"However, natural light throughout is essential for dwellings, so apartment depths tend to max out around 40-50 ft. Much of the office building may be rendered unusable (or of very low value)" sounds like that problem is actually the solution to these arguments to me.
Given the high cost of conversion, those interior spaces will not command the rent to cover their conversion costs. And to leave it alone would force rents in the rentable areas up even higher.
"developer would likely seek offices with rents much lower than $55/SF" we can easily see some at $25-35/SF given ~25%+ a yielding $0/SF. Depress the building costs as well. Too many models hung up on the pandemic and tech bubbles.
