San Francisco's downtown has been the city's engine of innovation and prosperity for years, but it's been slow to rebound from the pandemic.
It has one of the highest commercial vacancy rates of any big city in America and now a city supervisor has a new suggestion for filling all that empty space -- convert it into homes.
"Our office buildings are approaching over 30% vacancy, we have one of the worst return to work downtown cores in the entire country," said Supervisor Ahsha Safai.
Safai says the downtown core makes up 70% of the city's gross domestic product. But unfortunately, commercial vacancy rates are likely to stay high as tech and financial firms continue to evaluate how much office space they really need in a post-COVID world.
At the same time, the city has another major problem.
"We have a housing crisis, we have a housing shortage. So, how can we create, in a much more expedited way, housing,” said Safai.
The supervisor is convening a hearing in March to explore fast tracking the conversion of commercial office space into residential or mixed use space.
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It's something some developers have already done in the city. The largest such project is 100 Van Ness.
In 2011, developers began stripping the former AAA California headquarters down to its beams and floors, ultimately transforming it into 400 apartments.
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According to the developer, the floors had adequate plumbing and sun exposure for residents, making it a relatively straightforward transformation.
Completed in 2015, 100 Van Ness is an example of a commercial office tower being converted to residential. Right next door right now, is another conversion in progress at 30 Van Ness. It had been a five-story, city-owned office building.
It was sold to a developer and torn down last year and will be replaced with a towerful of offices, condominiums, and performing arts space.
According to the mayor's office, the city has commissioned a study to see how many towers in the downtown core could be candidates for similar conversion.
That study should be completed in March.
