50 E St John St

50 E St John St is a 5-story building in Downtown San Jose with 74% of its floor area within daylight reach of a facade. This screen estimates 213 homes and scores it 68 out of 100 for office-to-residential conversion suitability.

CA-18 · Screened 2026-09-12 · Worth a feasibility study

Build a conversion planCheck its numbers, lay out its homes and get a two-page PDF. Free.

Also addressed as 70 N 2nd St, 96 N 2nd St and 95 N 3rd St: San Jose’s address records place all 4 on this one footprint.

Where 50 E St John 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
50 E St John St

50 E St John 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. 50 E St John St 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: 74% 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: 17,688 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: 17,688 sq ft on the floor the screen scores, and 70,753 sq ft over 4 residential floors. The shaded ground floor is converted like the rest and counted as no homes.

This building does not pencil at default assumptions, even with a modeled RESIDE Act grant.

Every floor carries 17,688 sq ft of windowless core — area that must be gutted, seismically braced and sprinklered but can never be rented as an apartment. Across 4 residential floors that is 70,753 sq ft of cost carrying no revenue.

Read with caution. This footprint carries 4 street addresses across 67,803 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 50 E St John St, 2026-09-12.

Suitability scoreWorth a feasibility study	68 / 100
Storiesfrom 66 ft LiDAR height ÷ 12 ft floor-to-floor	5
Floor plateper floor, from the city footprint	67,803 sq ft
Daylight efficiencyshare within 35 ft of a facade	74%
Deepest interior pointviability threshold is 80 ft	64 ft
Windowless coreper floor — renovated but never rentable	17,688 sq ft
Estimated homesat 750 sq ft average	213
Conversion cost$405/sq ft all-in on 271,212 sq ft	$109.8M
Gap before grantshortfall against completed value	$19.3M
Modeled RESIDE grantat the statutory per-award cap	$10.0M
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

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 1,742 ft of exterior wall, and across 4 residential floors the building carries 6,966 ft of it in total, divided among the 213 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is elongated at 0.28: 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 53.3 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 50 E St John St scores 68 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 68, Interior depth 40, Scale 100, Finance 86 — each out of 100, then weighted.

Score components for 50 E St John St. Points are the subscore times its weight.

Component	Subscore	Weight	Points
Daylight efficiency74% of the floor area within 35 ft of a facade, scored from 40% up to 90%	68	45%	30.5
Interior depthdeepest interior point 64 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft	40	25%	10.0
Scale213 estimated homes, scored from 0 up to 150	100	15%	15.0
Financeremaining gap is 8% of conversion cost, scored from 60% down to 0%	86	15%	12.9

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.

What the conversion would cost

$405 per square foot all-in across 271,212 sq ft of converted floor, or $109.8M in total — about $516K for each of the 213 homes.

All-in cost per square foot for 50 E St John St: base cost plus the code work a change of use triggers.

Base conversion cost	$260/sq ft
Seismic retrofit (change of use)	$45/sq ft
Plumbing risers to every unit	$40/sq ft
Operable windows and glazing	$30/sq ft
Additional egress stair	$18/sq ft
Fire sprinklers (NFPA 13R)	$12/sq ft
All-in	$405/sq ft

That cost is charged across every converted square foot, including the 70,753 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 $425K a home, which for 213 homes is $90.5M.

What would have to be true

A $19.3M gap before any grant, $9.3M after the modeled one. The smallest single change that would close it: average unit size 9% down.

The shortfall before any grant is $19.3M. Closing it from the value side means each of the 213 homes finishing at $516K rather than the $425K the model assumes — 21% more. Closing it from the cost side means getting all-in cost down from $405 to $334 per square foot.

A modeled RESIDE grant of $10.0M moves that threshold to $469K a home. That is still above the $425K assumed, leaving $9.3M uncovered, which is why the grant does not unlock this one.

Nor do all four levers have to move. For 50 E St John St, one alone would close the gap at:

Single-assumption flip points for 50 E St John St, each holding the other three at their defaults.

Average unit sizethe binding constraint — the least this building would need	9% downto 682 sq ft
Circulation efficiency	10% upto 88%
Completed value per home	10% upto $469K
Conversion cost per square foot	13% downto $226/sq ft

All four are sliders in the survey, where 50 E St John St re-scores against your own numbers.

How it compares in Downtown San Jose

50 E St John St ranks 40th of the 82 buildings screened here, against a median score of 64.

Its floor plate is better lit than 50% of them, and shallower than 54% of them at its deepest interior point. On size it is the 38th largest by estimated homes. The full survey of all 82 buildings ranks and maps every one of them, and the list by address links each to its own page.

Within the DC zone

34th of 72 zoned DC — the comparison that shares its rules, rents and streets.

72 of the screened buildings are zoned DC. 50 E St John St ranks 34th of them against a median score of 61. 31 score 70 or more, their median deepest interior point is 68 ft from a facade against this building’s 64 ft, and together they would hold an estimated 23,276 homes. The group’s top scorer is 1 Almaden Blvd, at 100.

Its nearest match in size: 111 Paseo De San Antonio

The screened building closest to 50 E St John St in converted floor area is 111 Paseo De San Antonio: 274,612 sq ft over 6 stories, against 271,212 sq ft over 5 here.

50 E St John St scores 68 to its 96, and with the size held roughly equal most of that shortfall comes from daylight efficiency: 68 out of 100 here, 100 there (94% of the floor area within 35 ft of a facade, scored from 40% up to 90%). On the money they part ways: 111 Paseo De San Antonio pencils without a subsidy, while 50 E St John St falls short even with the modeled grant. The two stand about 1,900 ft apart.

Would it qualify for a RESIDE Act grant?

The model awards 50 E St John St $10.0M, 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.

This building does sit in census tract 06085501000, a 2018 designated Opportunity Zone, which Section 201 lets HUD favor — one of the few statutory priorities this screen can actually check.

Other buildings screened near 50 E St John St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 160 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

4 N 2nd St
15 stories · 76% daylit · 212 estimated homes · scores 71/100 (Strong candidate)
about 160 ft away
16 N 3rd St
9 stories · 100% daylit · already an apartment building
about 260 ft away
96 N 3rd St
9 stories · 86% daylit · 92 estimated homes · scores 81/100 (Strong candidate)
about 270 ft away
75 E Santa Clara St
16 stories · 79% daylit · 210 estimated homes · scores 78/100 (Strong candidate)
about 340 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.