- Yeah, uptown Charlotte is definitely different now.

Lots of uptown office workers working from home now.

Lots of companies rethinking and shrinking how much office space they really need, but different could be better if that vacant office space becomes tomorrow's living space.

(upbeat music) The Jefferson First Union building was the tallest office tower in the Carolinas when it opened in 1971, 32 stories high.

It even had a swanky restaurant with a view up on the 30th floor.

(upbeat music) Today that same 30th floor is filled with empty cubicles and cabinets.

And while the building now known as Two Wells Fargo is still pretty impressive from the outside, well there's nobody on all those floors looking back down at you anymore, at least not yet.

When you first walked into this building, what did you think?

- It's got good bones.

(laughing) - [Jeff] Cam Barradale sounds like that guy from "This Old House" checking out a fixer upper.

- Because it's all about being able to lay out residential units.

- [Jeff] But he sees this vacant office building as 32 floors of opportunity.

- Scored at 90%.

It's one of the highest scoring buildings in Charlotte, and it's one of the highest scoring buildings in our analysis.

- [Jeff] A space and a place where Charlotte can create something new with a view.

- It could be a completely unique building within Charlotte as a residential offering.

- [Jeff] Barradale is the Charlotte Studio director for Gensler, a design and architecture firm that's looking at 1200 possible office conversion projects all over the country with the makeover plan for Two Wells Fargo getting a top grade nationwide for potential success.

- There's a lot of vacancies in our cities.

We want to make our cities vibrant again, as vibrant as they can be.

- [Jeff] Barradale explains that making vacant old office buildings vibrant again means re-looking at the big spaces that made them vibrant in the first place place when they first opened.

- We've got an incredible space downstairs, this atrium that could be rethought as a food hall, creative working space, right?

Somebody's gonna come along and figure out how to make that a city living room, flowing out onto this amazing plaza.

- [Jeff] But sometimes it's also the little things in an office makeover that make a big difference.

You know, like these 1970s office windows.

So the windows were part of the draw here.

- Yeah, I mean, they're great.

If you look at 'em, you just know they're great.

It's just a better setup for a residential application.

To create operable windows so you could open them, get some fresh air into your units or even potentially put balconies in these units.

And so this building's footprint is great.

The scale of the building's great.

Its location in the city is great.

(upbeat music) - So this gives you the opportunity to take what's really been a flagship piece of property in Charlotte's history and redevelop it and reenvision it as something else and breathe new life into it.

- [Jeff] Pat Gildea is vice chairman of CBRE Charlotte, the commercial real estate giant that's listing Two Wells Fargo for sale.

And here's the makeover marketing pitch.

If you are a buyer, yeah, interest rates are higher, but look at the value versus building something new.

- Well, it's a bit of a perfect storm right now.

We've had a situation in Charlotte specifically where several large users gave back significant chunks of space in or around the same time.

Everybody in Charlotte knows these buildings, has visited these buildings for one reason or another, and they're now in the dead center of uptown.

(soft music) - I think you're gonna see some real creativity today and hopefully it's something that lights some fires.

- [Jeff] That's why Charlotte Center City Partners is hosting this design competition, including the plan for Two Wells Fargo and five other makeovers of what Center City is calling, not vacant office space, but vintage office space.

- It's today a 800,000 square foot seventies era office building that we are looking to convert into 448 residential for rent units and about 60,000 square feet of ground floor retail.

- [Jeff] And here's one of the Charlotte designs that won the competition.

A proposal to recycle the old Duke Energy headquarters across the street from Bank of America Stadium into a new project known as Brooklyn and Church.

- To tear it down alone was gonna be, what, $40 million?

So really it was gonna cost more to tear it down than it would've been to buy the building itself.

- [Jeff] Project designer Welch Lyles adds that a makeover means they can deliver those apartments 20% cheaper than a new apartment building, while also saving 10 months of construction time, a total of two years or less start to finish.

But if you're looking for an Uptown Office conversion that's already finished, (warm music) well check out these condos at the old Home Federal Savings and loan building on South Tryon Street.

Now it's known as The Trust.

Six years ago, this particular condo sold for more than $2 million.

Not exactly affordable housing, but it does show what's possible here in uptown with the right old building and the right new design.

How does a building like this help solve the housing shortage in Charlotte?

- Well, first of all, a building like this could provide 300 to 400 units centrally located downtown.

So it's making a more vibrant downtown, but also you're not having to bring as much parking potentially because of its location.

You're not having to sprawl out and build more housing along the edges or in the suburbs.

Most of the best candidates are along Tryon Street or at Trade and Tryon.

And so if we could figure out a way to convert those great candidates right in our core, it'd make an incredible main street for us.

If you've got a great core, everything else is gonna benefit from it.

(upbeat music) - Also, here's one more idea that came from that Uptown Design competition.

How about turning empty office towers into college and university residence halls?

Another way to bring more people uptown by providing more housing uptown.