Have you ever felt like you were living at work? Now, you might be. Post-COVID-19, more people are working from home than ever before. Even after recent return-to-work orders, office buildings are still only seeing 63% occupancy. Office to residential building conversions have been proposed as the creative solution to repurpose unused buildings and revitalize abandoned downtown streets. In Montgomery County, Maryland, the county instituted a tax abatement called PILOT, or “payment in lieu of taxes,” under which office buildings converted into residential spaces are wholly exempt from real property tax for twenty years. However, many cities have land-use restrictions in place that may force developers to go through the time-consuming and costly process of requesting a variance, an exception to zoning regulations. So, are cities actually being revitalized through office to residential conversions when there are strict land-use restrictions in place?

If you were in the market for an eighteen-time NBA champion franchise, the cost will run you $6.1 billion. This was the price paid by the new ownership of the Boston Celtics in late March 2025. That astronomical price tag makes it the most expensive sale of a sports franchise in North American history, beating out the last previous sale by $500 million. But what does buying an NBA franchise actually grant the owner in terms of property rights? This paper will examine the process which NBA ownership is acquired and the rights and responsibilities conferred to the new owner. The NBA is more like a fancy New York City Co-op apartment building in more ways than one.