Excess parking capacity offered the new owners of a Merritt 7 property the opportunity to design a sprawling outdoor amenity level for future residents of 286 apartments. Image courtesy of Granoff Real Estate

Norwalk’s newest office conversion will test the potential for large 1980s-era office buildings to be repurposed as housing, despite physical constraints that often challenge would-be developers.

A project team is set to begin converting former offices into 268 apartments after receiving $75.5 million in construction financing from Bank OZK.

“These buildings are already built and they are vacant,” said Jake Granoff, a senior project architect at Granoff Architects and vice president of development at its sibling development arm, Granoff Real Estate. “It was a win-win for the seller and the buyer to revive these sleepy, tired office buildings and pump them full of life.”

The project encompasses over 511,000 square feet at 101 and 201 Merritt 7, a pair of office buildings completed in the early 1980s.

Granoff Real Estate partnered with Saber-Hightower LLC and Wind River Holdings on the project.

Reuse Versus Rebuild?

In Fairfield County, residential conversions removed nearly 580,000 square feet of vacant office inventory from the market in the first half of 2026, according to a recent report by brokerage Choyce Peterson.

As developers acquire underutilized office buildings at discounts and respond to demand for multifamily housing, some are opting to demolish structures and build multifamily housing from the ground up. Last fall, Stamford officials approved Toll Brothers’ proposal to demolish an office building at 700 Fairfield Ave. for a 56-unit townhouse project.

Granoff Real Estate took a different path. The Greenwich-based company has completed five commercial conversion projects, and has two others under contract in Providence and Hackensack, New Jersey. Their recent work includes the 24-unit Lauderdale Lofts at 136 Westminster St. in Providence, which opened in June, the 41-unit Valeur at 400 Main St. in Stamford, which is scheduled for completion in October, and 55 Pine St. in Providence, a brick-and-beam office building under conversion into 24 apartments.

While smaller buildings are well-suited for residential layouts, the larger Merritt 7 buildings had their own advantages. With average floor plates of approximately 30,000 square feet, they are suitable for larger units, and locating central storage space and future potential amenities around the building core, Granoff said.

“In urban locations, you have to make every square inch of it work,” he said. “But if you can buy a vacant office building in a suburban location, it almost doesn’t matter if you have some core space left over that you can’t utilize.”

With construction financing and joint venture equity from a family office in hand, developers are set to convert two Merritt 7 office buildings into apartments. Image courtesy of Granoff Real Estate

Amenities for the Remote-Work Era

Approximately 80 percent of M7 Lofts’ units will include flex space suitable for dens or offices that respond to demand for home workspaces in the hybrid office era. Another 4,000 square feet located at the center of floor plates will become storage units for residents, and potential future use for amenity space such as coworking suites.

Developers also will update the building facade and add new entry canopies and operable windows to all units. Major building system upgrades include installation of individual heat pumps and feeders and branch lines for each unit, new electric systems and plumbing to individual units’ kitchens and baths.

Premier Design + Build Group of Chicago, which recently opened a Stamford office, is the construction manager.

And the top floor of the 1,300-space parking garage will be repurposed as landscaped amenity space including a swimming pool, outdoor lounge and putting green. The outdoor deck will connect to indoor amenity spaces on the same level, including a tenant lounge, game room, demonstration kitchen and pet spa.

“We were able to provide so much green space, these buildings will feel like they are in a park. You don’t feel like you’re in an office park anymore. It’s going to feel like a residential area when all is said and done,” Granoff said. “In this market, it comes down to the amenities and who can offer more.”