30 Oak St., Stamford. Photo courtesy of Design Development PLLC

An aging office building to the north of Stamford’s downtown core is up for a multifamily conversion amid unrelentingly high office vacancy rates and a county-wide surge in housing-focused redevelopments.

Greenwich-based Belpointe Capital Management wants city permission to gut-renovate 30 Oak St. into 60 apartments, according to a new application filed with city officials.

The company says it’s under contract to buy the 53,388-square-foot, 5-story building.

The application is light on details, but says a portion of 30 Oak St.’s existing 124 underground and surface-level parking spaces would remain – up to 80. Some of the ground-floor parking might be replaced with unspecified amenity areas, the application states.

The unit mix proposed is 29 studios, 19 one-bedrooms and 12 two-bedrooms. Four will be designated as affordable housing under the city’s inclusionary zoning rules.

An analysis of potential office conversions in Stamford, published last month by scholars at the Brookings Institution, noted the building for its conversion potential along with several others that are still offices.

The project site is one part of a condominium with 1200 Bedford St., which was previously converted from offices to 16 apartments.

JLL’s quarterly report said the Fairfield County office market suffered over 914,000 square feet of negative absorption in the first quarter, despite 623,000 square feet worth of lease transactions. The total vacancy rate of 25.9 percent and an overall average asking rent of $37.97 per square foot.

The brokerage said over 700,000 square feet of Fairfield County office space is slated to be renovated into residential units or demolished to make way for their construction.