979 Market St

Where 979 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

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 547 ft of exterior wall, and across 5 residential floors the building carries 2,737 ft of it in total, divided among the 75 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 15.0 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 979 Market St scores 75 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 83, Interior depth 71, Scale 50, Finance 84 — each out of 100, then weighted.

Most of what it earns comes from daylight efficiency, and what holds it back most is scale, at 50 out of 100: 75 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 82% daylight figure above deserves.

What the conversion would cost

$405 per square foot all-in across 87,248 sq ft of converted floor, or $35.3M in total — about $471K for each of the 75 homes.

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the 16,136 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 75 homes is $27.4M.

What would have to be true

A $7.9M gap before any grant, $3.4M after the modeled one. The smallest single change that would close it: average unit size 9% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $7.9M. Closing it from the value side means each of the 75 homes finishing at $471K rather than the $366K the model assumes — 29% more. Closing it from the cost side means getting all-in cost down from $405 to $315 per square foot.

A modeled RESIDE grant of $4.5M moves that threshold to $411K a home. That is still above the $366K assumed, leaving $3.4M uncovered, which is why the grant does not unlock this one.

Nor do all four levers have to move. For 979 Market St, one alone would close the gap at:

All four are sliders in the survey, where 979 Market St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Downtown San Francisco

979 Market St ranks 134th of the 205 buildings screened here, against a median score of 87.

Its floor plate is better lit than 35% of them, and shallower than 45% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 141st 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 South of Market and the C-3-G zone

9th of 14 in South of Market, 12th of 22 zoned C-3-G — the comparison that shares its rules, rents and streets.

San Francisco places 14 of the screened buildings in South of Market. 979 Market St ranks 9th of them against a median score of 82. 9 score 70 or more, their median deepest interior point is 45 ft from a facade against this building’s 52 ft, and together they would hold an estimated 2,045 homes. The group’s top scorer is 431 Natoma St, at 100.

22 of the screened buildings are zoned C-3-G. 979 Market St ranks 12th 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 52 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: 47 Geary St

The screened building closest to 979 Market St in converted floor area is 47 Geary St: 88,656 sq ft over 5 stories, against 87,248 sq ft over 6 here.

979 Market St scores 75 to its 93, and with the size held roughly equal most of that shortfall comes from daylight efficiency: 83 out of 100 here, 100 there (93% of the floor area within 35 ft of a facade, scored from 40% up to 90%). On the money they part ways: 47 Geary St pencils only with the modeled RESIDE grant, while 979 Market St falls short even with the modeled grant. The two stand about 2,400 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 979 Market St $4.5M, 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 979 Market St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 370 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

• 1017 Market St
  6 stories · 99% daylit · 58 estimated homes · scores 91/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 370 ft away
• 479 Jessie St
  4 stories · 100% daylit · 26 estimated homes · scores 88/100 (Strong candidate)
  about 380 ft away
• 42 Golden Gate Ave
  7 stories · 72% daylit · 118 estimated homes · scores 61/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
  about 450 ft away
• 901 Market St
  5 stories · 64% daylit · 83 estimated homes · scores 35/100 (Marginal)
  about 610 ft away