Holland Partner Group has turned three mostly vacant office floors at the Ivey on Boren into 44 new apartments, sliding fresh housing into a Denny Triangle tower that was already packed with development.
According to the Puget Sound Business Journal, the 44 homes were carved out of three office levels that had sat largely empty since the building opened. The outlet describes the project as one of Seattle's earliest fully completed post pandemic office to apartment conversions.
About the building
The Ivey on Boren is a 44 story mixed use tower at 2019 Boren Avenue that opened in 2022 with apartments stacked over commercial space. Holland Partner Group markets the high rise through its Holland Residential platform, which originally listed office space as part of the building's offerings.
On the ground floor, Cornish College of the Arts operates gallery space and a performance auditorium that help give the tower a stronger street presence in the Denny Triangle. Both Holland Residential and Cornish College of the Arts highlight the Ivey's mixed use program and its arts spaces as key pieces of the project.
Why Seattle is pushing conversions
The Ivey conversion lands right in the middle of a broader push by Seattle leaders and developers to turn underused office space into housing. Mayor Bruce Harrell has championed that agenda along with proposals to trim zoning and permitting barriers, and a state sales tax deferral option for qualifying projects is meant to sweeten the financial math for owners. The Urbanist lays out the incentive package and the regulatory tweaks on the table.
Converting offices is not a simple flip of the lights, though. Analysts point out that plumbing, egress and daylighting requirements can pile on costs fast enough to kill deals, and only a slice of the office stock really works as housing in the first place. Brookings details those technical hurdles, while Planetizen situates the Ivey project in the national post pandemic shift that is reshaping downtowns as more offices sit half empty and housing demand stays hot.
For now, the Ivey's move is a modest one in the city's bigger housing story, since 44 units are not going to fix Seattle's crunch on their own. What it does provide is a proof of concept inside a relatively new tower. The building changed hands in 2024 and has kept strong overall occupancy, which could make other owners more willing to test out selective conversions of quiet office floors.
Post sale documentation shows the tower's owner reporting occupancy above 90 percent in 2024, a figure that underscores demand for apartments and hints at how targeted conversions can fit into a broader portfolio strategy instead of serving as an all or nothing overhaul. Sekisui House REIT called out the property in its portfolio materials after the acquisition.
