Adaptive reuse is hardly a new concept. Buildings have been modified and repurposed for centuries as cities, industries and communities have evolved. But today, adaptive reuse is gaining renewed attention for another reason: embodied carbon.
Anand Parthasarathy, principal and practice leader with BranchPattern moderated a discussion with Scot Murdoch, partner at KSS Architects; Eliana Peralta-Sapienza, building performance analyst with BranchPattern; and Mounir Tawadrous, senior associate at KSS Architects, on how developers and design teams are evaluating existing buildings for their economic potential and ability to reduce the carbon impact of development.
The panelists agreed that adaptive reuse can offer significant environmental and economic advantages, but it is not automatically the right answer. The key is understanding the building, the market and the extent of modification required.
The Case for Keeping What Already Exists
Murdoch said clients evaluate adaptive reuse through a number of lenses.
“There has to be a business case and a functional case as to why you would want to repurpose a building,” he said. “Then there’s the physical case – is the structure capable? We’re also starting to even see a social aspect with adaptive reuse as jobs and people are moving back to cities.”
The panel highlighted several projects that demonstrate how those considerations can lead to successful reuse.
One example is an old Packard manufacturing building in Long Island City, Queens, New York. The heavily reinforced concrete structure had significant historic character and existing tenants but lacked sufficient vertical circulation to move product from the loading dock through its eight stories. Rather than replacing the structure, the project team added an external freight system with two new freight lifts.
Character can also be an economic asset. Older buildings offer proportions, volume and nonuniformity that are difficult to replicate in new construction. In this case, the building was attracting tenant attention and leases even as core-and-shell work was underway.
Another project involved a former New York Times printing facility in Edison, New Jersey. The building had enormous power capacity and clear heights of approximately 50 feet in some areas. The team gutted the facility and converted it into a data center. Iron Mountain ultimately occupies approximately 830,000 square feet of data hall space.
The project also illustrates the value of existing development rights. Because the building had a floor-area ratio of 4:1 – meaning it contained four times as much floor area as the site itself – a new building on the same site would have been limited to roughly half that density, or about 2:1. Preserving the existing building allowed the owner to retain development value that could have been lost through demolition and new construction.
The Embodied Carbon Advantage
The environmental case for adaptive reuse comes largely from preserving materials that would otherwise be demolished and replaced.
Peralta-Sapienza said some projects have been able to retain approximately 60% of an existing structure. Depending on what is preserved, that can produce embodied carbon reductions ranging from approximately 10% to 30% or more.
“For a lot of embodied carbon requirements in some jurisdictions, the minimum that you have to achieve is a 10% reduction,” she said.
One of the strongest examples discussed was Prologis’ Project Nexus in San Leandro, California, a cutting-edge sustainable industrial and advanced manufacturing facility. The project retained approximately 60% of the existing structure and combined adaptive reuse with material and design optimization. The result was a 40% reduction in embodied carbon compared with the project’s baseline.
The project addressed a 27-foot clear height by extending the building approximately 20 feet using insulated metal panels. The team also incorporated mass timber in the office mezzanine, improving both carbon performance and the employee experience. Project Nexus ultimately achieved LEED Platinum certification and received recognition from NAIOP (now CREDA) San Francisco Bay Area chapter as the 2024 Development of the Year.
The 40% reduction is particularly significant because leading embodied-carbon standards often target reductions of approximately 20%. Adaptive reuse combined with thoughtful new construction can go well beyond simply preserving an existing structure.
Regulation is Moving the Market
The panel expects embodied carbon to become increasingly important as jurisdictions adopt new requirements.
For example, California’s 2024 CalGreen provisions apply embodied-carbon requirements to nonresidential buildings larger than 100,000 square feet, providing pathways that include building reuse or whole-building life-cycle assessment and require a 10% reduction from a baseline in applicable cases.
The implications extend beyond regulation. Tenants with net-zero goals are increasingly interested in lower-carbon facilities, while lenders and investors are asking developers to report both embodied and operational carbon. For long-term owners, retaining existing carbon can also help future-proof an asset against increasingly stringent carbon requirements and potential penalties.
Municipal incentives can further strengthen the case for adaptive reuse. The panel cited redevelopment grants, tax incentives, brownfield programs, TIF programs and historic tax credits as potential sources of support. In New Jersey and Pennsylvania, Murdoch noted rehabilitation incentives that have included a 20% qualified rehabilitation cost credit.
Ultimately, successful adaptive reuse requires analysis early in the development process. Teams need to evaluate structural capacity, building systems, operational requirements, embodied carbon and available incentives before committing to a strategy.
The panelists expect adaptive reuse to become increasingly mainstream as construction costs rise, regulations evolve and embodied carbon becomes a larger part of development decisions.
“[U.S. Green Building Council] LEED [certification] has elevated the way we all practice,” Murdoch said, pointing to its influence on building and energy codes. He predicts that embodied carbon will become a more essential consideration for developers.
The panelists emphasized that adaptive reuse is not the right solution for every building or every development. Rather, adaptive reuse is becoming another critical tool in the developer’s toolbox, one that can preserve economic value, shorten the path to market, reduce embodied carbon and create new life for buildings that might otherwise be demolished.
This post is brought to you by JLL, the social media and conference blog sponsor of the CREDA Conference 2026. Learn more about JLL at www.us.jll.com or www.jll.ca.
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