A mostly vacant office building just off West Putnam Avenue in Greenwich is headed for a dramatic second act as apartments, after the town's Planning & Zoning Commission unanimously approved Fareri Associates' plan to convert the three-story structure at 1 East Weaver Street into 44 residential units. The project, to be called J Lofts on East Weaver, will bring new balconies, a refreshed facade and rooftop terrace amenities to a 41-year-old building that has sat largely empty in the west end of town.
The unanimous approval, reported by the Stamford Advocate, clears the way for developer John Fareri and Fareri Associates to renovate the building and turn its office floors into housing. The proposal had been described as preliminary and subject to further commission review as recently as this spring, according to a separate Greenwich Time report from April, so the commission's vote marks the plan's formal advancement rather than an early-stage sign-off.
Once home to the headquarters of Icon International, the 3.2-acre property includes two levels of underground parking and roughly 74,000 square feet of floor area, per the Greenwich Free Press. The outlet reported the building was constructed around 1985 and sits in the town's GBO commercial zone. An official Greenwich agenda for the application, filed as PLPZ 2026 00068, describes the request as a final site plan and special permit to convert the office building to multifamily residential use with 44 dwelling units on a 3.2202-acre parcel, according to the Town of Greenwich.
Unit Mix and What Gets Built
The building's office space is set to become a mix of 22 one-bedroom apartments, 20 two-bedroom apartments and two three-bedroom units, according to Greenwich Free Press. Minor architectural changes, including small balconies built within the existing building frame and rooftop terrace amenities, were part of the plan described by the Free Press.
Commission chair Margarita Alban said a different type of amenity would require developers to return to the commission as a discussion item, per the seed reporting. Among the amenities that didn't survive the review: a proposed pickleball court, which the commission required be removed over noise concerns, and several patios behind the building, which developers agreed to drop because of concerns about impacts on nearby wetlands, a detail Greenwich Time also reported in its March coverage.
Developers will also need to work with Aquarion Water Company and the town fire marshal and must ensure the building's sprinkler system is operational, and they're expected to develop a plan to remove invasive plants from the area around the property. The project narrative has not described plans for affordable units, a detail Greenwich Time noted in its spring report on the proposal.
Part of a Broader Office-to-Housing Wave
The Weaver Street conversion fits into a wider pattern across Fairfield County, where office buildings have been pulled from the commercial market and reworked into housing amid a changed commercial real estate sector. The county's office vacancy rate fell roughly three percentage points to about 23.4% in the first quarter of 2025, largely because nearly a million square feet of office space was earmarked for residential conversion rather than because demand for workspace improved, according to the Hartford Business Journal. Since 2021, the outlet reported, roughly 4 million square feet has been removed from the county's office market altogether.
As of July, eight office buildings in lower Fairfield County were slated for residential conversion, totaling 1.8 million square feet, even as office availability in Greenwich's central business district has remained tight since the pandemic, according to CT Insider. Nearby in Stamford, developers are advancing conversions of a former Gen Re office building into 196 apartments and Indeed's former office at 177 Broad Street under developer RMS Cos., while RFR Realty is shifting its Canterbury Green property fully to residential use after running it as a hybrid building for years.
Connecticut officials have floated the idea that the shift could be part of a trend reaching beyond Fairfield County, according to WFSB, which pointed to an Avon project converting a former office park into 176 apartments, more than 80% of them affordable. In East Hartford, a foreclosed 19-story office tower at 111 Founders Plaza is slated for conversion into about 250 apartments, with construction expected to begin early in 2027 at a cost of roughly $90 million, including $9 million in state grants, Connecticut Public reported. In Norwalk, construction has already started on turning two office buildings at the Merritt 7 corporate campus into 286 apartments across 511,000 square feet, per the Hartford Business Journal.
