1 Lincoln St

1 Lincoln St is a 41-story building in Downtown Boston with 77% of its floor area within daylight reach of a facade. This screen estimates 945 homes and scores it 73 out of 100 for office-to-residential conversion suitability.

MA-7 & MA-8 · Screened 2026-10-04 · Strong candidate

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Where 1 Lincoln St is

Its block in Downtown Boston, drawn from Boston's own building outlines and street centerlines.

Suitability score

0–29

30–49

50–69

70–100

Already housing
Not screened
1 Lincoln St

1 Lincoln St and the 1,000 ft of Downtown Boston around it. The streets are drawn at the width of the right-of-way they run down, sidewalks included, and named, and every building on these blocks is drawn. What is left open and stippled is neither: a surface lot, a plaza or a vacant parcel. The screened buildings are colored by the ramp above, the same one the district map uses, carry their score, and each is a link to its own page. Each casts a shadow as long as its measured height lets it, so towers stand out from the low buildings around them; the unscreened buildings have no measured height and cast none. 1 Lincoln St is outlined in its own score color at the outline it covers at ground level. Dashed inside it is the typical floor, the one the floor-plate figure below draws, because this building steps back as it rises. Its windowless core is hatched. The inset places it among every building the screen covers.

Typical floor plan: 77% of the building’s floor area sits within daylight reach of a facade; the drawing shows its typical floor, where the share is 77%. The shading is daylight, darkest at the windows and gone 35 ft in. The hatched area is windowless core: 7,559 sq ft per typical floor that must be renovated but can never be rented as an apartment. The dimension marks the deepest interior point, 65 ft from the nearest window. A–A is where the section beside it is cut.

Section A–A: cut across the depth of the plate, through the middle of the core. Daylight reaches 35 ft in from every facade, fading as it goes, and the hatched stripe left between the lit edges is floor that gets converted and can never be rented: 7,559 sq ft on the floor the screen scores, and 264,837 sq ft over 40 residential floors. The steps are where the building sets back as it rises. The shaded ground floor is converted like the rest and counted as no homes.

This building's conversion pencils at default assumptions without any subsidy.

Across its 40 residential floors this building carries 264,837 sq ft of windowless core — area that must be gutted, re-plumbed and sprinklered but can never be rented as an apartment.

Modeled conversion metrics for 1 Lincoln St, 2026-10-04.

Suitability scoreStrong candidate	73 / 100
Storiesfrom 490 ft aerial-survey height ÷ 12 ft floor-to-floor	41
Height bandsfloor plate by floor range, from the city's roof outlines	Floors 1–7: 33,309 sq ft · Floors 8–33: 32,262 sq ft · Floors 34–39: 15,428 sq ft · Floors 40–41: 9,826 sq ft
Floor platetypical floor, from the city outlines	32,262 sq ft
Daylight efficiencyshare within 35 ft of a facade	77%
Deepest interior pointviability threshold is 80 ft	65 ft
Windowless coretypical floor; the building-wide total is in the text above	7,559 sq ft
Estimated homesat 750 sq ft average	945
Conversion cost$360/sq ft all-in on 1,150,886 sq ft	$414.3M
Gap before grantpencils unsubsidized	-$2.9M
Modeled RESIDE grantat the statutory per-award cap	$10.0M
BuiltBoston's own record of the construction year	2001
ZoningDowntown Boston	SKY
Opportunity Zonenot in a 2018 designated tract	No

The plan: window line, shape and floor rhythm

60 ft of exterior wall for each home the screen estimates — enough for two- and three-bedroom homes across the plan.

The typical floor has 1,695 ft of exterior wall, and across 40 residential floors the building carries 57,127 ft of it in total, divided among the 945 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is highly articulated at 0.14: a long, notched or wing-shaped outline with far more facade than its area needs — wasteful as an office envelope, and close to ideal for apartments. How window line and plate shape are measured.

At the model’s 750 sq ft average, the plan works out at about 23.6 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 1 Lincoln St scores 73 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 74, Interior depth 38, Scale 100, Finance 100 — each out of 100, then weighted.

Score components for 1 Lincoln St. Points are the subscore times its weight.

Component	Subscore	Weight	Points
Daylight efficiency77% of the floor area within 35 ft of a facade, scored from 40% up to 90%	74	45%	33.3
Interior depthdeepest interior point 65 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft	38	25%	9.5
Scale945 estimated homes, scored from 0 up to 150	100	15%	15.0
Financecompleted value covers conversion cost with 3% to spare, which tops out the component	100	15%	15.0

Most of what it earns comes from daylight efficiency, and what holds it back most is interior depth, at 38 out of 100: deepest interior point 65 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft.

Built in 2001

Boston records this building as going up in 2001, which puts it in the modern stock.

As a rule, newer systems and better structure, but usually built deep and sealed for office use, and rarely cheap enough to buy at a price that lets a conversion pencil. That is the era’s general tendency rather than a finding about this building — the model reads an outline and a height, and can see nothing inside — but it is the first thing an architect would want to know, and it colours how much confidence the 77% daylight figure above deserves.

What the conversion would cost

$360 per square foot all-in across 1,150,886 sq ft of converted floor, or $414.3M in total — about $438K for each of the 945 homes.

All-in cost per square foot for 1 Lincoln St: base cost plus the code work a change of use triggers.

Base conversion cost	$260/sq ft
Plumbing risers to every unit	$40/sq ft
Operable windows and glazing	$30/sq ft
Additional egress stair	$18/sq ft
Fire sprinklers (NFPA 13R)	$12/sq ft
All-in	$360/sq ft

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the 264,837 sq ft of windowless core, which has to be gutted, re-plumbed and sprinklered like the rest of the building and then earns nothing. Against it the model sets a completed value of $442K a home, which for 945 homes is $417.2M.

What would have to be true

This one already clears the bar. The question is how much room it has before it stops.

At $442K a home, completed value covers the $414.3M of work with $2.9M to spare. Value per home would have to fall to $438K — 1% below the assumption — before the conversion stopped penciling, or all-in cost would have to rise from $360 to $363 per square foot. Neither is a wide margin in a market that moves, but this building does not need a grant to work.

Each of these, moved on its own, would be enough to undo that for 1 Lincoln St:

Single-assumption flip points for 1 Lincoln St, each holding the other three at their defaults.

Circulation efficiencythe binding constraint — the least this building would need	3% downto 78%
Completed value per home	3% downto $428K
Average unit size	3% upto 774 sq ft
Conversion cost per square foot	4% upto $271/sq ft

All four are sliders in the survey, where 1 Lincoln St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Downtown Boston

1 Lincoln St ranks 72nd of the 96 buildings screened here, against a median score of 89.

Its floor plate is better lit than 27% of them, and shallower than 22% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 6th largest by estimated homes. The full survey of all 96 buildings ranks and maps every one of them, and the list by address links each to its own page.

Within the SKY zone

37th of 52 zoned SKY — the comparison that shares its rules, rents and streets.

52 of the screened buildings are zoned SKY. 1 Lincoln St ranks 37th of them against a median score of 88. 40 score 70 or more, their median deepest interior point is 51 ft from a facade against this building’s 65 ft, and together they would hold an estimated 19,019 homes. The group’s top scorer is 147 Milk St, at 100.

Its nearest match in size: 1 Beacon St

The screened building closest to 1 Lincoln St in converted floor area is 1 Beacon St: 1,262,700 sq ft over 42 stories, against 1,150,886 sq ft over 41 here.

1 Lincoln St scores 73 to its 55, and with the size held roughly equal most of that lead comes from daylight efficiency: 74 out of 100 here, 51 there (65% of the floor area within 35 ft of a facade, scored from 40% up to 90%). On the money they part ways: 1 Beacon St falls short even with the modeled grant, while 1 Lincoln St pencils without a subsidy. The two stand about 2,200 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 1 Lincoln St $10.0M, on the assumption it qualifies. Whether it does, no published dataset can say.

That figure assumes the building meets the Act’s vacant-and-abandoned test, which turns on code-enforcement and receivership records no city publishes.

It does not sit in a 2018 designated Opportunity Zone, so it would not draw that Section 201 priority.

Other buildings screened near 1 Lincoln St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 120 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

89-103 Bedford St
8 stories · 93% daylit · 300 estimated homes · scores 91/100 (Strong candidate)
about 120 ft away
16-18 Kingston St
22 stories · 88% daylit · 313 estimated homes · scores 93/100 (Strong candidate)
about 290 ft away
105-111 Summer St
6 stories · 100% daylit · 33 estimated homes · scores 88/100 (Strong candidate)
about 300 ft away
83-87 Summer St
6 stories · 90% daylit · 92 estimated homes · scores 89/100 (Strong candidate)
about 350 ft away

A screen, not a feasibility study, from outlines and heights rather than plans: the method and how to correct a figure. If you know this building’s interior, you know what this model cannot see.