Maybe people will start living in them and real estate costs will go down. Truly catastrophic for the readers of Bloomberg.
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There are real logistical and engineering difficulties in making those buildings suitable for habitation. In many cases, it would be less expensive to tear them down and build a new building for that purpose.
Looking into the past, I think it's more likely that the development would be analogous to what happened to old industrial zones in developed cities, such as SoHo in Manhattan. People started moving into old, derelict industrial buldings, and eventually the style became so trendy that it's now one of the most expensive neighborhoods of the city. If the downtown office building truly stops being a thing, I could see something similar happening.
On the other hand, you could use them to solve finding a home for the homeless. Sure, they have windowless rooms and less bathrooms than is ideal but surely that’s better than living under a bridge.
That's not a bad idea
What are some of the difficulties? Are there compromises that would allow them to be ok residential use at some tradeoff (like fewer units per floor)?
For buildings that are partially built, can they still be converted or is it too late?
The NYTimes had a good article on this, along with some examples of buildings that have actually undergone the conversion:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/11/upshot/office... https://archive.is/gQiQW
Floor plans are awkward if you had to segment them in to apartments, having each apartment meet code for residential spaces turns in to a puzzle in ensuring things like light entry. Math that made sense for office buildings doesn't translate as easily to residential, so you're paying for more elevators (made for an office building) than you need, you have less floor space you can rent out because you need it for amenities, you have to do extensive renovations to make it suitable for living, and then have to hope the commercial real estate market doesn't surge in demand after you've done it.
It's apparently doable, but not easy, and has a significant downside if there isn't enough demand to meet your new luxury apartment building, and the risk that commercial real estate bounces back after you've done it.
I'm no mechanical engineer, but as I understand it, the biggest issue is plumbing-related. If you want every unit to have water and a drain, that's a huge retrofit right there that can be extremely difficult.
There are other factors, too, but the plumbing seems to be the biggest hurdle.
For the most part, there are no insurmountable engineering issues. It's just a question of cost.