On the 31st floor of what was once a tall office building in midtown Manhattan, builders are laying down steel bracing for what will soon anchor a host of residential amenities: a dining room, living room, fire pit and gas grills.

The building, which has been vacant since 2021, will be converted into 588 apartments for rent at a market price, which will accommodate about 1,000 people. “We’re taking a vacant building and injecting life into not just this building, but the entire neighborhood,” said Joey Cilelli, managing director of real estate company Vanbarton Group, which is doing the transformation.

Across the country, office-to-living conversions are seen as a potential lifeline for struggling downtown business districts that have been emptied during the coronavirus pandemic and may never fully recover. The desire for conversion is characterized by an emphasis on accessibility. Many cities offer serious tax breaks to developers to encourage office-to-housing conversions, as long as a certain percentage of apartments are offered at affordable, below-market prices.

A small British military intelligence team is in Sudan to assess evacuation options, BBC News has learned.

Minister Andrew Mitchell told MPs on Tuesday that the government is considering “every possible option” to get UK citizens out of the country.

Hundreds of people died in clashes between rival military factions that broke out on 15 April, mostly in Khartoum.

Some 2,000 British citizens have asked for help, but any evacuation comes with “serious” risks, the government has warned.

The UK airlifted diplomats and their families from Sudan on Sunday as part of a special military operation, but the government said there could be up to 4,000 British citizens in total.

A small military team has landed in Port Sudan, more than 500 miles from the capital, to assess options for evacuating British citizens still stranded in Sudan, the BBC has learned.

No decisions have been made to remove the citizens, but defense sources say work is underway to provide the prime minister with options.

It is known that two Royal Navy ships are already in the region – the frigate HMS Lancaster, which was already at sea, and the supply ship RFA Cardigan Bay, which is in Bahrain, where it is undergoing maintenance.

Mr Mitchell said anyone stranded in Sudan should stay at home where possible, but can “decide for themselves whether to move”, adding that they “do so at their own risk”.

He said they are getting “at least daily updates” from the UK government amid criticism from some who believe they have been abandoned in Sudan.

British doctor Iman Abu Gargar told the BBC she was able to leave with the French evacuation because holders of Irish passports, including her son, were able to join her.

Speaking from Djibouti, which is east of Sudan, she said she saw hundreds of soldiers from other European countries but felt left out by Britain.

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Dr. Gargar, who was forced to leave her father, said: “There were only difficult decisions to make. I hope no one has to make the decisions that I had to make.”

Amar Osman, a British citizen living in Edinburgh, told the BBC he feared his family would die in Sudan if they couldn’t get out, trapped north of the capital.

He added: “It’s getting worse by the minute, so we’re thinking about evacuating on the way to Egypt. I do everything alone. I collect money, I bring my whole family together. there are six of us.”

Answering MPs’ questions, Mr Mitchell confirmed that neither the British Ambassador to Sudan nor the Deputy Chief of Mission were in the country when the conflict began.

He added that a team of 200 officials is working around the clock in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide consular assistance to those who need it.

Downing Street confirmed that the UK is working with EU and US countries on “common issues” in Sudan, with several other-led evacuations already underway.

An EU diplomatic source told the BBC that more than 1,100 EU citizens have now been evacuated out of an estimated 1,700 believed to be in the country.

Foreign Secretary James Cleverley had previously warned that aid to British citizens remained “limited” in the absence of a ceasefire.

Some MPs pressured the government to step up efforts, including Alicia Kearns, the Conservative House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair, who told the Commons that “time is running out”.

But the government has limited options, according to the BBC. political editor Chris Mason writesand continues to use diplomatic channels to secure a ceasefire to facilitate any operation.

A successful operation to rescue diplomats and their families was held over the weekend after gunfire broke out around the embassy in Khartoum.

British special forces landed in Khartoum on Saturday, along with a US evacuation team, BBC learned.

Military vehicles were used to rescue embassy staff and transport them to an airport outside the capital before they were taken to Cyprus.

Some 1,200 British Army, Royal Navy and RAF personnel were involved in the rescue operations, using C-130 Hercules and Airbus A400M transport aircraft.

Secretary of Defense James Hippie stated that the mission to rescue the embassy “went without a hitch” despite its complexity, but “the work is not yet done.”

He added that the Department of Defense was working on options to support British citizens in Sudan, which would be presented to the Prime Minister.

The situation on the ground is “extremely dangerous” at times, he said, and “the window in which the environment is forgiving is rarely long enough for military options to be pursued.”

Mr Hippie acknowledged that the UK had been caught off guard by the rapid deterioration of the situation in Sudan, adding: “It is fair to say that no one in the UK government, nor in the wider international community, has seen the fight against this brutality flare up the way it has. . “

Mitchell told the House of Commons that about 400 British citizens in Sudan hold only a British passport and about 4,000 more have dual citizenship, adding that people will be “treated the same” depending on their status.

Another meeting of Cobra, an emergency response committee made up of ministers, government officials and others, is expected on Tuesday to discuss the situation.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres told a meeting of the UN Security Council that the situation in Sudan is deteriorating and the country is “on the brink of an abyss.”

“The violence must stop. This is fraught with a catastrophic fire in Sudan that could engulf the entire region and beyond,” he said.

Communication in Sudan has been limited due to internet outages. Internet monitoring group Netblocks said on Sunday that connection speeds are 2% of normal levels.

Internet in Khartoum has been unavailable since Sunday evening, according to a BBC reporter in the country earlier on Monday, amid reports that one of the remaining providers was taken down by one of the groups involved in the fighting to prevent its rival from broadcasting. programs on national television.

State television, which aired material in support of the ruling army junta, was mostly off on Monday.