28 N Almaden Ave

28 N Almaden Ave is a 8-story apartment building in Downtown San Jose. Its floor plate has 66% of its area within daylight reach of a facade and scores 35 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

Where 28 N Almaden 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
28 N Almaden Ave

28 N Almaden 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. 28 N Almaden 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: 66% 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: 13,263 sq ft per floor that must be renovated but can never be rented as an apartment. The dimension marks the deepest interior point, 83 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: 13,263 sq ft on the floor the screen scores, and 92,840 sq ft over 7 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 208 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 13,263 sq ft of windowless core — area that must be gutted, seismically braced and sprinklered but can never be rented as an apartment. Across 7 residential floors that is 92,840 sq ft of cost carrying no revenue.

Modeled conversion metrics for 28 N Almaden Ave, 2026-09-12.

Suitability scoreMarginal	35 / 100
Storiesfrom 96 ft LiDAR height ÷ 12 ft floor-to-floor	8
Floor plateper floor, from the city footprint	39,109 sq ft
Daylight efficiencyshare within 35 ft of a facade	66%
Deepest interior pointviability threshold is 80 ft	83 ft
Windowless coreper floor — renovated but never rentable	13,263 sq ft
BuiltSan Jose does not publish a construction year with this data	—
ZoningDowntown San Jose	DC
Opportunity Zonecensus tract 06085500800, 2018 designation	Yes

The plan: window line, shape and floor rhythm

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

The typical floor has 897 ft of exterior wall, and across 7 residential floors the building carries 6,279 ft of it in total, divided among the 192 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is moderately compact at 0.61: 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 27.4 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 28 N Almaden Ave scores 35 out of 100

The weighted components add to 49, but the score is capped at 35 because its deepest interior point is 83 ft from a facade, past the 80 ft threshold beyond which conversion requires carving a light well.

Score components for 28 N Almaden Ave. Points are the subscore times its weight.

Component	Subscore	Weight	Points
Daylight efficiency66% of the floor area within 35 ft of a facade, scored from 40% up to 90%	52	45%	23.5
Interior depthdeepest interior point 83 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft	0	25%	0.0
Scale192 estimated homes, scored from 0 up to 150	100	15%	15.0
Financeremaining gap is 17% of conversion cost, scored from 60% down to 0%	71	15%	10.7

Most of what it earns comes from daylight efficiency, and what holds it back most is interior depth, at 0 out of 100: deepest interior point 83 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft.

Other buildings screened near 28 N Almaden Ave

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 280 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

225 W Santa Clara St
18 stories · 51% daylit · 625 estimated homes · scores 29/100 (Unlikely)
about 280 ft away
45 N Market St
5 stories · 50% daylit · 177 estimated homes · scores 29/100 (Unlikely)
about 350 ft away
192 W St John St
18 stories · 54% daylit · already a condominium building
about 410 ft away
160 W Santa Clara St
16 stories · 62% daylit · 341 estimated homes · scores 35/100 (Marginal)
about 470 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.