101 Kearny St

Where 101 Kearny 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

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

The typical floor has 352 ft of exterior wall, and across 3 residential floors the building carries 1,056 ft of it in total, divided among the 23 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is compact at 0.74: close to a square or a circle, the most efficient envelope an office can have and the least generous one for apartments: little perimeter to divide among homes. How window line and plate shape are measured.

At the model’s 750 sq ft average, the plan works out at about 7.7 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 101 Kearny St scores 87 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 100, Interior depth 100, Scale 15, Finance 100 — each out of 100, then weighted.

Most of what it earns comes from daylight efficiency, and what holds it back most is scale, at 15 out of 100: 23 estimated homes, scored from 0 up to 150.

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 99% daylight figure above deserves.

What the conversion would cost

$405 per square foot all-in across 21,767 sq ft of converted floor, or $8.8M in total — about $383K for each of the 23 homes.

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the 115 sq ft of windowless core, which has to be gutted, seismically braced and sprinklered like the rest of the building and then earns nothing. Against it the model sets a completed value of $366K a home, which for 23 homes is $8.4M.

What would have to be true

A $397K gap before any grant, which the modeled $1.4M closes. What would reopen it soonest: circulation efficiency 9% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $397K. Closing it from the value side means each of the 23 homes finishing at $383K rather than the $366K the model assumes — 5% more. Closing it from the cost side means getting all-in cost down from $405 to $387 per square foot.

A modeled RESIDE grant of $1.4M moves that threshold to $323K 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 101 Kearny St:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 101 Kearny St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Downtown San Francisco

101 Kearny St ranks 103rd of the 205 buildings screened here, against a median score of 87.

Its floor plate is better lit than 70% of them, and shallower than 71% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 204th 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

86th of 165 in Financial District/South Beach, 53rd 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. 101 Kearny St ranks 86th of them against a median score of 88. 121 score 70 or more, their median deepest interior point is 47 ft from a facade against this building’s 35 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. 101 Kearny St ranks 53rd of them against a median score of 89. 76 score 70 or more, their median deepest interior point is 44 ft from a facade against this building’s 35 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: 182 2nd St

The screened building closest to 101 Kearny St in converted floor area is 182 2nd St: 21,203 sq ft over 4 stories, against 21,767 sq ft over 4 here.

The two land within a few points of each other — 87 here, 87 there — so at this size the screen reads them as much the same prospect. On the money they sit in the same place: each pencils only with the modeled RESIDE grant. The two stand about 1,800 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 101 Kearny St $1.4M, 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 101 Kearny St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 70 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

• 123 Kearny St
  4 stories · 100% daylit · 24 estimated homes · scores 87/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 70 ft away
• 150 Post St
  7 stories · 86% daylit · 81 estimated homes · scores 82/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 180 ft away
• 100 Kearny St
  38 stories · 75% daylit · 602 estimated homes · scores 68/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 210 ft away
• 88 Kearny St
  21 stories · 100% daylit · 236 estimated homes · scores 100/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 230 ft away