155 5th St

Where 155 5th 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

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

The typical floor has 944 ft of exterior wall, and across 6 residential floors the building carries 5,665 ft of it in total, divided among the 167 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 27.8 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 155 5th St scores 29 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 22, Interior depth 0, Scale 100, Finance 29 — 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 107 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft.

Built in 1973

San Francisco records this building as going up in 1973, 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 51% daylight figure above deserves.

What the conversion would cost

$405 per square foot all-in across 306,745 sq ft of converted floor, or $124.2M in total — about $744K for each of the 167 homes.

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the 150,096 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 167 homes is $61.1M.

What would have to be true

A $63.1M gap before any grant, $53.1M after the modeled one. The smallest single change that would close it: average unit size 47% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $63.1M. Closing it from the value side means each of the 167 homes finishing at $744K rather than the $366K the model assumes — 103% more. Closing it from the cost side means getting all-in cost down from $405 to $199 per square foot.

A modeled RESIDE grant of $10.0M moves that threshold to $684K a home. That is still above the $366K assumed, leaving $53.1M uncovered, which is why the grant does not unlock this one.

Nor do all four levers have to move. For 155 5th St, one alone would close the gap at:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 155 5th St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Downtown San Francisco

155 5th St ranks 204th of the 205 buildings screened here, against a median score of 87.

Its floor plate is better lit than 1% of them, and shallower than 1% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 96th 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 South of Market and the C-3-S zone

14th of 14 in South of Market, 4th of 4 zoned C-3-S — the comparison that shares its rules, rents and streets.

San Francisco places 14 of the screened buildings in South of Market. 155 5th St ranks 14th of them against a median score of 82. 9 score 70 or more, their median deepest interior point is 45 ft from a facade against this building’s 107 ft, and together they would hold an estimated 2,045 homes. The group’s top scorer is 431 Natoma St, at 100.

4 of the screened buildings are zoned C-3-S. 155 5th St ranks 4th of them against a median score of 72. 2 score 70 or more, their median deepest interior point is 53 ft from a facade against this building’s 107 ft, and together they would hold an estimated 651 homes. The group’s top scorer is 431 Natoma St, at 100.

Its nearest match in size: 216 Beale St

The screened building closest to 155 5th St in converted floor area is 216 Beale St: 322,532 sq ft over 8 stories, against 306,745 sq ft over 7 here.

216 Beale St scores 47 and 155 5th St only 29, 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 107 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 4,000 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 155 5th 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 155 5th St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 480 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

• 431 Natoma St
  25 stories · 100% daylit · 193 estimated homes · scores 100/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 480 ft away
• 808 Mission St
  6 stories · 96% daylit · 62 estimated homes · scores 91/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 740 ft away
• 959 Mission St
  7 stories · 100% daylit · 70 estimated homes · scores 92/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 760 ft away
• 901 Market St
  5 stories · 64% daylit · 83 estimated homes · scores 35/100 (Marginal)
  about 900 ft away