Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser announced Monday she would be appointing Brian Hanlon as acting director of the Department of Buildings for the district.

The appointment comes as Bowser, a Democrat, and the district look to repurpose unused office buildings in the downtown areas of the district into living facilities.

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Hanlon said the proposal was "great" for the future of the district but that there will be "challenges" in converting the structures to living facilities.

“You take an office building, which wasn’t designed to be residential — there are clearly architectural challenges. Those lead to economic challenges that need to get figured out. I’m looking forward to collaborating with the design and construction community to figure out how to do that in a way that makes sense and allows the plan to unfold,” Hanlon said.

Washington, along with other large cities in the country, has seen fewer workers going into physical office buildings since before the coronavirus pandemic.

A poll conducted in February by the Washington Post showed that only 12% of respondents in the Washington area go in person to an office for work five days a week, compared with 57% before the pandemic. The survey also showed that 37% of respondents said they go to an office zero days out of the week, compared with 9% pre-pandemic.

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The Biden administration has reportedly told federal agencies to return more workers to in-person duties after pressure from Bowser and House Republicans. Bowser's requests had come with an ultimatum of either returning the federal workforce to in-person work or giving the district the buildings to transform them into housing.

With the end of the federal government's coronavirus emergency last month and the end of the public health emergency on Thursday, more workers are expected to return to in-person work, but it is not expected to reach pre-pandemic levels.