category of vacancies. Vacancies under repair isn’t “long term vacant buildings that needs repairs to become livable again”, its “any building currently being repaired or renovated that doesn’t have people actively living in it”.
My sister’s house, for example, was vacant for a couple months when she renovated her kitchen. It was owner- occupied just before the renovation and just after, but it was vacant during the renovation because she temporarily moved in with my parents.
After natural disasters, there’s often a lot of housing that’s vacant under repair.
If you don’t understand the fundamental difference between a house that is rented and one that is owned, I really do not know what to say. You do not care if people own their own value. Sad.
What are you even talking about?
You originally said
Fuck the realestate industry period. It shouldn’t be commodified to the point where there are more empty houses up for rent, airbnb, or sitting empty as “investments” than there are homeless.
Yes, there’s more apartments sitting empty for a month or two than there are homeless people.
There are fewer apartments for rent sitting empty for a year or more than there are homeless people.
How exactly are you proposing that we fix the homelessness crisis with apartments sitting empty for a month?
Owner-occupied housing is great. The only person who brought it up before this was me, when I pointed out that some vacant homes are actually owner-occupied.
Good
There is am major problem with real estate right now which may play 9ut at the banks.
Good.
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