40 Rowes Whf

40 Rowes Whf is a 9-story building in Downtown Boston with 96% of its floor area within daylight reach of a facade. Residential records sit on a parcel it shares with other buildings, so its use is unverified and this screen leaves it out of the conversion counts.

MA-7 & MA-8 · Screened 2026-10-04 · Excluded: residential records on a shared parcel; building use unverified

Where 40 Rowes Whf 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, or excluded for residential records on a shared parcel
Not screened
40 Rowes Whf

40 Rowes Whf 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. 40 Rowes Whf 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: 96% of the building’s floor area sits within daylight reach of a facade; the drawing shows its typical floor, where the share is 96%. The shading is daylight, darkest at the windows and gone 35 ft in. The hatched area is windowless core: 519 sq ft per typical floor that must be renovated but can never be rented as an apartment. The dimension marks the deepest interior point, 39 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: 519 sq ft on the floor the screen scores, and 3,467 sq ft over 8 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.

On the parcel this building shares with other buildings, Boston's assessing records list 94 condominiums; they do not say which building holds those homes, so this site leaves it out of the conversion counts without calling it housing.

Across its 8 residential floors this building carries 3,467 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 40 Rowes Whf, 2026-10-04.

Suitability scoreStrong candidate	95 / 100
Storiesfrom 102 ft aerial-survey height ÷ 12 ft floor-to-floor	9
Height bandsfloor plate by floor range, from the city's roof outlines	Floors 1–3: 14,455 sq ft · Floors 4–6: 13,180 sq ft · Floors 7–8: 12,163 sq ft · Floor 9: 1,095 sq ft
Floor platetypical floor, from the city outlines	13,180 sq ft
Daylight efficiencyshare within 35 ft of a facade	96%
Deepest interior pointviability threshold is 80 ft	39 ft
Windowless coretypical floor; the building-wide total is in the text above	519 sq ft
BuiltBoston's own record of the construction year	1987
ZoningDowntown Boston	DOWNTOWN WATERFRONT SUBDISTRICT
Opportunity Zonenot in a 2018 designated tract	No

The plan: window line, shape and floor rhythm

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

The typical floor has 534 ft of exterior wall, and across 8 residential floors the building carries 3,849 ft of it in total, divided among the 96 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is moderately compact at 0.58: a squarish plan, with enough perimeter for a conventional double-loaded corridor. How window line and plate shape are measured.

At the model’s 750 sq ft average, the plan works out at about 12.0 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 40 Rowes Whf scores 95 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 100, Interior depth 100, Scale 64, Finance 100 — each out of 100, then weighted.

Score components for 40 Rowes Whf. Points are the subscore times its weight.

Component	Subscore	Weight	Points
Daylight efficiency96% of the floor area within 35 ft of a facade, scored from 40% up to 90%	100	45%	45.0
Interior depthdeepest interior point 39 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft	100	25%	25.0
Scale96 estimated homes, scored from 0 up to 150	64	15%	9.6
Financecompleted value covers conversion cost with 42% 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 scale, at 64 out of 100: 96 estimated homes, scored from 0 up to 150.

Built in 1987

Boston records this building as going up in 1987, which puts it in the late-modern stock.

As a rule, typically the hardest to convert: the deepest plates of any era, large central cores, and floor-to-floor heights tight enough that running residential drainage under a ceiling can be the thing that ends a project. 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 96% daylight figure above deserves.

Other buildings screened near 40 Rowes Whf

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 140 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

20 Rowes Whf
18 stories · 84% daylit · 643 estimated homes · scores 86/100 (Strong candidate)
about 140 ft away
390-400R Atlantic Ave
7 stories · 79% daylit · 85 estimated homes · scores 71/100 (Strong candidate)
about 460 ft away
90 Oliver St
45 stories · 76% daylit · 743 estimated homes · scores 70/100 (Strong candidate)
about 730 ft away
150 Oliver St
50 stories · 80% daylit · 986 estimated homes · scores 70/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
about 780 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.