2 Pierce Ave

2 Pierce Ave is a 7-story apartment building in Downtown San Jose. Its floor plate has 80% of its area within daylight reach of a facade and scores 75 out of 100 on this screen’s measures, which is part of why it works as housing.

CA-18 · Screened 2026-09-12 · Already housing

Also addressed as 60 Pierce Ave, 599 S 1st St, 561 S Market St and 577 S Market St: San Jose’s address records place all 5 on this one footprint.

Where 2 Pierce Ave is

Its block in Downtown San Jose, drawn from San Jose's own building outlines and street centerlines.

Suitability score

0–29

30–49

50–69

70–100

Already housing
Not screened
2 Pierce Ave

2 Pierce Ave and the 1,000 ft of Downtown San Jose around it. The streets are drawn at the width of the right-of-way they run down, sidewalks included, and named, and every building on these blocks is drawn. What is left open and stippled is neither: a surface lot, a plaza or a vacant parcel. The screened buildings are colored by the ramp above, the same one the district map uses, carry their score, and each is a link to its own page. Each casts a shadow as long as its measured height lets it, so towers stand out from the low buildings around them; the unscreened buildings have no measured height and cast none. 2 Pierce Ave is outlined in its own score color at the outline it covers at ground level. Its windowless core is hatched. The inset places it among every building the screen covers.

Floor plan: 80% of each floor sits within daylight reach of a facade. The shading is daylight, darkest at the windows and gone 35 ft in. The hatched area is windowless core: 14,673 sq ft per floor that must be renovated but can never be rented as an apartment. The dimension marks the deepest interior point, 64 ft from the nearest window. A–A is where the section beside it is cut.

Section A–A: cut across the depth of the plate, through the middle of the core. Daylight reaches 35 ft in from every facade, fading as it goes, and the hatched stripe left between the lit edges is floor that gets converted and can never be rented: 14,673 sq ft on the floor the screen scores, and 88,039 sq ft over 6 residential floors. The shaded ground floor is converted like the rest and counted as no homes.

This is already an apartment building: San Jose's rental housing and condominium records list 230 apartments here. It is on the map because downtown zoning permits offices and homes alike, but this site does not count it as a conversion candidate.

Every floor carries 14,673 sq ft of windowless core — area that must be gutted, seismically braced and sprinklered but can never be rented as an apartment. Across 6 residential floors that is 88,039 sq ft of cost carrying no revenue.

Read with caution. This footprint carries 6 street addresses across 74,561 sq ft, which usually means the city’s GIS has merged a block or complex into a single polygon rather than describing one convertible building.

Modeled conversion metrics for 2 Pierce Ave, 2026-09-12.

Suitability scoreStrong candidate	75 / 100
Storiesfrom 84 ft LiDAR height ÷ 12 ft floor-to-floor	7
Floor plateper floor, from the city footprint	74,561 sq ft
Daylight efficiencyshare within 35 ft of a facade	80%
Deepest interior pointviability threshold is 80 ft	64 ft
Windowless coreper floor — renovated but never rentable	14,673 sq ft
BuiltSan Jose does not publish a construction year with this data	—
ZoningDowntown San Jose	DC-NT1
Opportunity Zonenot in a 2018 designated tract	No

The plan: window line, shape and floor rhythm

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

The typical floor has 2,021 ft of exterior wall, and across 6 residential floors the building carries 12,125 ft of it in total, divided among the 383 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is highly articulated at 0.23: a long, notched or wing-shaped outline with far more facade than its area needs — wasteful as an office envelope, and close to ideal for apartments. How window line and plate shape are measured.

At the model’s 750 sq ft average, the plan works out at about 63.8 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 2 Pierce Ave scores 75 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 81, Interior depth 40, Scale 100, Finance 92 — each out of 100, then weighted.

Score components for 2 Pierce Ave. Points are the subscore times its weight.

Component	Subscore	Weight	Points
Daylight efficiency80% of the floor area within 35 ft of a facade, scored from 40% up to 90%	81	45%	36.3
Interior depthdeepest interior point 64 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft	40	25%	10.1
Scale383 estimated homes, scored from 0 up to 150	100	15%	15.0
Financeremaining gap is 5% of conversion cost, scored from 60% down to 0%	92	15%	13.8

Most of what it earns comes from daylight efficiency, and what holds it back most is interior depth, at 40 out of 100: deepest interior point 64 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft.

Other buildings screened near 2 Pierce Ave

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 420 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

630 S 1st St
5 stories · 100% daylit · 32 estimated homes · scores 88/100 (Strong candidate)
about 420 ft away
477 S Market St
7 stories · 97% daylit · already an apartment building
about 730 ft away
596 S 2nd St
5 stories · 87% daylit · 54 estimated homes · scores 82/100 (Strong candidate)
about 810 ft away
500 Almaden Blvd
8 stories · 91% daylit · 170 estimated homes · scores 94/100 (Strong candidate)
about 1,150 ft away

A screen, not a feasibility study, from outlines and heights rather than plans: the method and how to correct a figure. If you know this building’s interior, you know what this model cannot see.