Adaptive Reuse w/ Michael Bohn

 The wrecking crew came, kind of scratched their heads. No one had ever done this in Long Beach and didn't know what to do. So they called the police, the police came. I don't think they really knew what to do, but they cut the chain and handcuffed us and took us to the police station. And we probably held up the demolition no more than four hours.

And then after that, unfortunately, the building was gone forever. And that was in 1988. And to this date, nothing has been built on that site. 

Welcome to Tangible Remnants.  I'm Nakita Reed, and this is my show where I explore the interconnectedness of architecture, preservation, sustainability, race, and gender. I'm excited that you're here. So let's get into it.  Welcome back.  In this week's episode, I got to chat with California-based architect, Michael Bonn.

Michael is an architect and advocate for preserving historic buildings. And during the episode, he shares his journey into the profession, as well as his passion for adaptive reuse and affordable housing.  He discusses his activism and preservation efforts, including training himself to a building slated for demolition.

Michael's firm, Studio 111, focuses on creating community and revitalizing overlooked areas through adaptive reuse projects. We also chat about the importance of sustainability and leveraging the existing character of buildings in adaptive reuse projects.  There were so many nuggets and takeaways from our conversation.

Some of my favorites included the fact that preserving historic buildings through adaptive reuse can create more affordable housing options and revitalize communities and the provocation that gentrification can be mitigated by preserving existing buildings and incorporating affordable housing options. 

Be sure to check out the show notes for this episode so you can get links to Instagram and to see images of the buildings we discussed in the episode.  While looking at the show notes, be sure to also click the link to sign up for a monthly newsletter so you can get access to various industry events and resources. 

Now, before we jump in, let me share his bio with you to give you more context for our conversation.  So as a partner of Studio 111, Michael Bone, AIAA  takes an integrated approach to architecture, landscape, and urban design. One of his focuses is on the studio's housing practice with an emphasis on modular, Transit-oriented developments, affordable housing, and adaptive reuse projects. 

His experience includes supportive student and market-rate projects that serve seniors, families, artists, and the homeless.  As sustainability stalwart, he's led the development of the firm's downtown Long Beach headquarters to lead platinum and weld gold certifications and is currently pursuing net zero energy.

In addition, he established an award-winning landscape studio and co-established an urban design practice that uplifts undisturbed communities.  Michael received his architectural degree from Cal Poly State University, St. Louis BISMO. He studied at the Le Col de Beaux Arts in Fontainebleau, France, and worked at the State Archaeological Camp in Hampi, India, sponsored by the British Institute. 

He is a licensed architect with over 35 years of experience. He's also currently a board member for the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The Urban Land Institute's Affordable Workforce Housing Council and on the board for the American Institute of Architects, California.  This episode really was another fun one.

So without further ado, please enjoy this conversation between me and Michael Bowen.  So Michael,  welcome to the show. I would love for you to talk about your journey into the profession and a little bit of your background. Well, first of all, thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here. You know, architecture is like a continuation of my childhood.

When I was younger, I enjoyed building things, be it with blocks or Lincoln logs or Legos and  Being an only child, I could just build an entire city, go to bed at night, wake up in the morning and it was still there and just keep building from it. And it really, it's just, I continue to do that today. I keep, I enjoy working with other folks and, and, and continuing to build things, be it new or adaptive reuse or trying to make cities better places to live. 

I love that. And so tell me a little bit about your upbringing. Cause I know you have a little bit more of an international background.  Yeah, my parents are both immigrants from Germany and they first went to Canada where they learned the language and a friend of theirs sent them a postcard of Long Beach with palm trees and a beach, and they said, that's where we're going.

And so they moved to Long Beach. I was born in Maywood, but they moved here and bought a house. When I was a year old,  I, as I was growing up, I swore I would never come back to the city. I was young and boisterous and just wanted to see the world. Luckily, I did have family in Germany. So I went, went there and I, and I started to really appreciate older buildings and communities. 

You know, where my aunt lived, they were originally built in the 1880s as barracks and horse stables on the edge of the city of Berlin. And she moved in and I noticed the, you know, the old horse stables were converted either to work environments where people could work or even housing. And I just thought that was so interesting.

And, you know, because the buildings were older, they were just naturally occurring, more affordable housing. They weren't affordable housing in the. quotations, official sense, but they were more affordable to folks. And my aunt was on a fixed income and she got to live in a great neighborhood.  Because of that, I, I studied art in Fontainebleau, France,  which the, the, the building we were in was once the monarch's family home and, and the building was in, the palace was then converted into a museum and an art school where I got to attend. 

I, I also studied in India. I measured temples for the, through the British Institute. And again, there I was staying in a, in a very simple hotel and learned,  uh, kind of on the side that it was once an office building. And so I saw all these things and I, you know, these older, richer buildings with great materials.

And, and  I saw how they could evolve into different things as the market demanded. And I came home to Long Beach and really fell in love with the city. Yeah. It's a, it's really from an urbanistic perspective, it's a city with split personalities. There's the older pre-war city that is on a grid. It's very walkable, mixed uses, older buildings, each building has its own style and character.

And then you have the, the, the post-war Long Beach, which is very auto-focused, very suburban in nature, separation of uses, and really built for kind of a monoculture. Two parents and a family. And I just always gravitated to the pre-war Long Beach. And, and so downtown has a rich history of buildings. And it was just driving me insane to see beautiful old buildings, not just houses, but large significant structures that were being demolished.

And many times for buildings that were smaller, or even for parking lots, And the Juergens Trust building, which it was a beautiful Beaux Arts building, it filled the whole block, it was going to get torn down, and nothing was even, not even a parking lot was going in its place. The city leaders at that time just saw old buildings as, as dated fashion.

We got to get rid of these old buildings and build something new and shiny and glassy.  And I was more of the belief, I'm not against shiny new buildings, but I just like it when there's a mixture of both. And yeah, it makes things way more interesting.  Yeah. It's a more interesting, more authentic place rooted in, you know, traditions and different development and timeframes.

And my friend and I just talked one night and he said, we can't do this. We can't see this happen. This is, this is, we've just been watching this happen. You know, Month after month. And so we went down there and chained ourselves to the building. The wrecking crew came, kind of scratched their heads. No one had ever done this in Long Beach and didn't know what to do.

So they called the police, the police came. I don't think they really knew what to do, but they cut the chain and handcuffed us and took us to the police station. And we probably held up the demolition no, no more than four hours. And then after that, unfortunately, the building was gone forever. And that was in 1988.

And to this date, nothing has been built on that site. And it's just such a shame to just see a bustling downtown with housing and offices and all these, all this great activity. And there's just this lot and it's, and I think it has a few parking stalls on it now, but it's just.  devalued and, and, and has just been sitting there for this length of time, which just is just very saddening.

That blows my mind that it's been that many decades, but also kudos to you and your friend for holding it up for, you know, four hours, that building got to last another four hours, but yeah, there's not that many people that would be willing to chain themselves to a building. So. It's a fun story, and I'm glad that it ended okay.

And you know, the 80s and all that. I should tell you, the police took us to the station. They didn't know what to do with us. We were young and they just told us to just swear not to go back to the site. And so, and they let us go. So no record or anything, but I, but I did, I did feel it was important to just. 

Make a statement or just for city officials to question what they were doing. And there was this, the beginnings of a historic movement. And over time, those folks were able to convince and to bring in council members that thought a little broader.  Yeah, that's fantastic. And so then after your time at the police station, Talk a little bit more about kind of what got you into doing more of what you're doing now and kind of the work that your firm is doing. 

Well, when I first started, we were in a corporate high-rise in Long Beach, which ironically didn't really fit for any of our brands. And I was Tasked to find a new place. And so I was walking the core of the city, which at the time, lots of the city  was bustling, but the core was still just kind of overlooked.

And I thought, you know, this is a chance for us to find a location and be part of a way of, of, of. Of bringing some life and activation to an area that's been overlooked. And ironically, it's, it's a Nordstrom rack that was empty for three years. The landlord said a dollar tree was about to come in. And I said, well, would you consider an architecture firm coming in space?

And he right away loved the idea. And so we took it over. We invested about two and a half million dollars. Our landlord invested. About 5 million. And then another 20 million of investment followed us that same year because they just realized that this was an overlooked area. So I guess our office is in an adaptive reuse from a place of consumption, which was the Nordstrom Rack to now this bustling architecture firm, that is a place of production.

So it's been a lot of fun. And the previous mayor, um, Mayor Garcia called it the Google of Long Beach. He loved being in here. And it's just. Been really a great for us to be on the, on the ground. We have a room called the spit and argue club, which used to exist in the forties at the Long Beach pier, where people could come and talk about politics and spit into a spittoon and try to solve the city's problems.

And so we reenacted that by creating a large room that when we're not using it as available to nonprofits, hopefully, folks that are really focused on city making that they can use it pro bono and. Talk about how, you know, have those difficult discussions about how we can become a better place in a better city.

Yeah. I love that. And one of the things that I've super appreciated about the work that you're doing is how you're really focusing on affordable housing and also adaptive reuse and sustainability and equity and kind of how all of these things tie together. So then I would love for you to talk a little bit about some of the renovation projects or adaptive reuse projects that are top of mind for you. 

Our first one, we actually played developer, uh, my, my partner, Alan Pullman, who is the founding partner of Studio 111. I came a few years later and I, we were both scratching our heads because there was still, even though some of the larger, more significant buildings were viewed as important to the city, there was still a redevelopment agency.

And this agency's approach was to buy.  Older buildings at a, at a pretty high price, tear them down and then sell them to a developer for a dollar to build something new. And we were noticing a lot of those developers weren't from Long Beach and they were building things that weren't of Long Beach, they, they were of other. 

And it just didn't feel right. And so we, and two other community activists and partners bought a collection of old buildings called Forth and Linden, they were warehouse spaces and we converted them into creative offices. They were, it was originally a furniture store in the twenties. And then as the area declined, it became warehouse space.

And then we converted it to creative offices. And. We just noticed it brought in a different type of person instead of, instead of what the city was doing, drawing national chains and big, bigger developers with deep pockets. This was attracting smaller, more local firms. And. Something we had never thought of at the time, but as they were leasing out or selling them, we sold them as office condos.

There were a lot of folks, I think over 50 percent of them were female-owned companies or firms that, uh, of color and, and, and it was because these existing buildings First of all, we could buy them cheaper and then we could restore them at a lower cost. And so our sales price was much lower than anything that redevelopment was doing and was making it accessible to a part of, to a business community that could not have. 

Purchased and created equity in the city.  So we were really excited about that. And I was also getting into affordable housing and we do a lot of it. We've completed about 1500 units and a lot of it is new construction, but we had a client that purchased an old house. office building in Santa Ana. And they said, we want to make it affordable housing.

We're not sure really what type of affordable housing. And we went there and it has, you know, an office building has taller four to four Heights. It was a, it's a really beautiful mid-century office building. Uh, it was only 20 percent occupied. And. We realized with the high floor-to-floor plates, this would be a great place for family housing with an artist's preference because artists like tall spaces, lots of natural light.

The ground floor we activated with a gallery where artists could sell their work. The ground floor has maker spaces where you can paint, you can dance, you can practice music. And we just created this community. That's so arts-focused at a time when Santa Ana is as lots of Southern California housing is becoming more and more expensive and is pushing artists. 

out of Orange County. And the vast majority of these artists that are living here are, first of all, number one in Santa Ana, if not, or number two within the Orange County area. And so we were able to keep artists in place within the community. And the other thing that was really important is that this building's on, uh, on Main Street, which is, uh, The city's arts corridor, it has the Bowers Museum, it has the Discovery Museum, it has a ballet studio, and it has the Orange County School of the Arts.

So, this just made a lot of sense that we could take affordable housing money to support a desired use in this area, and unfortunately, as arts come, they can gentrify neighborhoods, but we at least know that this community of 58 units Will be dedicated to artists for the next 55 years.  Nice. I'm glad that you started segwaying into gentrification.

That's a great, great segway because I know that's something that often comes up whenever we're talking about adaptive reuse, so we're using existing buildings, particularly in downtown corridors. And so then I know that there's been lots of conversations about gentrification and how design can or You know, what kind of influence does design have?

And so I'd love to just hear more of your thoughts on gentrification, particularly in California and the parts of the area that you're working in, where you mentioned that housing prices are steadily going up.  Yeah, well, we, we actually have a philosophy, we will not work on projects in particular market-rate projects that displace residents that are there already.

Luckily, in, in downtown Long Beach, like many downtowns, there's lots of surface parking lots, and we have no problem displacing cars.  But if it's to displace naturally occurring affordable housing for market rate or luxury housing, we're just not interested in that. It's important for somebody to have that voice to say that and to, again, maybe make people think twice about what they're doing.

Absolutely. Cause I feel like so many times architects feel like, Oh, they just have to take the next one, but we have agency and that can use our voices to say, no, we're not going to take that project because of X, Y, and Z. So that's such a great point. I'm glad that you're helping make that statement.

Well, and yeah, lots of architects are really just Interested in the property lines that surround the site and making, you know, a monument or a statement to themselves or, you know, and, and for us,  we have a list of criteria that we review and, and I love, I love closing a deal. I love getting a project, but I have other leaders within our group.

That we, before we do that, we look at it and say, how does this meet our practice themes?  We, we actually have five practice themes, uh, housing for all, creating community in place, 21st-century mobility, equity and sustainability and renewing the public realm. And if, if they aren't checking a couple of those boxes or creating community benefits, it's just not. 

keeps us going every day and is not consistent with what we believe. And when you're in a big area, region like Southern California, there's plenty of work for us to find while following these practice themes. And, and I think it keeps us very, you know, on our toes and active in that. Yeah. And I love that it also makes sure that you're grounded in doing the work.

That is going to keep you excited because otherwise it can get, it can get a little too, too stale trying to just chase the dollar.  And in return, it's attracted people that think like us to want to work with us. And that just helps us kind of continue to elevate what we want to do, hopefully at larger and larger scales that can be more impactful to communities.

Oh, I love that. I love it. And so then knowing that affordable housing and the housing shortage is something that we're going to be grappling with for a while here. I would love for you to talk also a little bit about some of the office-to-housing conversions we're seeing or anything like that in terms of trends or even just project types that are happening.

Yeah.  in Santa Ana happened before COVID, but since COVID's hit, I can speak locally and to some degree nationally, as we all know, not everybody has to go to the office anymore. And I think, uh, in broader terms, about 25 percent of the office market is right now empty. And that, that's a huge. Sounds somewhat high, but over the, by 2030, there will be a billion square feet of excess office space.

And when you think of that three-dimensionally, if you, if you take a typical office floor plate of 20, 000 square feet, that's 48, 000 floors of empty office. It's incredible. And so a lot of them are going to be dated buildings, older buildings from the twenties through the. We're looking at a project that was built in 1988.

So 20s through the 90s and not all office buildings are going to be able to be converted into housing, but I'd say anywhere from 25 to 30 percent can. And if we can get it  That how that those office buildings off the market to strengthen the office market and put them to good use, you know, by converting them to housing, we're hitting two birds with one stone, and we completed our, our first one was the Santa Ana Arts Colony, but we have also done a market rate one.

One here in Long Beach with, again, the taller floors, the expansive glass and the market rate, it's one of the highest it's the leasing out at the highest price per square foot in the city because it's so unique. You, you have concrete floors, you have floor-to-ceiling glazing, you have. tall ceilings.

They're 12 feet high versus your conventional 10 feet high. It just feels bigger and breeze more. And, and we, we preserve some of the marble in the lobby and some of the wood, and it has this history and the character of the building. And It also has a sustainability component to it. Like all, all of our adaptive reuse projects.

And so it's been a good story. We, that same developer is now doing a 14-story tower down the street. We're doing another affordable deal where the old state armory in Long Beach was closed down. So we are. Converting part of that to senior housing, uh, with an artist preference. And there'll be amenity spaces in, in the armory itself.

The drill hall will be given to St. Anthony High School, which is a college preparatory school located right across the alley. So we'll have seniors, we'll have youth, we'll have intergenerational mixing. We have a yard in the back where we can build new housing, which will be affordable teacher and artists and senior housing.

And it will be modular by design. So we like these complicated projects that really hopefully serve the community and the community needs, community needs. And again, saving older buildings from a fiscal perspective, they can be cheaper. They're easier to entitle because they're in place. The community knows what they're getting.

Sometimes there's greater density with these older buildings that then, you know, and zoning is maybe. gone down or intensity of use has gone down. And plus for me, it's the history and continuing that history and that authenticity and that mixture of new and old that I think makes cities really interesting and fun.

Yeah, I agree. That's one of the things where I love being able to kind of recognize our point in time right now is just being stewards of the place and thinking about what will someone in 50 years time or a hundred years time look like. think when they're looking at the same building or in the same space, standing in the same spot that we're in.

Similarly, whenever I'm in a historic building and I'm standing in that spot and, you know, seeing the horse hair and the plaster from a horse that's been dead for however many decades, or even just thinking about the craftspeople and the artisans who put the buildings together. Um, it's always a sense of awe and like a reminder of, you know, the continuum of time.

One follow-up question for you on the project you were just mentioning for the modular. Is it panelized modular or is it like fully assembled, like coming in like boxes?  So we, we've completed eight mod, well, we have either eight projects done or, or under construction. And we've done both volumetric and panelized, two panelized and six modular.

This one will be, and then within the volumetric modular, we've done shipping containers. We've done. Steel modular and wood modular. And this one will be wood modular. So the, these components will be craned in with all the interior finishes in place, appliances, and they'll just need to be finished at the mate joints when the, when the other module comes in.

So, um, we've been, we've been seeing quite a bit of savings and, uh, mostly in time, but also in construction budgets, uh, as well, so it's, it's not the solution for everything, but there are, there are, there are It's another typology that, uh, we have in our, in our wheelhouse now to,  to use when it, when the timing is appropriate.

Yeah. That's super cool. Yeah. We're starting to see, uh, modular construction getting more popular on kind of in the Mid-Atlantic as well. And it's interesting cause you know, modular, the idea of it's been around for a long time, like it's like over a hundred years, but it's like, it's finally like the technology is catching up to make it viable, but it's super cool to see it's actually becoming a reality.

more used in other parts of the country. That's great. Yeah. There, there definitely are successes. It's still in the pioneering stages. You know, these companies are still relatively new and learning the ropes, but, but it is working. So yeah. And should get easier over time. Yeah. That's great to hear. So is there anything that we haven't covered that you want to touch on it?

I think maybe talking a little more about sustainability. We have studied adaptive reuse. Versus recreating the same building as a modern, brand-new building. And generally, the embodied carbon saved is about 60 to 80 percent less because you're using materials that are already in place. You don't have to create the.

Use the energy to create new materials and then the energy to put it together on site and to build it. And so, and then the other amount is just the waste. If you have demolished these buildings, the remains of them have to go somewhere. And our, our, our projects aren't huge, but there's typically when you demolish 20 to 35 million tons that have to go into landfills.

So, there's.  You know, the history and all these other great components, but then from an environmental perspective, it's really important. And with climate change and our world getting warmer,  technology can help reduce energy usage, but. When you have a building in place that can be reused, that's reducing energy on day one, because you've got the building in place, even if it's just the shell and core.

So, right. Yeah. And I think as climate change continues to wreak havoc, which is going to do, I feel like we'll. start or maybe even continue to be thinking of the cost of buildings from a carbon standpoint, as well as a financial standpoint. Cause you're right. We don't have the carbon time to be demolishing all these buildings to build something else new.

Cause we're, we're still going to be having to deal with the impacts of demolition from various historic buildings.  Brian, I know the AA, uh, publishes the types of work people are doing. And I think for the first time in the last few years, There's more rehabilitation and adaptive reuse than new construction.

And so I think the markets are definitely taking us in that direction already. And I think it's exciting. And I think we'll have better cities for it. When someone's looking at them as an architect, I think you really need to listen to the building and understand the building and don't fight it. Don't try to make it something that it isn't.

I think leverage what's there, try to save as much as you can. And, you know, this newer built tower that we're looking at, it had a bank at the ground floor. We're keeping the vault. We're going to, we're going to use that as a room. We're going to keep the wood paneling in the, in the executive conference room where you were, we're keeping as much as we can because it's sustainable.

It keeps the history, but at the same time, it brings quirkiness and authenticity to a building. And I think a lot of times I see work being done on existing buildings that they're. Trying to make it look new. They're, they're fighting with it. And so it, it, it, it ends up looking like a new building, but in a, in a.

Uncon in a weird way, in an uncomfortable way. And I think working with the bones of the building, it will,  a better value and authenticity and just celebrate what's there and use as much of it as you can, would be, would be great. advice that I would share.  Yeah, I agree. And Architecture 2030 has this stat that basically two-thirds of the building stock that currently exists today will likely still be here by 2050.

So it's like there's plenty of work and renovation work and rehabilitation adaptive reuse work for architects to do with all of the billions of square feet of existing buildings that are already here. So hopefully more architects will take the time to really explore the opportunities that exist within existing spaces. 

So where can people find you online?  Well, uh, we're Studio 111. I am a partner with the studio and I should talk a little bit maybe about us. We are, we are a group of architects, landscape architects, and urban designers dedicated to restoring community. And you can find us at www.  studio 111.  Thank you so much for listening.

Links to amazing resources can be found in the episode's show notes. Special thanks to Sarah Gilbert for allowing me to use snippets of her song Fireflies from her debut album, Other People's Secrets, which by the way is available wherever music is sold.  If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to the show. 

And now that Tangible Remnants is part of the Gable Media Network, you can listen and subscribe to all network partner content at gablemedia. com. That's G A B L media. com.  Until next time, remember that historic preservation is a present conversation with our past about our future. We don't inherit the earth from our parents, but we borrow it from our children.

So let's make sure we're telling our inclusive history.  I saw the first fireflies of summer and right then  I thought of you.  Oh, I could see us catching them and setting them free.  Honey, that's what you do.  That's what you do to me.