# From Paris to DC – why offices are being turned into apartments

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/from-paris-to-dc-why-offices-are-being-turned-into-apartments/
- Published: 2026-11-12T00:05:40+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-12T00:23:37+00:00
- Original publisher: BBC Business (publisher lean: Centre)
- Original article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm89ze7qepvyo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss
- Topics: Business

## Key points

- La Défense plans to turn up to a fifth of its offices into housing.
- Office demand has fallen as homeworking has grown.
- Conversions face design challenges but could bring more life to business districts.

## Summary

La Défense, Paris’s major business district, plans to convert up to a fifth of its office buildings into homes as demand for office space has fallen since the Covid-19 pandemic and homeworking became more common. The change could bring more residents to the district and help it become a place for leisure and daily life as well as work.

One planned project will turn the nine-storey Le Diamant building, where 1,800 people work, into apartments. The conversion faces practical challenges, including dark interior spaces, extra plumbing and low ceilings. La Défense’s office vacancy rate is 14–15%, while demand for office space in Paris has fallen by almost a third over five to six years. In Washington DC, 6,533 converted flats were in the pipeline in a report last year, and the city aims to add 15,000 downtown residents by 2028.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.