How Office Conversions Could Benefit San Francisco

In an article for the San Francisco Chronicle, Noah Arroyo provides an in-depth look at Calgary’s effort to convert vacant downtown office buildings into housing, arguing that San Francisco could follow its example to do the same.

According to Karen Chapple, director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto, who has studied the issue, San Francisco has the slowest downtown recovery of 60 major North American cities, in part because of the expense and difficulty of converting office buildings to residential uses.

In Calgary, “The government pursued office-to-housing conversions for their dual benefits: reducing the overall supply of office space so that the remainder was more valuable, and increasing the housing supply.” When Calgary’s downtown began to empty out, “Canadian officials responded to the long-term decline of its business district with a 10-year, $1 billion initiative — equivalent to about $721 million U.S. dollars — to transform the area into a diverse, thriving neighborhood, in large part by funding and fast-tracking projects that convert offices to housing.”

The city identified an area with suitable properties, targeting incentives there to encourage developers. “To date, five conversions have been approved to create 707 units of housing.” The article describes other measures Calgary took to streamline the conversion process and lower costs. 

Meanwhile, “San Francisco officials are weighing whether to help conversions happen — but not just to create new housing.” A spokesperson for Mayor London Breed said the city is also looking at other uses, such as light manufacturing or lab space, that could help diversify the city’s core and prevent an overreliance on one industry. Rich Hillis, director of the San Francisco Planning Department, cautioned against converting offices to housing too hastily, saying that “moving away from this too prematurely can have implications that include the loss of business and the revenue that goes with them.”