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Pearl House – ULI Americas Awards for Excellence Winner
May 12, 2025
Photo By ROBERT DEITCHLER
Pearl House is a vibrant residence in the Seaport district redeveloped from a 1970s office building.
Photo By GARRETT ROWLAND
The extensive amenities at Pearl House offer places to work, socialize, recharge, and relax.
Location: New York, New York
Developers: Vanbarton Group
Designers: Gensler
Site Size: 0.6 Acres
New York City faces a surplus of outdated office buildings and a shortage of affordable housing. Converting offices to residential use offers a smart solution by repurposing existing structures while adding much-needed homes.
Starting in 2020, Vanbarton Group and global design firm Gensler transformed a 525,000-square-foot office tower at 160 Water Street into Pearl House, a residential building with 588 apartments, 38,000 square feet of amenities, and a new ground-level parklet. The renovation added five new floors, including a three-story overbuild enabled by removing underperforming interior floor area—reallocating space to penthouse units and an amenity floor. The building offers studios, one-, and two-bedroom apartments, 45% of which include dedicated home offices.
Photo By GARRETT ROWLAND
Gensler’s design embraces the quirks of converting an existing office tower, resulting in distinctive units with flexible layouts, home offices, and extra storage.
Pearl House greets residents with a fully renovated, hotel-like lobby featuring workspaces, a coffee bar, and access to below-ground wellness spaces. The lobby welcomes residents with a hotel-like atmosphere, featuring terrazzo, wood, and oil-rubbed bronze accents, alongside workspaces, a fireside lounge, and the Pearl Café. A tech-enabled package room, dedicated delivery elevators, and secured bike storage enhance convenience. The rooftop Sky House includes a Sky Bar, landscaped terraces, fire pits, and the Harbor Lounge with a chef’s kitchen — blending city views with social gathering spaces. Below, the Club House level offers a 3,500-square-foot gym, the Pearl Spa includes steam, sauna, and plunge pools, and additional spaces include interactive lounges, a bowling alley, sports simulator, game rooms, and creative spaces.
Photo By GARRETT ROWLAND
The renovation added five new floors, including a three-story overbuild enabled by removing underperforming interior floor area—reallocating space to penthouse units and an amenity floor.
Gensler’s design embraces the quirks of converting an existing office tower, resulting in distinctive units with flexible layouts, home offices, and extra storage. To resolve the deep floor plates unsuited to residential use, three vertical voids—“blind shafts”—were introduced to eliminate unusable space. This innovative move enabled the creation of high-value penthouse units and new amenity areas in the overbuild, supported by substantial but thoughtfully integrated structural bracing. Additionally, reusing the existing structure saved an estimated 20,000 metric tons of embodied carbon, while the building’s envelope exceeds local 2030 energy performance targets.
The transformation of 160 Water Street began when Vanbarton Group purchased the 525,000-square-foot property in 2014 with the intention to convert the building to residential use in the future. In 2020, Gensler conducted a feasibility study and launched the redevelopment. As of February 2025, the project is fully leased.
Photo By GARRETT ROWLAND
As of February 2025, Pearl House is fully leased thanks to a phased leasing and delivery strategy.
Key to Pearl House’s success was a phased delivery strategy, bringing units to market in stages to generate early cash flow and meet leasing benchmarks tied to financing. Units were delivered in three phases between February 2023 and July 2024, with amenities completed in October 2024. Despite ongoing construction, leasing remained strong, with occupancy exceeding 90% at project completion.
Pearl House stands as New York City’s largest post-pandemic office-to-residential conversion by unit count to date, and was achieved without special zoning changes or financial incentives. Its success has attracted attention from developers, industry leaders, and government officials seeking scalable solutions for future conversions, positioning the project as a leading case study in adaptive reuse.