[adamjcook]

In some cases, yes, but certainly not in all of them (or a majority of them) here in Detroit (based on photographs taken by urban explorers).

There are many department stores and theaters, for example, that had wide open floors.

Conversions of department stores to residential units is popular in Detroit since we had so many at one time.

The United Artists Theatre high-rise I mentioned has no divided offices from the photos taken by urban explorers: http://www.detroiturbex.com/content/parksandrec/uat/index.ht...

I believe that the Kales Building did not as well.

It is certainly not clear to me that, in many of these Detroit conversations, that just because the space was divided into discrete, smaller spaces that plumbing was run to them.