>old factory and turn it into trendy office space with exposed brick and vintage architectural details
That's not why we renovate factories. We renovate them because they are in a location we desire (big city centers). The suburbs are a cultural and transportation wasteland for the most part and have nothing but cheap land. Its just unpleasant real estate. Sadly, a lot of smaller companies migrated out to the suburbs because the CEO could simply make a call to move the business closer to his house. This land just makes more sense as residential, or at best retail, and really should have never been turned into offices in the first place.
>Sadly, a lot of smaller companies migrated out to the suburbs because the CEO could simply make a call to move the business closer to his house.
Perhaps. But it's probably also where most of the employees lived. If you're talking the 80s, for example, very few of my co-workers lived in Boston/Cambridge and commuted out to our offices on 495 about an hour away. I'm quite confident that, had there been a vote to move the company offices into the city, the answer would have been a resounding no.
Yeah it is. If there weren't anything desirable about the existing structure it would just be torn down and rebuilt. You are confusing the location decision with the decision to demolish vs. renovate.
That's not why we renovate factories. We renovate them because they are in a location we desire (big city centers). The suburbs are a cultural and transportation wasteland for the most part and have nothing but cheap land. Its just unpleasant real estate. Sadly, a lot of smaller companies migrated out to the suburbs because the CEO could simply make a call to move the business closer to his house. This land just makes more sense as residential, or at best retail, and really should have never been turned into offices in the first place.