1525 Market St

Where 1525 Market 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

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

The typical floor has 1,059 ft of exterior wall, and across 7 residential floors the building carries 7,412 ft of it in total, divided among the 238 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is compact at 0.72: 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 34.0 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 1525 Market St scores 27 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 19, Interior depth 0, Scale 100, Finance 22 — each out of 100, then weighted.

Most of what it earns comes from scale, and what holds it back most is interior depth, at 0 out of 100: deepest interior point 114 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft.

Built in 1959

San Francisco records this building as going up in 1959, which puts it in the post-war stock.

As a rule, the period when plates got deep and facades became curtain wall: sealed glazing, lower floor-to-floor heights, and mechanical systems designed around a sealed box. Conversions here usually turn on whether the windows can be made to open and whether ceilings survive new plumbing. 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 49% daylight figure above deserves.

What the conversion would cost

$405 per square foot all-in across 452,690 sq ft of converted floor, or $183.3M in total — about $770K for each of the 238 homes.

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the 228,854 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 238 homes is $87.1M.

What would have to be true

A $96.2M gap before any grant, $86.2M after the modeled one. The smallest single change that would close it: average unit size 50% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $96.2M. Closing it from the value side means each of the 238 homes finishing at $770K rather than the $366K the model assumes — 110% more. Closing it from the cost side means getting all-in cost down from $405 to $192 per square foot.

A modeled RESIDE grant of $10.0M moves that threshold to $728K a home. That is still above the $366K assumed, leaving $86.2M uncovered, which is why the grant does not unlock this one.

Nor do all four levers have to move. For 1525 Market St, one alone would close the gap at:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 1525 Market St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Downtown San Francisco

1525 Market St ranks 205th of the 205 buildings screened here, against a median score of 87.

Its floor plate is better lit than 0% of them, and shallower than 0% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 73rd 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 Mission and the C-3-G zone

4th of 4 in Mission, 22nd of 22 zoned C-3-G — the comparison that shares its rules, rents and streets.

San Francisco places 4 of the screened buildings in Mission. 1525 Market St ranks 4th of them against a median score of 58. 2 score 70 or more, their median deepest interior point is 69 ft from a facade against this building’s 114 ft, and together they would hold an estimated 455 homes. The group’s top scorer is 1660 Mission St, at 83.

22 of the screened buildings are zoned C-3-G. 1525 Market St ranks 22nd of them against a median score of 76. 13 score 70 or more, their median deepest interior point is 51 ft from a facade against this building’s 114 ft, and together they would hold an estimated 2,588 homes. The group’s top scorer is 40 Leavenworth St, at 92.

Its nearest match in size: 1 Market St

The screened building closest to 1525 Market St in converted floor area is 1 Market St: 419,650 sq ft over 11 stories, against 452,690 sq ft over 8 here.

1 Market St scores 83 and 1525 Market St only 27, and the difference is a hard fail rather than a matter of degree: the lower one is capped at 35 because its deepest interior point is 114 ft from a facade, past the 80 ft threshold beyond which conversion requires carving a light well. On the money they sit in the same place: each falls short even with the modeled grant. The two stand about 9,700 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 1525 Market 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 1525 Market St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 460 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

• 25 Hickory St
  8 stories · 75% daylit · 115 estimated homes · scores 65/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 460 ft away
• 1563 Mission St
  5 stories · 90% daylit · 40 estimated homes · scores 82/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 680 ft away
• 950 Minna St
  6 stories · 82% daylit · 72 estimated homes · scores 76/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 690 ft away
• 875 Stevenson St
  10 stories · 67% daylit · 228 estimated homes · scores 58/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 840 ft away