400 Montgomery St

Where 400 Montgomery 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

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

The typical floor has 521 ft of exterior wall, and across 10 residential floors the building carries 5,209 ft of it in total, divided among the 109 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is moderately compact at 0.47: 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 10.9 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 400 Montgomery St scores 96 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 100, Interior depth 100, Scale 73, Finance 100 — each out of 100, then weighted.

Most of what it earns comes from daylight efficiency, and what holds it back most is scale, at 73 out of 100: 109 estimated homes, scored from 0 up to 150.

Built in 1901

San Francisco records this building as going up in 1901, 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 102,357 sq ft of converted floor, or $41.5M in total — about $380K for each of the 109 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 109 homes is $39.9M.

What would have to be true

A $1.6M gap before any grant, which the modeled $6.5M closes. What would reopen it soonest: circulation efficiency 10% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $1.6M. Closing it from the value side means each of the 109 homes finishing at $380K 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 $6.5M moves that threshold to $320K 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 400 Montgomery St:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 400 Montgomery St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Downtown San Francisco

400 Montgomery St ranks 32nd 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 73% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 124th 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

30th of 165 in Financial District/South Beach, 22nd 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. 400 Montgomery St ranks 30th 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 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. 400 Montgomery St ranks 22nd 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 34 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: 483 Sacramento St

The screened building closest to 400 Montgomery St in converted floor area is 483 Sacramento St: 103,279 sq ft over 10 stories, against 102,357 sq ft over 11 here.

400 Montgomery St scores 96 to its 90, and with the size held roughly equal most of that lead comes from interior depth: 100 out of 100 here, 85 there (deepest interior point 46 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft). On the money they part ways: 483 Sacramento St falls short even with the modeled grant, while 400 Montgomery St pencils only with the modeled RESIDE grant. The two stand about 500 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 400 Montgomery St $6.5M, 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 400 Montgomery St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 120 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

• 464 California St
  12 stories · 82% daylit · 299 estimated homes · scores 82/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 120 ft away
• 456 Montgomery St
  26 stories · 93% daylit · 259 estimated homes · scores 96/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 160 ft away
• 417 Montgomery St
  10 stories · 100% daylit · 80 estimated homes · scores 93/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 200 ft away
• 430 California St
  21 stories · 88% daylit · 215 estimated homes · scores 91/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 230 ft away