Project Type

An adaptive reuse conversion of a former office building into 86 luxury rental units.

Scope

Common area and amenity planning / two full amenity floors / co-working and tenant lounge design / architectural drawings and renderings / finish selections / furnishings / branding and building name direction / logo and wayfinding concepts / marketing design support

An office building across from Union Station, reborn as a place to live.

A building takes its character from where it stands. This one stood across from Union Station, in the constant motion of commuters and trains and a city that never quite sits still. When a developer set out to convert the former office into rentals, Studio MAK's job was to make that location the point, not just the address.

The easy version of this project was a clean office-to-residential conversion. The developer wanted the better one: a building with a name, an identity, and a reason to choose it. So the work started before the interiors did. We shaped the name, the logo, and the wayfinding from the same idea that drove the finishes and furniture, so the place read as one coherent thing rather than a renovation wearing a brand on top.

The heart of it was the shared space, common areas and two full floors of amenities built to feel designed rather than provided. These are the rooms that sell a building now, and every layout and finish was made to do that work.

The market answered early. The building reached ninety percent pre-leased before construction was complete, fully repositioned and leasing on the strength of a place people wanted to live before they could move in.