A move is underway to help El Paso and other cities in Texas repurpose abandoned office space for residential purposes.
State Republican Senator Bryan Hughes has introduced a bill in the Texas State Legislature that will ease regulations governing such conversions, noting that his legislation has the additional benefit of addressing the state’s ongoing housing shortage.
“It’s a simple matter of looking at the housing stock that’s available and looking at the growing demand, and looking at every option to expand those opportunities,” Hughes remarked to the Texas Tribune.
SB 840, which is now under review in the Senate Committee on Local Government, would specifically prohibit cities and counties from requiring that office building owners must go through what can be an arduous rezoning process in order to create new mixed-use and multi-family residential space.
Every city in the Lone Star state has experienced an increase in vacant office space. A recent study conducted by the El Paso Downtown Management District listed nearly 50 buildings in an 18-block area that were once used for office or retail purposes but have since become vacant.
The vacancy rate for office space in Dallas and Houston has surpassed 26%, according to published reports, while San Antonio’s rate as of last summer was just a little over 24%.
As written, Hughes’s bill only targets counties that have more than 420,000 residents, and metro areas with more than 60,000 residents.
February 24, 2025
By Garry Boulard
Photo courtesy of Unsplash
