655 Sutter St

Where 655 Sutter 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

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

The typical floor has 368 ft of exterior wall, and across 5 residential floors the building carries 1,840 ft of it in total, divided among the 33 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is moderately compact at 0.59: 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 6.6 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 655 Sutter St scores 88 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 100, Interior depth 100, Scale 22, 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 22 out of 100: 33 estimated homes, scored from 0 up to 150.

Built in 1912

San Francisco records this building as going up in 1912, 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 31,521 sq ft of converted floor, or $12.8M in total — about $387K for each of the 33 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 33 homes is $12.1M.

What would have to be true

A $688K gap before any grant, which the modeled $2.0M closes. What would reopen it soonest: completed value per home 11% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $688K. Closing it from the value side means each of the 33 homes finishing at $387K rather than the $366K the model assumes — 6% more. Closing it from the cost side means getting all-in cost down from $405 to $383 per square foot.

A modeled RESIDE grant of $2.0M moves that threshold to $327K 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 655 Sutter St:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 655 Sutter St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Downtown San Francisco

655 Sutter St ranks 94th 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 88% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 196th 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

7th 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. 655 Sutter St ranks 7th 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 29 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: 132 2nd St

The screened building closest to 655 Sutter St in converted floor area is 132 2nd St: 30,620 sq ft over 6 stories, against 31,521 sq ft over 6 here.

The two land within a few points of each other — 88 here, 88 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 3,400 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 655 Sutter St $2.0M, 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 655 Sutter St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 680 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

• 519 Powell St
  9 stories · 100% daylit · 64 estimated homes · scores 91/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 680 ft away
• 301 Geary St
  8 stories · 100% daylit · 56 estimated homes · scores 91/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 930 ft away
• 350 Post St
  11 stories · 100% daylit · 95 estimated homes · scores 95/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 970 ft away
• 440 Sutter St
  26 stories · 74% daylit · 466 estimated homes · scores 62/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 990 ft away