San Francisco seeks proposals for adaptive reuse of underutilized downtown office buildings

The City of San Francisco released a Request For Interest to identify office building conversions that city officials could help expedite with zoning changes, regulatory measures, and financial incentives.

The city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development and Planning Departments are seeking responses from downtown building owners and sponsors on proposals to convert underused commercial space into housing or other uses. The announcement identifies “office-to-housing” projects as a particular interest, but responses may include conversions of non-residential floor area for other uses.

This is San Francisco’s latest step in an effort to revitalize its downtown in a post Covid-environment where office space is underused while formerly downtown-based employees work from home part-time or full time.

The city recently sponsored a study on how to boost vitality in its financial district. The panel that undertook the study offered recommendations including:

Creating downtown destination zones through ground-plane activation to help transform public spaces and empty storefronts into city attractions.
Reducing and restructuring businesses taxes, including the gross receipts tax, commercial rents tax, CEO tax, and transfer tax.
Providing incentives for office-to-residential conversions to tackle the housing shortage.
Offering other incentives, such as impact-fee waivers and property tax abatement, as well as reducing zoning and building code barriers to adaptive reuse projects.

City officials are also working on an adaptive reuse roadmap for architects, builders, and developers to adapt projects to current building codes and planned revamped codes.

When tapped to create a modern 280-unit residence in downtown Philadelphia, modular builder Volumetric Building Companies used the MagicPak All-in-One™ HVAC system to optimize square footage, expand rooftop amenities, improve the exterior aesthetics and simplify ongoing maintenance – all with 60 percent less onsite HVAC install time than a traditional split system.

Monaco Apartments in Midland, Texas, designed by HEDK Architects, Connect Structural, and Jordan & Skala Engineers, and built by BC Contracting. Photo: Brian Martin, Hommati

Giants 400 | Nov 18, 2021

2021 Multifamily Sector Giants: Top architecture, engineering, and construction firms in the U.S. multifamily building sector

Clark Group, Humphreys and Partners, and Kimley-Horn head BD+C's rankings of the nation's largest multifamily building sector architecture, engineering, and construction firms, as reported in the 2021 Giants 400 Report.

EXACOR mgo underlayment panels on multifamily jobsite

How TDK Construction Saves Time and Money with EXACOR™ MgO Panels: Getting in on the Ground Level

Smart decisions made at the start of multifamily design-builds can improve efficiency on the job site, keeping projects on-time and on-budget, so you can make your properties profitable sooner. TDK Construction did just that on a recent luxury apartment project in Tennessee.

Tuck under parking at Fairfax Flats, Nashville, designed by The Bradley Projects.

Multifamily Housing | Nov 14, 2021

How to build better parking for multifamily housing projects

In designing and building multifamily projects, parking determines everything from site suitability to the building’s footprint to revenue optimization.