If you gained 2.5 more feet in the bathroom, how would you lay it out? I really want to optimized this new space.

What a difference a day makes! We met with hopefully the last contractor during this long, drawn out process and learned that we can move walls that we didn't know were movable. We visited a neighbors apartment where this contractor is working and saw that they opened up the kitchen wall (which we are already planning) as well as opening up walls to expand one of their bathrooms and another wall was opened to create a walk in closet. It's not our same layout but we can use some of their ideas.

We confirmed with management that we can demo the foyer closet wall that backs up against the bathroom - floor plan below. The contractor says this will give us another 2.5 ft after adding a wall where the closet doors are now.

Armed with this information, my first thought is to take out the sink between the toilet and tub, put a double sink vanity in the former closet space with 3 wall sconces, and two mirrors (like photo). We will have 7 ft along that new wall. We are removing the tub and going with a shower stall. We currently have a 60" x 27/28" cast iron tub. The shower stall would be 30" x 45" or so. In place of the sink, I'd install a tall wall cabinet. I'd like to add a recessed medicine cabinet in the wall behind the door but believe it's concrete and a structural wall that cannot be altered.

We cannot dig into the ceiling so adding overhead light will require a soffit (currently no overhead lights). We are covering up the heating pipes behind the door (pictured) with drywall and venting so putting a soffit along the ceiling in that area will be fine with me - basically in the area currently marked as the solid wall between the closet and bath. The neighbors had several lights and fans installed where the wires are not hidden in a ceiling channel but instead in a visible track on the ceiling. I can live with that if we don't do a soffit.

Any suggestions on how to optimize this new space? I'm told we will need an engineer as well as needing to go through a permit process with the department of buildings that can take 2 months. This is in addition to the plumbing and electrical permits. Funny that I was worried yesterday about the project taking 1 month, but now that it could be 2 months of paperwork plus construction days (but with a bigger bathroom) I'm not as concerned.