Milwaukee among top-10 cities for incoming apartment conversions: Study

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Milwaukee ranked No. 9 among the top cities in the U.S. for future apartment conversions, a study from apartment website RentCafe showed.

Brew City was No. 9 in the top 20 cities for apartment conversions in 2022, with 1,219 apartments in the pipeline for the next few years, the study said. This places Milwaukee among the cities with the most adaptive reuse projects planned for the next few years, the study added.

The study took data from Yardi Matrix, RentCafe’s sister company specializing in market data for commercial real estate. Across the U.S., the study predicts 77,100 offices, storage spaces and factories will be turned into rentable living space in the next few years.

The city was ahead of Detroit at No. 10 (1,214 apartments) and behind Philadelphia at No. 8 (1,265 apartments), study data showed. Los Angeles ranked No. 1 with 4,130 apartments on the way, while Manhattan scored No. 20 with only 882 future conversions.

Between 2020 and 2021, the number of converted apartments in Milwaukee dropped by 58 percent compared to pre-pandemic years, the website said. There were only 335 spaces converted for living between 2020 and 2021, while 801 entered the market in 2018 and 2019 combined.

Office buildings were converted most often, followed by storage spaces, factories and other types of buildings in the city, the website said. Study data showed 421 office buildings, 200 storage spaces and 195 factories were to be adapted in the next few years.