191 Battery St

191 Battery St is a 10-story building in Downtown San Francisco with 100% of its floor area within daylight reach of a facade. This screen estimates 77 homes and scores it 93 out of 100 for office-to-residential conversion suitability.

CA-11 · Screened 2026-10-12 · Strong candidate

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Also addressed as 311 California St, 315 California St and 325 California St: San Francisco’s address records place all 4 on this one footprint.

Where 191 Battery St is

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

465 California St: scores 100 out of 100351 California St: scores 100 out of 100235 Pine St: scores 100 out of 100401 California St: scores 100 out of 100150 California St: scores 99 out of 100160 Sansome St: scores 95 out of 10031 Front St: scores 95 out of 100475 California St: scores 94 out of 100340 Pine St: scores 91 out of 100430 California St: scores 91 out of 100483 Sacramento St: scores 90 out of 100100 Battery St: scores 90 out of 100111 Battery St: scores 90 out of 100220 California St: scores 89 out of 10098 Battery St: scores 88 out of 100433 California St: scores 84 out of 100140 Battery St: scores 83 out of 100201 California St: scores 83 out of 100280 Battery St: scores 83 out of 100464 California St: scores 82 out of 100100 Pine St: scores 81 out of 100350 California St: scores 77 out of 100255 Battery St: scores 73 out of 100241 Battery St: scores 72 out of 10040 Battery St: scores 68 out of 100537 Sacramento St: scores 64 out of 100101 California St: scores 35 out of 10010010095919190909089848383817773643593FRONT STBATTERY STCALIFORNIA STPINE STSANSOME STHALLECK STN100 ftDowntown San Francisco
Suitability score
0–29
30–49
50–69
70–100
  • Already housing
  • Not screened
  • 191 Battery St
191 Battery St and the 1,000 ft of Downtown San Francisco 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. 191 Battery St is outlined in its own score color at the outline it covers at ground level. The inset places it among every building the screen covers.
28 ftAA50 ftDaylit 100%
Floor plan: 100% of each floor sits within daylight reach of a facade, with no dead core at all. The shading is daylight, darkest at the windows and gone 35 ft in. The dimension marks the deepest interior point, 28 ft from the nearest window. A–A is where the section beside it is cut.
Ground floor · no homesDaylit10 floors25 ft
Section A–A: cut across the depth of the plate, through the middle of the core. Daylight reaches 35 ft in from every facade, and here it meets in the middle: the plate is thin enough that no floor is left windowless. The shaded ground floor is converted like the rest and counted as no homes.

This building does not pencil on its own, but a modeled RESIDE Act grant would close the gap if the building qualified for one.

This footprint has no windowless core at all: every point on the floor plate is within 35 ft of a facade, which is unusual and is the main reason it scores as well as it does.

Modeled conversion metrics for 191 Battery St, 2026-10-12.

Suitability scoreStrong candidate93 / 100
Storiesfrom 133 ft LiDAR (2010) height ÷ 12 ft floor-to-floor10
Floor plateper floor, from the city footprint8,039 sq ft
Daylight efficiencyshare within 35 ft of a facade100%
Deepest interior pointviability threshold is 80 ft28 ft
Windowless coreper floor — renovated but never rentable0 sq ft
Estimated homesat 750 sq ft average77
Conversion cost$405/sq ft all-in on 72,348 sq ft$29.3M
Gap before grantshortfall against completed value$1.1M
Modeled RESIDE grantbelow the statutory cap$4.6M
BuiltSan Francisco's own record of the construction year1910
ZoningFinancial District/South BeachC-3-O
Opportunity Zonenot in a 2018 designated tractNo

The plan: window line, shape and floor rhythm

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

The typical floor has 470 ft of exterior wall, and across 9 residential floors the building carries 4,228 ft of it in total, divided among the 77 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is moderately compact at 0.46: 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 8.6 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 191 Battery St scores 93 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 100, Interior depth 100, Scale 51, Finance 100 — each out of 100, then weighted.

Score components for 191 Battery St. Points are the subscore times its weight.

ComponentSubscoreWeightPoints
Daylight efficiency100% of the floor area within 35 ft of a facade, scored from 40% up to 90%10045%45.0
Interior depthdeepest interior point 28 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft10025%25.0
Scale77 estimated homes, scored from 0 up to 1505115%7.7
Financecompleted value covers conversion cost with 12% to spare, which tops out the component10015%15.0

Most of what it earns comes from daylight efficiency, and what holds it back most is scale, at 51 out of 100: 77 estimated homes, scored from 0 up to 150.

Built in 1910

San Francisco records this building as going up in 1910, 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 72,348 sq ft of converted floor, or $29.3M in total — about $381K for each of the 77 homes.

All-in cost per square foot for 191 Battery St: base cost plus the code work a change of use triggers.

Base conversion cost$260/sq ft
Seismic retrofit (change of use)$45/sq ft
Plumbing risers to every unit$40/sq ft
Operable windows and glazing$30/sq ft
Additional egress stair$18/sq ft
Fire sprinklers (NFPA 13R)$12/sq ft
All-in$405/sq ft

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 77 homes is $28.2M.

What would have to be true

A $1.1M gap before any grant, which the modeled $4.6M closes. What would reopen it soonest: circulation efficiency 11% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $1.1M. Closing it from the value side means each of the 77 homes finishing at $381K rather than the $366K the model assumes — 4% more. Closing it from the cost side means getting all-in cost down from $405 to $390 per square foot.

A modeled RESIDE grant of $4.6M moves that threshold to $321K 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 191 Battery St:

Single-assumption flip points for 191 Battery St, each holding the other three at their defaults.

Circulation efficiencythe binding constraint — the least this building would need11% downto 72%
Average unit size12% upto 839 sq ft
Completed value per home12% downto $321K
Conversion cost per square foot19% upto $308/sq ft

All four are sliders in the survey, where 191 Battery St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Downtown San Francisco

191 Battery St ranks 46th 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 89% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 139th 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

43rd of 165 in Financial District/South Beach, 29th 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. 191 Battery St ranks 43rd 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 28 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. 191 Battery St ranks 29th 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 28 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: 417 Montgomery St

The screened building closest to 191 Battery St in converted floor area is 417 Montgomery St: 75,765 sq ft over 10 stories, against 72,348 sq ft over 10 here.

The two land within a few points of each other — 93 here, 93 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 900 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 191 Battery St $4.6M, 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 191 Battery St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 170 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

  • 351 California St
    16 stories · 100% daylit · 162 estimated homes · scores 100/100 (Strong candidate)
    about 170 ft away
  • 140 Battery St
    14 stories · 85% daylit · 155 estimated homes · scores 83/100 (Strong candidate)
    about 180 ft away
  • 255 Battery St
    8 stories · 83% daylit · 88 estimated homes · scores 73/100 (Strong candidate)
    about 190 ft away
  • 111 Battery St
    8 stories · 100% daylit · 47 estimated homes · scores 90/100 (Strong candidate)
    about 220 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.