There's a new conversion overlay on a 22,000 sf building I don't understand yet

The mechanism to understand is that zoning and building code are two separate approvals and they can disagree. The overlay you read governs what use is permitted and how much parking is required. Whether the building can physically be occupied as residential is decided by the building code adopted in that jurisdiction, which sets egress, fire separation, sprinklers, light and ventilation, and accessibility for the new use. A change of occupancy from business to residential is the trigger that brings the second set of requirements into play, and how far the code makes you go on an existing building varies by state, by which code edition the city adopted, and sometimes by whether there is a local existing building or conversion provision. Confirm the adopted code and any local amendments with the building department in writing before you price anything.

On the sequencing question, the free counter visit and the $6,000 review answer different things. The counter tells you whether the use is allowed and what parking you owe. The architect tells you how many units actually fit and what the code makes you build to get there. Doing the free one first is normal, and it protects the $6,000 from being spent on a building that fails on parking alone.

One number to watch in your pass. You have 14,000 gross feet upstairs and you are getting 12 to 14 units out of it, which implies roughly 1,000 gross feet per unit with no allowance for corridors, a second stair, or an elevator. If accessibility or egress requires either of those, unit count drops and your $2.5m gets divided across fewer rents.

The two existing tenants are an operational problem people underestimate. You are going to run a construction site above two occupied storefronts for a year, with noise, dust, water shutoffs and a closed sidewalk. Read their leases for quiet enjoyment and any exclusive access provisions, and expect to negotiate rent abatement or a temporary relocation. I have watched a small mixed use job lose a retail tenant three months in, and the lost income plus the vacant ground floor changed the refinance.

$180 a foot on a 1962 building with no residential plumbing in it is optimistic and I say that as someone who prices renovation scope for a living. My last change order list on a much simpler job ran 22 percent over the original hard cost, and every item on it was something concealed. Windows, floor leveling, a stair that turned out to be four inches too narrow.

Before the architect, get someone to open up a ceiling and a wall in three places. What you find behind them is worth more than another week of spreadsheet work. Also windlass, carry a real contingency, 15 percent minimum, and carry the carrying cost of an extra six months, because you will use it.

Fourteen apartments on a main street where the last office tenant left in 2019 makes me want to know who rents them. Have you called two property managers in that town and asked what a new build two bedroom actually leases for and how fast. Your $1,400 needs to come from someone with a rent roll rather than from a listings site, because that single number is carrying the whole deal.