> The value of that entire area for business is headed to zero.

If only there were some other high-value use for San Francisco real estate besides office space.

For anyone genuinely wondering why they don't do the implied thing and convert it to residential, the answer is that the San Francisco permitting process to build even as little as a single-family home on an unused lot can often require paying someone full-time to hassle the city government literally every single day for several years straight, and then if the NIMBYs persuade the board of supervisors against it the project gets denied anyway.

This is half of it, but plumbing, windows, layout, and elevators are very different between residential and offices.

Nonetheless, commercial->residential conversions tend to be pretty popular. All those industrial-themed urban lofts in other cities sell/rent just fine

Different converting the 1890s brick 4 story buildings vs the 1970s or 2000s or 2010s office buildings.

Considering the amount of raw engineering ingenuity concentrated in San Francisco, I’m pretty confident they’d be able to figure it out.

Sure but the rent roll would barely cover the AWS bill

In high land value areas demolishing and rebuilding can be a commercially viable alternate to conversions as well.

Has SF really built much in the past 20 years? Comparing what I saw there with old movies it didn’t seem like it.

> If only there were some other high-value use for San Francisco real estate besides office space.

Converting office space to residential space is hard. Not just the zoning issues, these can be solved... the major problem is building technology. The entire HVAC system has to be ripped out and replaced, as people want individual temperature controls, to not smell whatever their neighbor is cooking or smoking and they want to have showers as well, which is problematic because office HVAC systems are not set up to deal with high humidity air and will have instant mold issues. (Side note, that is the reason why many companies, despite offering "bike to work" incentives, won't have showers installed)

Some spaces, particularly high-rises, lack windows that can be opened. A lot of space can't reasonably be rented out as many jurisdictions require a certain amount of direct sunlight for a room to be legally considered residential.

But the worst issue is plumbing: offices generally are set up with centralized loos and the kitchen nearby (if there is a kitchen at all). That keeps the amount of vertical pipes for cold, hot and waste water very low. In a residential building however, unless it's some sort of boarding house, people generally expect to have their own bathroom which means a ton of work to retrofit, more so in a way that doesn't lead to noise complaints.

> Not just the zoning issues, these can be solved...

Those are difficult to solve California, and near impossible in San Francisco.

It's hard to transform many office buildings into residential spaces, unless you demolish them and rebuild.

Office buildings usually have huge floorplans while residential places require windows, so any space within ~5-6meters from the wall is basically useless (bathrooms, elevator shafts, storage spacce, stairways and not much else can be positioned there)

The New York Times had a nice interactive article recently for subscribers showing how some office buildings can be and have been converted to residential. Most of the illustrations that tell the story didn’t seem to get captured by the Wayback Machine, unfortunately:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230317112255/https://www.nytim...

Then demolish and rebuild. No reason to delay the inevitable.

Why not SROs? They’re notorious for thin walls.

In the 80s and 90s it was a bedroom community for Silicon Valley. I used to commute to Palo Alto from SF.

Turn it into a park.

This is how cities die. If the downtown gets abandoned the heart of the city stops beating. The whole premise of a city is a high density area to get economies of scale on many public goods.

> This is how cities die. If the downtown gets abandoned the heart of the city stops beating.

My office is in a 90+ year old skyscraper in Chicago. Our building is not renewing leases; they’re trying to empty it out to convert to residential. At our last town hall the CEO said he’s hearing talk about incentives to terminate leases early.

In the Chicago Loop, population is up 10% since before the pandemic, and expected to continue to increase faster than new construction can handle, so there is real demand for converting old office buildings. Old buildings typically have ideal floor plates. New office buildings are bad, but there was a story in The NY Times just the other day about a developer who cut a vertical hole in the middle of a newer skyscraper in Manhattan so the giant rectangular floor plate became an O-shape, allowing apartments along the interior of the building to have windows opening to an interior courtyard.

SF really needs to get on the ball before the damage to the city is too great.

> Our building is not renewing leases; they’re trying to empty it out to convert to residential

How do they plan to retro-fit the appropriate sewerage, water, gas and electricity connections? They're the biggest blockers for converting to residential. Not saying it can't be done, but expensive, and interesting to see novel ways of approaching this, as there is going to be a big demand for that in the coming years.

Gas, electricity, and water all seem fairly easy and just a matter of money. (They’re all provided under pressure.) Sewer falls by gravity and so has more physical constraints on routing and access for clean outs.

Yeah - I've never understood this arguement, all the big buildings I've worked in have had electricity, water and sewerage - maybe not plumbed in the dispersed way that you get in residential but available throughout the buildin at any rate.

In addition to what everyone has already written, it might be worth pointing out that office buildings usually have a floor-to-ceiling distance far greater than residential buildings. So you can add in a bunch of piping directly underneath the floor, then create a new ceiling below the pipes, and the result is still very acceptable.

Second, the quirks are part of the charm [*]. Nobody is marketing these conversions as ultra-luxury units. The history of the building is celebrated, not hidden

[*]. For example, our building still has an operating mail chute system and I bet that it will be kept around after conversion.

Take a look at this page: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/new-york-citys-mail-ch...

The photo of the Roosevelt Hotel near the bottom shows what ours looks like on the office floors - floor to ceiling glass so you can see letters from above zip past on their way to the lobby.

The usage rates are vastly different. What do people in an office building use water for? Coffee, dishwashing, toilet flushing. Those will be somewhat dispersed through the day. Compared to a residential building where half of the building is having a shower in the space of an hour or so in the morning. So you need to get more water in and more water out, both of which probably need the pipes replaced, and more space to hold them (even more at the lower levels of the building). Similar problem with electricity if that's what's being used for cooking.

That was a good piece in the NY Times. I'm skeptical about what probably an expensive lower-story apartment with a view out into basically a lightwell would be like. I've had hotel rooms like that but maybe this is better done.

I’d be really skeptical too, and I hope the price-per-square-foot is much lower to compensate.

I would imagine that some well-angled mirrors near the top of the building can greatly increase the amount of light that goes down that hole.

"I'm skeptical about what probably an expensive lower-story apartment with a view out into basically a lightwell would be like."

The key here (I assume) is that it is a 90 year old skyscraper (according to your parent) and those older buildings are, generally, easier to convert and have a smaller floor plate, etc.

Of course I have no idea about this particular building but word on the street is, older office buildings have a better chance of being good candidates.

Perhaps a matter of taste, but the older buildings are more attractive visually which raises their desirability. 1930s Art Deco beats steel and glass. They are also very centrally located in the inner core.

I would assume older buildings to have larger floor plates? Many of New York's newer skyscrapers, esp. the "one luxury apartment per floor" kind, are really skinny.

For office buildings, no.

Older office buildings tend to be geared towards small offices for smaller businesses, like small law practices. Modern cubicle farms are much larger, open offices even more so.

Also, older regulations on building forms pre-war required more setbacks at taller heights, creating the “wedding-cake” style tower common during that time. The modern glass box is generally wider.

The 180 Water Street with the courtyard added in the Times article is an example of a newer building (1970).

It's hard to describe downtown/fidi as the heart of the city. It was already pretty dead on weekends compared to the rest of the city in 2019. OTOH, rents have been stubbornly flat or growing in other parts of the city. Places like the mission, hayes valley, marina, north beach and polk are very lively now and I'm back to struggling at getting reservations at some of my favorite places outside of downtown. I think what suffers the most is tourism - as places like Union Square, downtown and fisherman's wharf are relatively empty.

This is how cities -- cities without commercial on street level and residential above, cities where you need to own a car -- die.

By and large, U.S. does cities wrong.

Fortunately for San Francisco, "commercial on street level and residential above" does describe many of its neighborhoods

That doesn't describe SF in the least.

Didn't say it did.

OP said this is how cities die, my point is there's a type that is more at risk, and most U.S. cities are that type.

Then I don't understand your comment.

Grandparent said "this is how cities die" related to remote working and emptying the downtown core - as is happening SF.

You then said "This is how cities -- cities without commercial on street level and residential above, cities where you need to own a car -- die."

The topic is San Francisco. So am I to read your comment as completely unrelated to the topic at hand?

The phrase "cities without commercial on street level and residential above, cities where you need to own a car" is adding a condition onto "this is how cities die" to say that the original prediction doesn't apply to SF. Because SF has "commercial on street level and residential above" and you don't "need to own a car", people in the rest of the city depend less on the downtown. While downtown may be abandoned, it's not heart of the rest of the city.

At least that's what Terretta is saying. I haven't even visited SF in over a decade, so I don't know what its current situation is like.

You don’t need a car in SF. Also can you name a city that has “died” recently? Maybe Detroit?

OP to whom I replied said "This is how cities die."

My point was they have no resilience and can die if they are automobile commuter cities with a hollowed out resident-free center.

The greater Detroit area has not been in great shape for decades, but my understanding is that the core of the city is thriving.

Yep, going to hell in a handbasket. Just terrible. Most certainly going to be a desolate wasteland before long. I'll do you a favor and buy your house.

If the downtown gets abandoned by offices, it can be populated by something else epxloiting lower prices, as has happened countless times throughout the history. Take London's Soho for example: first populated by wealthy families and Huguenots, then abandoned by them and taken over by prostitutes and such, which ultimately made it the centre of entertainment with new theatres and music venues, made cool by gays, and then gentrified again by the wealthy. It's a circle, not a line.

San Francisco's downtown was already deeply unhealthy in 2017. If it wasn't a workday, everything was closed. The only things that existed downtown were offices and office support, like lunch restaurants.

Yep, that’s been my experience as well. This might actually turn downtown around if it’s forced to convert more to residential.

With its hills, access to green space, forests, ocean, waterways and culture it’s a fantastic city to live - up there with the best in the US in my books.

I’ve even grown to love the fog and wind, it feels amazing to come back to in the summer when everywhere inland from the coast is baking in 100+ degree weather.

> love the fog and wind I think that the original perception of California in general and San Francisco in particular as having good climate is based in the pre-air conditioning era, when no effective artificial climate control existed.

Downtown SF is weird. I love the neighborhoods, but the downtown feels like a movie set without enough extras in the background. Maybe if developers converted more of downtown to residential it could help the city have some night life as well because that was the other odd thing that struck me about SF.

Downtown is also dark and gloomy in an already gloomy city. I’ve been to many cities but have never seen a downtown like SF. Too many tall buildings may be? But other than offices, conference center and office lunch places there’s just nothing to bring people in. The bars were usually empty, not many good dinner places…etc. It was always weird and depressing.

SF’s downtown was a dead zone in the 70s and early 80s. Market street was boarded up.

Times change, and then change again.

I was on Market street today around 6pm and it was crowded, loud, full of life. And that's even on a slightly rainy Wednesday. You clearly haven't been so recently?

Yeah. Clearly no one goes there anymore. The place is too crowded.

GDC?

Same way in my city. There are dozens and dozens of parking structures that are just absolute blights on the area, ultrawide streets that discourage and make miserable any form of walking, unmanaged homeless and addict problems, and awful zoning (even mixed use needs to ensure that there are many small tenants, not one massive tenant).

LOL SF. Really, if SF has a problem, then most of the small market cities that had terrible downtowns pre-pandemic are done for.

I am not concerned for SF, I am concerned for small cities like Winnipeg Canada or Buffalo NY.

So San Francisco is becoming Detroit?

It would actually be pretty poetic. 100 years ago, Detroit was one of the wealthiest cities in the world. It was perhaps the center of the US economy. The Model T was introduced in 1908 and by the 1910s and 20s, there were more than a dozen car companies forming every year, with the biggest ones being located in Detroit. The city was a manufacturing powerhouse and with the immense wealth generated, they built wonderful theaters, funded a world class symphony, and built great museums (many of these things still remain today). It became a cultural hub. If you told someone in Detroit at the time that the city would be in ruins before the turn of the century, they probably would have had a good laugh.

The difference is SF has amazing weather, some of the best in the world. Detroit is a windy frozen wasteland 6 months of the year. I think they need to do a whole order of magnitude more self-destruction before they’ll really be able to keep people away.

That's a bit of an exaggeration but SF has both weather and easy access to a lot of natural beauty, hiking trails, and so forth.

Detroit has a nice Riverwalk and I'm sure any locals can point to other local things of interest.

I will say that I was at a tech event in Detroit in the fall. Things I would do (knowing what I do about the city even today) in SF at night without a second thought felt risky and many other attendees felt the same--and there were some safety incidents. It wasn't even so much the things that might make you feel unsafe in the Tenderloin. It's that if you were walking 1/2 mile to someplace it was just deserted.

I'm guessing you were at Kubecon as well. It was my first time in Detroit and overall thought the city was much nicer than expected. But to be fair, I mostly was just downtown during the day and we ended up staying in a suburb (Royal Oak) because all of the hotels within walking distance were booked by the time I registered for the conference. The drive between Royal Oak (adjacent to the city limits) and downtown Detroit had some areas that looked dilapidated or worse.

> The difference is SF has amazing weather, some of the best in the world.

Uhmm, I don't think I agree here. The Mediterranean has better weather all around. I like mid-west weather more if we are talking about US. SF is also very windy. Annoyingly windy. SF weather is "okay" but nowhere near the best. It does have great scenery nearby though.

SF is foggy before 11am and after 3pm between Apr and August. Then it’s cold from Nov-Feb. There’s literally only two months of good weather in SF proper (Sep/Oct). Certain areas might dodge the fog an hour extra. I found SF and London to have very similar weather. Rest of the Bay Area is a wholly different story. San Francisco has shitty weather.

Notably, there is a lot of coastal area in southern California that shares the same climate zone as the Mediterranean.

The GP literally said "...some of the best in the world"?

I just looked things up for SF and I have to say I would not regard it as some of the best in the world. Pretty temperate, with mild annual swings: summer highs of 23C and winter lows of 7C - that's actually a little on the cool side for me hah. But the rain is wrong way round, IMO wet summers and dry winters are better, and it seems like it's also quite humid?

My experience is obviously limited, and weather preference is subjective, so read the above as if it's coming from one idiot on the Internet.

Comparison is with rest of the US.

It has the best weather of any "real" city. San Jose and San Diego aren't "real" cities. Parts of LA get too hot. Florida is too humid. Redwood City is the obvious winner for weather, but it doesn't have sports teams, concerts, museums--big city amenities.

"sports teams, concerts, museums--big city amenities"

Which, arguably, was more important 50 years ago.

This isn't obvious to me. Why aren't these as important?

Because mass media allows us to replace experiences that previously required physical participation (if only going to a specific location) with consuming those experiences anywhere we want - a trend that is only expanding/intensifying.

Watching a concert on Youtube or seeing a baseball game on TV are completely different than seeing them in person.

Midwest = Kansas... Minnesota?

> The difference is SF has amazing weather, some of the best in the world

Correction - places near SF have amazing weather. SF itself - not that amazing.

SF weather is sometimes amazing, occasionally miserable, but generally not bad.

Weather has almost nothing to do with Detroit's economic decline, though.

Compare the population decline of Detroit with Milwaukee:

https://www.biggestuscities.com/city/detroit-michigan

https://www.biggestuscities.com/city/milwaukee-wisconsin

Note that, despite the relative decline, Detroit still has a higher absolute population than Milwaukee, which matters if we're to assume that (generally speaking) more population correlates with more potential economic activity (which may be a contentious statement in broad strokes, but these two cities are fairly comparable).

That just means the homeless thrive.

> The difference is SF has amazing weather, some of the best in the world.

Did you mean the Bay Area, or SF?

Most of the Bay Area has fairly nice weather year-round. San Francisco though, has pretty terrible weather. Foggy and cold most of the time.

I've lived in SF first time in 1997. Market Street was utterly shit back then already. This was before SoMa became a big thing for internet startups. Scary, shops closed or decrepit. Frankly SF hasn't used it's potential in a long time.