All good points, but given the prospect of getting a building essentially for free (minus tax/maintenance) and having substantial one-time costs... that sounds like a pretty good deal.

Many office towers have much higher ceilings than typical apartment buildings. Pretty sure a 12" subfloor would solve many of the issues you raise. And many office towers are designed to support multiple tenants per floor.

I'm not dismissing the difficulty, just saying that the scale economics seem very attractive for a high fixed cost, low variable cost, long term annuity investment. I'm either wrong or ahead of my time, but it's not like I've got the funding to put money where my mouth is.

> the blight that a lot of west coast city centers are seeing

I don't see how that's relevant. The shift to WFH is global; these problems/opportunities are just as real in London or Sydney or Shanghai.