30 N 3rd St

30 N 3rd St is a 9-story apartment building in Downtown San Jose. Its floor plate has 100% of its area within daylight reach of a facade and scores 98 out of 100 on this screen’s measures, which is part of why it works as housing.

CA-18 · Screened 2026-10-04 · Already housing

No address point in San Jose’s records falls inside this footprint, so it is named by the closest one that no other screened building claims — usually a site entrance, but check the outline on the plan below before relying on the street number.

Where 30 N 3rd St 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
30 N 3rd St

30 N 3rd St 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. 30 N 3rd St is outlined in its own score color at the outline it covers at ground level. The inset places it among every building the screen covers.

Floor plan: 100% of each floor sits within daylight reach of a facade, with no dead core at all. The shading is daylight, darkest at the windows and gone 35 ft in. The dimension marks the deepest interior point, 34 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, and here it meets in the middle: the plate is thin enough that no floor is left windowless. 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 216 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.

This footprint has no windowless core at all: every point on the floor plate is within 35 ft of a facade, which is unusual and is the main reason it scores as well as it does.

Modeled conversion metrics for 30 N 3rd St, 2026-10-04.

Suitability scoreStrong candidate	98 / 100
Storiesfrom 113 ft LiDAR height ÷ 12 ft floor-to-floor	9
Floor plateper floor, from the city footprint	14,706 sq ft
Daylight efficiencyshare within 35 ft of a facade	100%
Deepest interior pointviability threshold is 80 ft	34 ft
Windowless coreper floor — renovated but never rentable	0 sq ft
BuiltSan Jose does not publish a construction year with this data	—
ZoningDowntown San Jose	DC
Opportunity Zonecensus tract 06085501000, 2018 designation	Yes

The plan: window line, shape and floor rhythm

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

The typical floor has 603 ft of exterior wall, and across 8 residential floors the building carries 4,825 ft of it in total, divided among the 125 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is moderately compact at 0.51: 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 15.6 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 30 N 3rd St scores 98 out of 100

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

Score components for 30 N 3rd St. Points are the subscore times its weight.

Component	Subscore	Weight	Points
Daylight efficiency100% of the floor area within 35 ft of a facade, scored from 40% up to 90%	100	45%	45.0
Interior depthdeepest interior point 34 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft	100	25%	25.0
Scale125 estimated homes, scored from 0 up to 150	83	15%	12.5
Financecompleted value covers conversion cost with 27% to spare, which tops out the component	100	15%	15.0

Most of what it earns comes from daylight efficiency, and what holds it back most is scale, at 83 out of 100: 125 estimated homes, scored from 0 up to 150.

Other buildings screened near 30 N 3rd St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 200 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

96 N 3rd St
9 stories · 86% daylit · 92 estimated homes · scores 81/100 (Strong candidate)
about 200 ft away
50 E St John St
5 stories · 74% daylit · 213 estimated homes · scores 68/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
about 260 ft away
4 N 2nd St
15 stories · 76% daylit · 212 estimated homes · scores 71/100 (Strong candidate)
about 340 ft away
75 E Santa Clara St
16 stories · 79% daylit · 210 estimated homes · scores 78/100 (Strong candidate)
about 410 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.