785 Market St

Where 785 Market 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

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

The typical floor has 496 ft of exterior wall, and across 17 residential floors the building carries 8,439 ft of it in total, divided among the 142 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is elongated at 0.40: 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 8.4 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 785 Market St scores 99 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 100, Interior depth 100, Scale 95, 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 95 out of 100: 142 estimated homes, scored from 0 up to 150.

Built in 1907

San Francisco records this building as going up in 1907, 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 133,962 sq ft of converted floor, or $54.3M in total — about $382K for each of the 142 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 142 homes is $52.0M.

What would have to be true

A $2.3M gap before any grant, which the modeled $8.5M closes. What would reopen it soonest: circulation efficiency 10% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $2.3M. Closing it from the value side means each of the 142 homes finishing at $382K rather than the $366K the model assumes — 4% more. Closing it from the cost side means getting all-in cost down from $405 to $388 per square foot.

A modeled RESIDE grant of $8.5M moves that threshold to $322K 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 785 Market St:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 785 Market St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Downtown San Francisco

785 Market St ranks 21st 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 95% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 108th 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-R zone

20th of 165 in Financial District/South Beach, 2nd of 25 zoned C-3-R — the comparison that shares its rules, rents and streets.

San Francisco places 165 of the screened buildings in Financial District/South Beach. 785 Market St ranks 20th 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 25 ft, and together they would hold an estimated 40,456 homes. The group’s top scorer is 870 Market St, at 100.

25 of the screened buildings are zoned C-3-R. 785 Market St ranks 2nd of them against a median score of 90. 21 score 70 or more, their median deepest interior point is 32 ft from a facade against this building’s 25 ft, and together they would hold an estimated 2,773 homes. The group’s top scorer is 870 Market St, at 100.

Its nearest match in size: 240 Montgomery St

The screened building closest to 785 Market St in converted floor area is 240 Montgomery St: 131,965 sq ft over 17 stories, against 133,962 sq ft over 18 here.

The two land within a few points of each other — 99 here, 99 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 2,300 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 785 Market St $8.5M, 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 785 Market St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 260 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

• 750 Market St
  11 stories · 72% daylit · 383 estimated homes · scores 57/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 260 ft away
• 735 Market St
  6 stories · 100% daylit · 49 estimated homes · scores 90/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 400 ft away
• 725 Market St
  6 stories · 94% daylit · 75 estimated homes · scores 90/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 470 ft away
• 30 Ofarrell St
  7 stories · 69% daylit · 144 estimated homes · scores 55/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 500 ft away