Plan to convert vacant San Francisco offices into housing already exists

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As politicians ponder how to turn vacant office buildings into much-needed housing, one architect believes he holds the key to making these ambitious projects a reality.

There are a number of reasons why only one office-to-residential conversion project has been proposed since the pandemic, a piece of office space in the historic Warfield Building that will be converted into 34 apartments. Among them are office building owners hoping for a miracle of recovery and net worth.

But as office costs start to drop, architect Mark Hogan says he’s found a way to make office-to-living conversion more feasible: think small.

Hogan’s firm, OpenScope Studio, has found that pre-1950 commercial buildings less than nine stories high – the best candidates for refurbishment in terms of design – also have higher vacancy rates and lower prices than the broader market.

Result? Low-rise Class C buildings in the city center may be ripe for a refurbishment that could be done quickly—without subsidies, but with code adjustments. It is important to note that these buildings are more likely to qualify for historical tax credits to make the funding transformation easier.

“It’s very similar to changing the use of office space, where you turn large warehouses, technical spaces and garages into living spaces and often add quite a significant number of units in the process,” Hogan said.

OpenScope has produced a research paper outlining how office-to-residential conversion can be optimized using already implemented multi-family ADU conversion policies as a blueprint.

Hogan singled out the project at 2775 Market Street in Castro, where the firm converted existing garages and storage facilities into six apartment buildings. In another project in Pacifica, the firm was able to turn a hidden parking lot into 42 new low-cost apartments. Since these projects do not expand the floor area of ​​the building, there are far fewer requirements for community meetings and notices.

In San Francisco, the building, fire, and planning departments have teamed up to create building code equivalents to make these ADU transformations more feasible. Essentially, this means setting clear guidelines for alternatives to modern entry, exit, open space and access standards that can work in older historic buildings.

The same process can pave the way for transforming an office into a living space.

At a meeting of the board of supervisors on Tuesday, board president Aaron Peskin introduced a resolution tasking the planning department with compiling a list of major transformation candidates and identifying financial and political obstacles to doing so.

“There is no silver bullet, but there may be silver buckshot. This is one of those cards for contacting the center,” Peskin said at the meeting. The city’s report is expected to be released next month.

Hogan has offered analogies such as classifying fire escapes as a second means of egress, or allowing existing elevators to be used instead of installing the much larger elevators required by current building codes. Open space requirements also probably need to be changed to help pencil projects.

The changes to building and planning rules reflect some changes to the Los Angeles Adaptive Reuse Ordinance, which is credited with building about 14,000 housing units in the city’s historic downtown. A key part of this law was the relaxation of building requirements for seismic retrofits.

While San Francisco’s planning rules currently include a number of potential exemptions for downtown conversions, including with regard to open space, parking, and loading space requirements, none are guaranteed. Hogan said he would like to see the list of exceptions that are codified in case of appeal.

“The certainty in something like the L.A. ordinance is really important,” Hogan said. “When someone takes on a project like this, they don’t want to have a big question mark hanging over whether the planning committee will make a positive decision.”

Questions remain, especially regarding accessibility requirements.

For multi-unit ADU conversions in San Francisco, building owners sign a waiver of their Costa Hawkins rights that ensures that apartment rents are controlled; however, this will not be the case in the case of the conversion of office space to accommodation.

Hogan said these projects will be subject to the city’s inclusive housing requirements, although that policy is being reviewed in line with the mayor’s new housing directive.

This housing directive, which was put in place to help San Francisco achieve its unprecedented goal of building 82,000 housing units over the next eight years, also aims to speed up the lengthy building and permit process that developers have been constantly complaining about. .

“One big part that San Francisco hasn’t handled effectively at all is how we can expedite the permit process,” Hogan said. “Everyone is so fixated on zoning, but I would argue that a lot of the permitting dysfunction is a bigger issue because it really discourages people from doing projects here.”

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