Step inside a downtown office building being converted into apartment units

In less than a year, someone will be living in what used to be the finance department of a local insurance company. Someone else will be taking a shower where lawyers held meetings or cooking where human resources staff signed paycheques. 

Work is underway to turn 195 Dufferin Avenue, an eight-storey building that once housed insurance companies and law offices, into apartment units, the first project that's using incentive money from the city to convert empty or under-used offices into much-needed housing. 

"We're doing something that is better for the community and better for London," said Richard Sifton, CEO of Sifton Properties, which is heading up the conversion.

Sifton leases the building, which sits on land owned by St. Paul's Cathedral and the Anglican Diocese of Huron. Homes Unlimited, London's largest provider of non-profit housing, will eventually run the apartment building. 

"It just seemed to be the right project at the right time," Sifton said, standing on the ground floor of the building, which will eventually house a laundry room, an office, and community rooms. "Those of us that have done well need to ensure that we are there for the communities that we work in and help people out as best we can, wherever we can."

LISTEN | Richard Sifton takes CBC News inside the project at 195 Dufferin Avenue:

Converting an office into residential units comes with unique challenges. Commercial buildings tend to have only one set of washrooms — and the required plumbing — per floor. "Obviously, you have to have washrooms and a kitchen in every unit, so we have to relocate all of that plumbing and the mechanical systems because each unit has to have its own heating and cooling and fresh air," Sifton said. 

"It's not as simple as just putting up some walls and hoping that everything works." 

Crews have used radar equipment to see what they're cutting into before drilling holes into each floor to feed mechanical and electrical systems through, as well as plumbing. Sifton said starting from scratch would have been simpler, but there are many advantages to converting an existing building.

"We have the good bones of the structure, so we're able to make this project happen a lot faster. Normally, this would be a two-and-a-half-year process, but we started in October, and we're going to have people moving in around November, December or January." 

The units tend to be less wide than ones that would have been created in a new build, Sifton said, but many will have very large windows and views of downtown. "Some of the bedrooms don't have windows, per se, but we do have lighting cells so they get natural light coming into the bedroom, which will make it much more appealing for the resident. It just has to be a little bit different in order for the layout to work." 

All of the windows are being replaced to be more energy-efficient, as are heating and cooling systems. Sifton said the biggest surprises have come from opening up walls, floors, and ceilings and finding unexpected challenges. 

"The renovators of the world are used to this, but we're not," he said.

"You open something up and have to figure out what you have because it's never what it's supposed to be. We did find some asbestos piping wrap, which set us back. Sometimes, when things are built, the plans show you how it's supposed to be built, but that doesn't necessarily how it actually was built, so that takes some more time and effort."