{"id":158624,"date":"2026-03-10T00:16:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T00:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/158624\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T00:16:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T00:16:14","slug":"bill-to-convert-vacant-office-spaces-in-upstate-ny-cities-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/158624\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill to convert vacant office spaces in Upstate NY cities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/spectrumlocalnews.com\/nys\/central-ny\/politics\/2026\/02\/24\/n-y--bill-would-offer-tax-credit-for-converting-underused-office-space-into-housing\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New proposed legislation<\/a> aims to create a state tax credit to convert vacant office buildings into residential space.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe must continue to strengthen the core,\u201d said New York state Sen. Pat Fahy, D-Albany. \u201cThe core of our urban areas whether that\u2019s Buffalo, Albany, Syracuse and more.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fahy said her joint legislation with Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes is a way to make use of office spaces left vacant by COVID-19 remote work protocols in cities like Albany, Rochester, and Buffalo.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe incentive is a 10% tax credit,\u201d said Fahy. \u201cIt would probably be combined in many areas with historic tax credits because some of these are historic buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lawmakers said the vacancy rate in some of the downtowns of upstate New York\u2019s major cities ranges from 16% to 28%.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s an affordability crisis, and there\u2019s always going to be one because we don\u2019t have enough units for people to live in,\u201d said Assemblywoman Peoples-Stokes.<\/p>\n<p>In the city of Buffalo specifically, buildings with high vacancy conversion opportunities include the former YWCA, Rite Aid and the former Buffalo News building.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe should be talking about how we can get this done, and how soon can we do it,\u201d said Peoples-Stokes. \u201cI personally would like to see it happen during the course of this budget process.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>State Assemblymember John McDonald, D-Cohoes, is also co-sponsoring this legislation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cConverting underused buildings into housing is a practical solution that can bring new residents and economic activity back to cities across Upstate,&#8221; McDonald said in a partial statement.<\/p>\n<p>As an example, lawmakers point to the transformation of the former JP Morgan Chase building and Daily News Headquarters conversion in New York City, which resulted in 1,300 apartments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New proposed legislation aims to create a state tax credit to convert vacant office buildings into residential space.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2908,109,3478,116,288,2907,9,24,55,54,49,12,5304,56,112,87,27,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-158624","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-app-housing","9":"tag-app-local-state-politics","10":"tag-app-local-business","11":"tag-app-ny-state-of-politics","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-housing","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","17":"tag-new-york-city-news","18":"tag-new-york-state","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-nicole-neuman","21":"tag-ny","22":"tag-ny-state-of-politics","23":"tag-politics","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}