New York City construction scare highlights the challenges of converting offices into housing

The recent scare in midtown Manhattan shows the complex engineering behind reuse projects. When two steel columns buckled this week inside the former Pfizer headquarters in midtown Manhattan, the scare prompted evacuations and halted work on one of the nations largest office-to-apartment conversions.It also highlighted the complex engineering behind adaptive reuse projects, which have become increasingly popular as officials try to tackle a nationwide housing shortage by transforming offices tha...