In a recent sale, a 28,321-square-foot civic office building in Raleigh, formerly occupied by the U.S. Government Services Administration, was snapped up for a nice $9.5 million by a Florida-based investor. Welcome to glamour shots of concrete, everyone! From a bijou office nook in Raleigh to your extravagant cousin’s McMansion, single-tenant buildings like these scream exclusivity, but at what cost to our vibrant urban fabric?

Now, let me inject a truth serum here—while a singular tenant property like this nominally might seem A-OK, when you are gunning for a lively, sustainable city environment, these large single-use buildings start resembling 1980s mustaches: They were thought cool back in the day but now? Not so much. These buildings tend to sideline the buzz and bustle that multi-tenant, mixed-use environments introduce—where coffee spills, commerce happens and communities thrive.

Why not take buildings like the one on Appliance Court and think a bit more creatively about its potential post-sale transformations? Imagine converting these single-tenant monoliths into mixed-use developments. Picture the lower floors bustling with shops, cafes, startups, even communal spaces—rippling through the city’s veins like venti-sized doses of urban caffeine. We could amplify this with residential units stacked above, folding in affordable housing options to knead housing shortages and add flavor to the neighborhood.

But let’s take a step further. What if every large property transaction considered its footprint from a socio-economic angle? Before the ink dried on the sale contract, what about stipulating redevelopment plans which mandate community space, green tech, or connectivity with public transportation links?

Anecdotes universally decree that well-planned, accessible, and varied urban sanctuaries sprout stronger communities. Which is why it sometimes feels like major cities with their single-use sprawls have literally ‘parked’ their senses at sprawling parking decks of solitude. Structuring urban space not just for profit but for people? Now, that’s what progress in commercial estate could look like!

So, next time there’s a multimillion-dollar deal brewing in your vicinity, ask not just what this building is today, but what it could become tomorrow. Or, let’s dare say, what it should become if given a chance—an interconnected part of an efficient, equitable urbanscape. Maybe it’s time we stopped considering our buildings as stand-alone entities and start seeing them more like well-integrated threads in the larger urban tapestry, don’t you think?