1 3rd St

Where 1 3rd St is

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

The plan: window line, shape and floor rhythm

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

The typical floor has 672 ft of exterior wall, and across 12 residential floors the building carries 8,062 ft of it in total, divided among the 161 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is elongated at 0.35: a slab or an L, which is why so much of the floor lies within reach of a window: the outline buys daylight that a square plan of the same area would not. How window line and plate shape are measured.

At the model’s 750 sq ft average, the plan works out at about 13.4 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 1 3rd St scores 100 out of 100

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

Every component scores at or near full marks, so nothing in the geometry or the pro-forma is holding this one back — daylight efficiency carries the most weight of the four.

Built in 1909

San Francisco records this building as going up in 1909, which puts it in the pre-1920 stock.

As a rule, the era that converts most readily: load-bearing masonry, small floor plates laid out before deep-plan offices were possible, operable windows and generous floor-to-floor heights. The usual obstacles are not daylight but hazardous materials, lifts and bringing structure up to current code. 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 100% daylight figure above deserves.

What the conversion would cost

$405 per square foot all-in across 151,746 sq ft of converted floor, or $61.5M in total — about $382K for each of the 161 homes.

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the circulation and service area that earns nothing directly. Against it the model sets a completed value of $366K a home, which for 161 homes is $58.9M.

What would have to be true

A $2.5M gap before any grant, which the modeled $9.7M closes. What would reopen it soonest: circulation efficiency 10% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $2.5M. Closing it from the value side means each of the 161 homes finishing at $382K rather than the $366K the model assumes — 4% more. Closing it from the cost side means getting all-in cost down from $405 to $388 per square foot.

A modeled RESIDE grant of $9.7M moves that threshold to $322K a home. That is below the assumed value, which is why this building counts as unlocked by the grant — subject to it qualifying under the law's vacant-and-abandoned test, which this data cannot show.

Each of these, moved on its own, would be enough to undo that for 1 3rd St:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 1 3rd St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Downtown San Francisco

1 3rd St ranks 1st of the 205 buildings screened here, against a median score of 87.

Its floor plate is better lit than 100% of them, and shallower than 81% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 99th largest by estimated homes. The full survey of all 205 buildings ranks and maps every one of them, and the list by address links each to its own page.

Within Financial District/South Beach and the C-3-O zone

1st of 165 in Financial District/South Beach, 1st of 88 zoned C-3-O — the comparison that shares its rules, rents and streets.

San Francisco places 165 of the screened buildings in Financial District/South Beach. 1 3rd St ranks 1st of them against a median score of 88, the top score in the group. 121 score 70 or more, their median deepest interior point is 47 ft from a facade against this building’s 30 ft, and together they would hold an estimated 40,456 homes. The group’s top scorer is 870 Market St, at 100.

88 of the screened buildings are zoned C-3-O. 1 3rd St ranks 1st of them against a median score of 89, the top score in the group. 76 score 70 or more, their median deepest interior point is 44 ft from a facade against this building’s 30 ft, and together they would hold an estimated 21,444 homes. The group’s top scorer is 266 Bush St, at 100.

Its nearest match in size: 60 Spear St

The screened building closest to 1 3rd St in converted floor area is 60 Spear St: 156,452 sq ft over 12 stories, against 151,746 sq ft over 13 here.

1 3rd St scores 100 to its 83, and with the size held roughly equal most of that lead comes from interior depth: 100 out of 100 here, 64 there (deepest interior point 54 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft). On the money they part ways: 60 Spear St falls short even with the modeled grant, while 1 3rd St pencils only with the modeled RESIDE grant. The two stand about 3,100 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 1 3rd St $9.7M, 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 3rd St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 130 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

• 20 Annie St
  10 stories · 100% daylit · 185 estimated homes · scores 100/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 130 ft away
• 32 3rd St
  5 stories · 98% daylit · 29 estimated homes · scores 88/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 180 ft away
• 715 Market St
  7 stories · 100% daylit · 61 estimated homes · scores 91/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 270 ft away
• 725 Market St
  6 stories · 94% daylit · 75 estimated homes · scores 90/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 360 ft away