31 Front St

Where 31 Front 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

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

The typical floor has 464 ft of exterior wall, and across 18 residential floors the building carries 8,344 ft of it in total, divided among the 212 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is compact at 0.73: 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 11.8 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 31 Front St scores 95 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 98, Interior depth 88, Scale 100, Finance 94 — 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 88 out of 100: deepest interior point 45 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft.

Built in 1963

San Francisco records this building as going up in 1963, 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 89% daylight figure above deserves.

What the conversion would cost

$405 per square foot all-in across 224,501 sq ft of converted floor, or $90.9M in total — about $429K for each of the 212 homes.

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the 24,856 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 212 homes is $77.6M.

What would have to be true

A $13.3M gap before any grant, $3.3M after the modeled one. The smallest single change that would close it: average unit size 4% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $13.3M. Closing it from the value side means each of the 212 homes finishing at $429K rather than the $366K the model assumes — 17% more. Closing it from the cost side means getting all-in cost down from $405 to $346 per square foot.

A modeled RESIDE grant of $10.0M moves that threshold to $382K a home. That is still above the $366K assumed, leaving $3.3M uncovered, which is why the grant does not unlock this one.

Nor do all four levers have to move. For 31 Front St, one alone would close the gap at:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 31 Front St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Downtown San Francisco

31 Front St ranks 36th of the 205 buildings screened here, against a median score of 87.

Its floor plate is better lit than 51% of them, and shallower than 55% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 85th 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

34th of 165 in Financial District/South Beach, 25th 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. 31 Front St ranks 34th 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 45 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. 31 Front St ranks 25th 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 45 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: 101 Mission St

The screened building closest to 31 Front St in converted floor area is 101 Mission St: 222,557 sq ft over 21 stories, against 224,501 sq ft over 19 here.

31 Front St scores 95 to its 99, and with the size held roughly equal most of that shortfall comes from interior depth: 88 out of 100 here, 97 there (deepest interior point 41 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft). On the money they part ways: 101 Mission St pencils only with the modeled RESIDE grant, while 31 Front St falls short even with the modeled grant. The two stand about 1,400 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 31 Front 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 31 Front St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 130 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

• 40 Battery St
  38 stories · 79% daylit · 724 estimated homes · scores 68/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 130 ft away
• 98 Battery St
  7 stories · 90% daylit · 68 estimated homes · scores 88/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 140 ft away
• 100 Pine St
  33 stories · 83% daylit · 396 estimated homes · scores 81/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 170 ft away
• 100 Battery St
  7 stories · 90% daylit · 73 estimated homes · scores 90/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 210 ft away