[makestuff]

I have toured a few converted buildings in NYC. You end up with weird apartment layouts for reasons you mentioned. For example, a lot of the layouts were really long and narrow to satisfy the window requirement since office buildings are generally just giant square floors where you can have desks without direct window access. I think the other issues are running plumbing and electrical to each unit where an office building just needs a central room with plumbing for a common bathroom area.

Overall the economics seem to work in NYC since rents are so expensive, but I would imagine converting an office tower in a MCOL or LCOL city would be harder to make profitable.