75 1st St

Where 75 1st 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 595 ft of exterior wall, and across 41 residential floors the building carries 24,408 ft of it in total, divided among the 671 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is compact at 0.74: 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 16.4 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 75 1st St scores 64 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 66, Interior depth 43, Scale 100, Finance 56 — 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 1985

San Francisco records this building as going up in 1985, which puts it in the late-modern stock.

As a rule, typically the hardest to convert: the deepest plates of any era, large central cores, and floor-to-floor heights tight enough that running residential drainage under a ceiling can be the thing that ends a project. 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 73% daylight figure above deserves.

What the conversion would cost

$405 per square foot all-in across 860,176 sq ft of converted floor, or $348.4M in total — about $519K for each of the 671 homes.

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the 230,438 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 671 homes is $245.6M.

What would have to be true

A $102.8M gap before any grant, $92.8M after the modeled one. The smallest single change that would close it: average unit size 27% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $102.8M. Closing it from the value side means each of the 671 homes finishing at $519K rather than the $366K the model assumes — 42% more. Closing it from the cost side means getting all-in cost down from $405 to $286 per square foot.

A modeled RESIDE grant of $10.0M moves that threshold to $504K a home. That is still above the $366K assumed, leaving $92.8M uncovered, which is why the grant does not unlock this one.

Nor do all four levers have to move. For 75 1st St, one alone would close the gap at:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 75 1st St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Downtown San Francisco

75 1st St ranks 165th of the 205 buildings screened here, against a median score of 87.

Its floor plate is better lit than 16% of them, and shallower than 24% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 9th 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(SD) zone

134th of 165 in Financial District/South Beach, 45th of 66 zoned C-3-O(SD) — the comparison that shares its rules, rents and streets.

San Francisco places 165 of the screened buildings in Financial District/South Beach. 75 1st St ranks 134th 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 63 ft, and together they would hold an estimated 40,456 homes. The group’s top scorer is 870 Market St, at 100.

66 of the screened buildings are zoned C-3-O(SD). 75 1st St ranks 45th of them against a median score of 72. 37 score 70 or more, their median deepest interior point is 59 ft from a facade against this building’s 63 ft, and together they would hold an estimated 18,546 homes. The group’s top scorer is 140 New Montgomery St, at 100.

Its nearest match in size: 44 Montgomery St

The screened building closest to 75 1st St in converted floor area is 44 Montgomery St: 841,258 sq ft over 43 stories, against 860,176 sq ft over 42 here.

75 1st St scores 64 to its 89, and with the size held roughly equal most of that shortfall comes from daylight efficiency: 66 out of 100 here, 96 there (88% of the floor area within 35 ft of a facade, scored from 40% up to 90%). On the money they sit in the same place: each falls short even with the modeled grant. The two stand about 1,300 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 75 1st 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 75 1st 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.

• 440 Mission St
  5 stories · 82% daylit · 51 estimated homes · scores 70/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 150 ft away
• 340 Mission St
  30 stories · 75% daylit · 449 estimated homes · scores 63/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 210 ft away
• 45 Fremont St
  34 stories · 76% daylit · 511 estimated homes · scores 69/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 270 ft away
• 101 1st St
  63 stories · 59% daylit · 1,457 estimated homes · scores 35/100 (Marginal)
  about 280 ft away