San Francisco Creatively Making It Easier to Convert 48 Office Buildings to Residential

“For the past four years, the city has been rolling out the red carpet for developers or building owners to convert underutilized historic office buildings: cutting fees, slicing red tape, relaxing zoning restrictions, and eliminating both affordable housing requirements and transfer taxes. The city has about 30 million square feet of vacant office space. Despite the extensive efforts, the city has nothing to show for it” SF Chronicle 2/15/26  Now Mayor Lurie has another plan that establishes a special financing district to offer incentive payments over 30 years to offset development costs of converting office buildings to residential. The 48 office buildings are for the most part historic Class B and C, with operable windows and smaller floor plates to allow the residences natural light.  If all 48 buildings were converted (yes, a long shot), there would be about 4,400 units and 7,000 residents in downtown San Francisco, which would be a huge benefit to retail. The AI office boom in San Francisco, leasing over 6 million square feet of office space over the past few years, has focused on Class A buildings and not the older, smaller-floor plate product so this plan makes a lot of sense.