97 E St James St

97 E St James St is a 5-story condominium building in Downtown San Jose. Its floor plate has 90% of its area within daylight reach of a facade and scores 86 out of 100 on this screen’s measures, which is part of why it works as housing.

CA-18 · Screened 2026-10-20 · Already housing

Where 97 E St James 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
97 E St James St

97 E St James 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. 97 E St James 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: 90% 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: 1,322 sq ft per floor that must be renovated but can never be rented as an apartment. The dimension marks the deepest interior point, 46 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: 1,322 sq ft on the floor the screen scores, and 5,290 sq ft over 4 residential floors. The shaded ground floor is converted like the rest and counted as no homes.

This is already a condominium building: San Jose's rental housing and condominium records list 34 condominiums 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 1,322 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 5,290 sq ft of cost carrying no revenue.

Modeled conversion metrics for 97 E St James St, 2026-10-20.

Suitability scoreStrong candidate	86 / 100
Storiesfrom OpenStreetMap, “Building, way 39018376”, in place of the 62 ft LiDAR height ÷ 12 ft floor-to-floor	5
Floor plateper floor, from the city footprint	12,959 sq ft
Daylight efficiencyshare within 35 ft of a facade	90%
Deepest interior pointviability threshold is 80 ft	46 ft
Windowless coreper floor — renovated but never rentable	1,322 sq ft
BuiltSan Jose does not publish a construction year with this data	—
ZoningDowntown San Jose	A(PD)
Opportunity Zonecensus tract 06085501000, 2018 designation	Yes

The plan: window line, shape and floor rhythm

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

The typical floor has 500 ft of exterior wall, and across 4 residential floors the building carries 1,998 ft of it in total, divided among the 49 homes this screen estimates.

Its plate is moderately compact at 0.65: 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 12.3 homes per floor, repeated on every residential floor, since this building's outline does not change as it rises.

Why 97 E St James St scores 86 out of 100

Daylight efficiency 100, Interior depth 86, Scale 33, Finance 100 — each out of 100, then weighted.

Score components for 97 E St James St. Points are the subscore times its weight.

Component	Subscore	Weight	Points
Daylight efficiency90% of the floor area within 35 ft of a facade, scored from 40% up to 90%	100	45%	44.8
Interior depthdeepest interior point 46 ft from a facade, scored from 80 ft down to 40 ft	86	25%	21.5
Scale49 estimated homes, scored from 0 up to 150	33	15%	4.9
Financecompleted value covers conversion cost with 13% 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 33 out of 100: 49 estimated homes, scored from 0 up to 150.

Other buildings screened near 97 E St James St

The 4 closest the screen also covers, from 300 ft away. They are the colored outlines on the plan at the top of this page.

196 N 3rd St
6 stories · 79% daylit · 73 estimated homes · scores 69/100 (Worth a feasibility study)
about 300 ft away
160 N 3rd St
5 stories · 100% daylit · 33 estimated homes · scores 88/100 (Strong candidate)
about 380 ft away
62 E Julian St
6 stories · 87% daylit · already an apartment building
about 400 ft away
43 E St James St
5 stories · 100% daylit · 25 estimated homes · scores 88/100 (Strong candidate)
about 420 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.