Then there's other code considerations like windows and fire exit distance requirements that become harder to meet once you start adding walls.
If you have to move all the floors, walls, utilities, elevators, and exits, how much of the original building are you actually leaving intact? Often times, even after doing all that, a conversion still isn't viable because there's just too much floor area and not enough windows to make any layout that isn't a 10k sqft single room studio viable.