25 Hickory St

Where 25 Hickory 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

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

The typical floor has 598 ft of exterior wall, and across 7 residential floors the building carries 4,185 ft of it in total, divided among the 115 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is moderately compact at 0.72: 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 16.4 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 25 Hickory St scores 65 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 71, Interior depth 43, Scale 77, Finance 74 — each out of 100, then weighted.

Most of what it earns comes from daylight efficiency, and what holds it back most is interior depth, at 43 out of 100: deepest interior point 63 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft.

Built in 1911

San Francisco records this building as going up in 1911, 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 75% daylight figure above deserves.

What the conversion would cost

$405 per square foot all-in across 143,363 sq ft of converted floor, or $58.1M in total — about $505K for each of the 115 homes.

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the 35,195 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 115 homes is $42.1M.

What would have to be true

A $16.0M gap before any grant, $9.1M after the modeled one. The smallest single change that would close it: average unit size 16% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $16.0M. Closing it from the value side means each of the 115 homes finishing at $505K rather than the $366K the model assumes — 38% more. Closing it from the cost side means getting all-in cost down from $405 to $294 per square foot.

A modeled RESIDE grant of $6.9M moves that threshold to $445K a home. That is still above the $366K assumed, leaving $9.1M uncovered, which is why the grant does not unlock this one.

Nor do all four levers have to move. For 25 Hickory St, one alone would close the gap at:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 25 Hickory St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Downtown San Francisco

25 Hickory St ranks 162nd of the 205 buildings screened here, against a median score of 87.

Its floor plate is better lit than 22% of them, and shallower than 24% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 120th 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 the C-3-G zone

14th of 22 zoned C-3-G — the comparison that shares its rules, rents and streets.

22 of the screened buildings are zoned C-3-G. 25 Hickory St ranks 14th 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 63 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: 71 2nd St

The screened building closest to 25 Hickory St in converted floor area is 71 2nd St: 136,322 sq ft over 8 stories, against 143,363 sq ft over 8 here.

25 Hickory St scores 65 to its 69, and with the size held roughly equal most of that shortfall comes from interior depth: 43 out of 100 here, 54 there (deepest interior point 58 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft). On the money they sit in the same place: each falls short even with the modeled grant. The two stand about 7,400 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 25 Hickory St $6.9M, 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 25 Hickory 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.

• 1525 Market St
  8 stories · 49% daylit · 238 estimated homes · scores 27/100 (Unlikely)
  about 460 ft away
• 150 Hayes St
  6 stories · 76% daylit · 80 estimated homes · scores 64/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 790 ft away
• 875 Stevenson St
  10 stories · 67% daylit · 228 estimated homes · scores 58/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 1,050 ft away
• 32 9th St
  11 stories · 66% daylit · 547 estimated homes · scores 45/100 (Marginal)
  about 1,060 ft away