12 ms·

I'm in San Francisco and would love to see vacant offices converted into live/work housing. The Clocktower lofts on Bryant & 2nd Street are a great example of

• RichardCNormos 4y ago
  Absolutely. Low-income housing is the perfect use for all this extra office space. San Francisco has a problem where the low-income people who work to serve high-income people can't afford to live in the city that they work in. Converting office space into affordable housing is a win for everyone, except the landlords, but I won't shed a tear for them ;-)
  • kasey_junk 4y ago
    Who do you expect will pay for the conversions if not landlords?
    • porcc 4y ago
      Obviously government subsidy..
      • HEmanZ 4y ago
        Meaning taxes
        • mc32 4y ago
          Or, good old QE. Who wants to live in a city if you can work from home? If you are poor and need housing subsidies and there are no jobs for you, there is no reason to live in the city to begin with. People go live where the jobs are. Without "white collar" jobs producing demand for services, there is much less demand for "blue collar" jobs. If it's just cooping people up, there are cheaper ways to house people than maintaining expensive buildings that need financing and upkeep.
      • dahfizz 4y ago
        Subsidies.... to the landlords who own the buildings? Or are you saying this will be owned and operated by the government?
  • chrisseaton 4y ago
    We've tried to convert offices to homes in the UK, and there's something particularly dystopian about the result. I think they have to make strange trade-offs to make the space useful, and its ends up being not very nice. I'm sure it's better than being on the street, but it isn't nice.
    • marcinzm 4y ago
      NYC has build a lot of dedicated public housing and even then dystopian is probably a good summary of the result.
      • grepLeigh 4y ago
        I grew up in the Sedgwick projects in the Bronx, and my grandma still lives there. She's been in the same rent-controlled apartment for 40+ years, which was affordable to her as a small business owner (hair/beauty salon). She's now living independently at age 86, thanks to a social security check and a community where she's everyone's abuela. Rent-controlled housing made it easier to divorce her abusive husband and start a business back in the 60s. How is that dystopian?
        • achenet 4y ago
          not the person you are responding to, but I think they meant dystopian as in the "vibe" of the place. For example, many housing projects in France (where I live), tend to be basically large concrete rectangles, with very little green space. When compared to posher neighborhoods, with lots of trees everywhere, this can seem a little claustrophobic/totalitarian/dystopian. It feels like a less "human friendly" environment than you stereotypical suburb with front lawns.
          • grepLeigh 4y ago
            I see where that's coming from, but to offer an alternate perspective the suburbs seemed "dystopian" to me at first - we moved upstate for middle/high school. The same 6-8 Stepford model homes on every street, strip malls filled with the same 10 stores (Walgreens/CVS, Costco/Walmart, etc), people dressed VERY similarly, and nobody walked anywhere. The teens in my suburban high school seemed way less happy and did more/harder drugs compared to the Bronx. I'm not saying the projects were lovely. The elevators smelled like piss. But public housing - even ugly public housing - was a huge part in enabling two generations of single moms (my mom + grandma) to raise their families, start businesses, and thrive.
  • giantg2 4y ago
    Theoretically, the wages should come up to make it possible to live there, assuming the service providers are actually having trouble hiring. It seems to me there might be some disconnect in demand and supply of various labor types (not many unskilled jobs compared to the number of unskilled workers, vs not many software devs but lots of openings). It seems these forces drag the bottom down while pushing the top higher. Edit: why disagree?
    • abeppu 4y ago
      > Theoretically, the wages should come up to make it possible to live there, assuming the service providers are actually having trouble hiring. Why, theoretically, would wages rise enough to make it possible for any worker to live in the city? I think the situation where workers with the worst alternatives and weakest negotiating position are stuck commuting into SF from outside is unfortunate but theoretically entirely understandable; SF wages aren't forced to rise to support someone living here, but only to be high enough relative to wages elsewhere to compensate for the cost of commuting.
      • giantg2 4y ago
        "but only to be high enough relative to wages elsewhere to compensate for the cost of commuting." True, but then the implied issues with not living in the city you work in become moot if truly compensating for the commute and cost of living outside the city.
        • abeppu 4y ago
          I think maybe you mean something by "truly compensating" which isn't actually being achieved. But the lesser compensation we are achieving is still sufficient to impact people's behavior. Suppose you're able to get two part time jobs with relatively little predictability in your shift schedule. Both are minimum wage, but one is in SF where the minimum is $17/hr and another is in Concord at $14/hr (the state minimum for a company with <25 employees). Say you live in Antioch, and can get to the Concord job in around 35 minutes for $4 with BART, and get to the SF job with more than 1h and $7.30 on BART (one way). So for every shift in SF you pick up, you get a $3 premium per hour relative to the Concord job, but for the first 2 hours that just goes to cover your extra BART fare, _and_ you lose an extra hour in transit. In dollars you still come out ahead on an 8 hour shift in SF relative to in Concord, but I think it would be unreasonable to say that "the implied issues ... become moot".
  • dymk 4y ago
    You can't just convert office space into residential space. Completely different building codes. Just the retrofit for the plumbing makes it untenable.
    • throw8383833jj 4y ago
      I know this will get downvoted but, I say Throw the building codes out the window. Housing people is more important than regulations. If it made a difference to your ability to get shelter, which would you rather choose: have shelter or live in a illegal tent under a bridge resting assured with the knowledge that there's a big book of rules in place.
      • trentgreene 4y ago
        The problem is not all codes are meaningless regulation, and some of the important ones are indeed expensive (and vice versa). If you yolo it, you get cases like the Grenfell tower fire, and a lot of people literally die.
      • grepLeigh 4y ago
        This is how you get housing tenements, and SF has a history of over-paying for impermanent housing solutions (like tents in a parking lot, or cots in a navigation center). Not all buildings in SF are high-rise open-plans. If you're imagining converting Salesforce tower, I see how that would seem impractical. Most commercial office space in SOMA (old warehouse buildings) can be converted into live/work lofts.
      • dymk 4y ago
        Building codes were written in blood (and for much of the plumbing code, human feces and black mold).
        • achenet 4y ago
          anyone up for a rewrite in Rust? :D
    • SoftTalker 4y ago
• MarkMarine 4y ago
  What do you think makes live/work housing more desirable than just live? I haven’t seen live work spaces and I’m not sure what the allure would be. I used to be in the city, in essentially a shoe box that cost 5k a month, but with a fancy gym and common area. I moved to Marin during COVID and while I miss the food and walking distance/public transit activities I could do, I don’t think I can go back to the extremely small for the money living area. I’m hopeful a glut of new housing, hopefully spacious, will change that calculus.
  • giantg2 4y ago
    This sort of setup would cross my mind while in college. The allure is that it would be similar to college - young people enthusiastic for learning but having fun too, no commuting, etc. As I got older it seems more like a nightmare since I hate my job and require more space/independence for my lifestyle/hobbies/family.
    • iancmceachern 4y ago
      It's all about what those hobbies lifestyle is. My wife and I made the opposite move. We had a house, a life, in the suburbs for more than a decade and now happily live in a 1 bedroom loft in SOMA. I would say that for our life, we live in a smaller (it's still pretty big, and not actually that expensive) in the city exactly because of the lifestyle/hobbies/family life we enjoy as a result. It's like the city is your living room.
      • giantg2 4y ago
        True about the hobby types. I still think it generally applies for the live-work setup though. Mostly because it seems most people don't like their jobs and want a disconnect between their spaces. Also because of professional appearances etc influencing your off-hours activities if your coworkers are watching. Even though work and housing aren't in the same buildings, military housing can provide a good lens into this.
        • 4y ago
• AdrianB1 4y ago
  One can only dream, but mid-market price expectations cannot be met. Just read in the article the price for the space, it is huge.
  • iancmceachern 4y ago
    But those aren't the choices. The choices are A - get a commercial tenant that pays the high price you mention, if there aren't any tenants your choices are B - leave it vacant C - rent it out to a lower paying customer (residental). Between B and C C is the clear winner.
    • marcinzm 4y ago
      Option C involves a large investment to convert the property into one that legally allows for residential usage and that people, with money to pay rent, would want to live in. It also blocks option A, without spending all the money to undo things, if the economic situation changes or there's a bailout. So not a clear winner versus simply waiting.
      • iancmceachern 4y ago
        My point is that many buildings, like the one I live in now, do not need changes. They intelligently designed and built it from the beginning to serve both uses well. I'm pointing out that this is a smart approach. If a building needs a ton of renovations to make it meet code for residential occupancy than its not a good building to consider for this. I would say this is a corner case, ignore those. Just convert the 25% easiest buildings that need minimal if any changes.
    • pclmulqdq 4y ago
      Not necessarily. B wins if you depend on the value of the property for some reason or another. Commercial properties are valued based on the net present value of the rents you can get. If you pretend that you can get a higher rate than the market will bear, you can keep the valuation of your building up during a downturn. If you accept the lower-paying tenant, you lower the perceived valuation of the building. This only matters if you have a commercial mortgage... which is every building these days. This is utterly stupid, but it is driving rental vacancies in NYC.
• iancmceachern 4y ago
  My building on SOMA did this. The owners were smart when they built it out and the apartments work well as offices or apartments. During the pandemic they pretty much went all residential. It's so efficient and smarter from the building owner perspective, you double your potential customer base.
  • robg 4y ago
    Full kitchen and bathroom and closets for the office suite?
    • iancmceachern 4y ago
      Yup, exactly. It's not that weird, every office I've worked at in the last 10 years has had a full kitchen and shower, it's almost a required perk in the bay area. The only weird thing IMO is it has a washer and dryer, I've not worked in an office that has those, that's the only difference from "normal" IMO.
      • merely-unlikely 4y ago
        > every office I've worked at in the last 10 years has had a full kitchen and shower Fantastic for bike commuting.
  • grepLeigh 4y ago
    This is such a great example, wish I could upvote this to the top. I think most people are imagining converting high-rises like Salesforce tower. Most commercial office space in SOMA is a converted warehouse. Live/work apartments and lofts have already been converted from the same buildings. Let's do more of these!
• tinalumfoil 4y ago
  > The current asking price is $2,395,000. Our experienced agents can help you determine whether that is a fair amount for the property. What's more, we'll help you strategize and submit a smart offer that will get accepted based on current market conditions. https://www.rubyhome.com/idx/461-2nd-street-san-francisco-ca-94107/21724066_spid/ https://www.rubyhome.com/idx/461-2nd-street-san-francisco-ca... The monthly HOA is $941 lol
  • hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
    FWIW I think a monthly HOA of $941 for a condo that costs $2,395,000 is low. I know places in Austin where (and this was years ago), HOA fees were $1100 for a condo in the $1.2 million range. And, to be clear, I'm not saying 941 is "cheap" on an absolute basis, just that it is for a condo that is already that expensive.
    • ericbarrett 4y ago
      I remember poking around Chicago real estate early last decade, and seeing condos for $500k with $2,000/mo HOA fees. Seems to vary wildly by area.
      • b112 4y ago
        I cannot even think, what is worth that HOA. You could literally hire a full time person, 40hrs per week + give them a room in your house, for that.
        • addaon 4y ago
          Not sure how you figure? Minimum wage in Illinois comes to $2600/month for 40 hours/week. You're giving them a room in a place where the prevailing rent is clearly over $2000/month, which is hard to price at less than $1000/month (a "two roommates" situation)... so your proposed value package is well over twice the HOA fee.
          • 4y ago
• jeffbee 4y ago
  None of this office space is suitable for habitation.
  • tofuahdude 4y ago
    "convert" it to be habitable is the key message here.
    • jeffbee 4y ago
      Is far more difficult than scratch building. The housing opportunity in SF is in all the vacant and underutilized space in the Sunset. Downtown offices do not have the egress, plumbing, ventilation, electricity, or telecomm capacity to be economically converted to dwellings in anything other than a makeshift, emergency fashion.
      • grepLeigh 4y ago
        There's plenty of warehouse office space in SOMA that could meet residential coding requirements. I think most people in this thread are imagining converting high-rise open plans, like Salesforce tower - but most offices in SOMA are actually in warehouse space that's easier to convert. That's why I linked an example of live/work lofts. Which isn't to say we shouldn't utilize outer Sunset space too! There's already great public transport to the SOMA area though. It's a shame to let commercial real estate rot in forbearance, when it's surrounded by the infrastructure needed for excellent city living.
      • tofuahdude 4y ago
        Why not both? Let the market figure it out, just make the zoning permissive enough to allow the opportunity.
• jovial_cavalier 4y ago
  Your city needs homes for people who work at McDonald's. Not more luxury apartments.
  • shaburn 4y ago
    False. The city has too many McDonald's quality apartments at luxury prices. More supply solves this.
  • whimsicalism 4y ago
    Build luxury apartments, people with luxury money will move there rather than buying and converting the McDonald workers' homes.
    • blablabla123 4y ago
      That's not how it works though. It just lowers the price for luxury apartments.
      • whimsicalism 4y ago
        It is literally how it works. There's plenty of evidence showing so.
  • tayo42 4y ago
    i was actually wondering about this. doesn't section 8 housing vouchers take care of this? it also seems like it could lead to increased rents, if you have the government guarantee rent will be paid, you can raise it by a lot and not worry about people not paying, or even not being able to afford it.
    • whimsicalism 4y ago
      > i was actually wondering about this. doesn't section 8 housing vouchers take care of this? not at all.
  • tofuahdude 4y ago
• MontyCarloHall 4y ago
  Not all office space is amenable to residential conversion, since the floor area to exterior wall ratio is often much too high for an apartment building (windowless offices are fine, windowless living rooms, not so much). An office/apartment hybrid might work. I could imagine dividing the building, with offices in the inner core and apartments surrounding the core. The core and surrounding apartments would be totally separated, with separate lobbies and elevators. Although the offices would be totally windowless hellscapes, at least the apartments would have lots of light.
  • shaburn 4y ago
    "(windowless offices are fine, windowless living rooms, not so much)"...*not for the homeless.
    • blablabla123 4y ago
      > windowless offices are fine I think that's a bold statement already
• 29athrowaway 4y ago
  Welcome to the fantastic world of zoning. The answer is no. Why? because the city collects more taxes from commercial zoned stuff.
• m0llusk 4y ago
  Clocktower lofts are also very unlike currently vacant offices. Old industrial buildings had large open spaces that turned out to be easy to reconfigure. Most empty buildings now are more like 100 Van Ness which stayed empty for many years until its value dropped to a fraction of what it had been. And that conversion was still expensive enough to be risky and force offerings to the high end to make the math work out. This is going to be a rough ride.