Hacker News Reader

There don’t seem to be any rules preventing residential construction in the existing C-3-O zone. In general SF permits residential construction anywhere, but the problems come from the fact that all development permits in that city are discretionary, so you never know what the real rules are until you get in front of a hearing.

If they can make that conversion this seems like it would be a steal. $225/sq ft versus over $1000/sq ft for residential in SF. SF doesn't seem like somewhere that would vote against more housing being available, so if it doesn't even involve rezoning, I'm curious if that's a viable path for this and other office buildings.

I've seen a few stories about this, mostly in relation to banks' CRE portfolios showing weakness to varying degrees

https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle/convert-emp...

From my understanding the utility requirements for residential versus office means that it is often easier/cheaper to just demolish and rebuild.

However, the more skyscrapery the building gets, the less that may be the case.