266 Bush St

Where 266 Bush 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

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

The typical floor has 1,038 ft of exterior wall, and across 9 residential floors the building carries 9,338 ft of it in total, divided among the 246 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is elongated at 0.30: a slab or an L, which is why so much of the floor lies within reach of a window: the outline buys daylight that a square plan of the same area would not. How window line and plate shape are measured.

At the model’s 750 sq ft average, the plan works out at about 27.3 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 266 Bush St scores 100 out of 100

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

Every component scores at or near full marks, so nothing in the geometry or the pro-forma is holding this one back — daylight efficiency carries the most weight of the four.

Built in 1900

San Francisco records this building as going up in 1900, 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 231,126 sq ft of converted floor, or $93.6M in total — about $381K for each of the 246 homes.

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 246 homes is $90.0M.

What would have to be true

A $3.6M gap before any grant, which the modeled $10.0M closes. What would reopen it soonest: circulation efficiency 7% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $3.6M. Closing it from the value side means each of the 246 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 $10.0M moves that threshold to $340K 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 266 Bush St:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 266 Bush St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Downtown San Francisco

266 Bush St ranks 1st 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 75% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 70th 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

1st of 165 in Financial District/South Beach, 1st 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. 266 Bush St ranks 1st of them against a median score of 88, the top score in the group. 121 score 70 or more, their median deepest interior point is 47 ft from a facade against this building’s 34 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. 266 Bush St ranks 1st of them against a median score of 89, the top score in the group. 76 score 70 or more, their median deepest interior point is 44 ft from a facade against this building’s 34 ft, and together they would hold an estimated 21,444 homes.

Its nearest match in size: 201 Sacramento St

The screened building closest to 266 Bush St in converted floor area is 201 Sacramento St: 225,622 sq ft over 13 stories, against 231,126 sq ft over 10 here.

The two land within a few points of each other — 100 here, 99 there — so at this size the screen reads them as much the same prospect. On the money they part ways: 201 Sacramento St falls short even with the modeled grant, while 266 Bush St pencils only with the modeled RESIDE grant. The two stand about 1,500 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 266 Bush 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 266 Bush St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 150 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

• 234 Bush St
  10 stories · 100% daylit · 70 estimated homes · scores 92/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 150 ft away
• 369 Pine St
  8 stories · 100% daylit · 56 estimated homes · scores 91/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 160 ft away
• 240 Montgomery St
  17 stories · 99% daylit · 138 estimated homes · scores 99/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 160 ft away
• 295 Bush St
  25 stories · 85% daylit · 284 estimated homes · scores 83/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 200 ft away