Plans to convert the two office buildings at 1020-1028 Kearny Street into a collective of 24 sleeping rooms averaging 125 square feet apiece, with a few as small as 85 square feet, are in the works.
As envisioned, the residents of the 24 sleeping rooms would share ten (10) full bathrooms, two (2) powder rooms, a communal kitchen/dining room and a living room on the first floor of the project on the edge of Jackson Square, as well as a new outdoor terrace adjacent to setback penthouse level on the roof.
We’ll keep you posted as the plans progress and Planning responds to the proposal.
Is the intent for these rooms as crash pads for people with jobs in the city but who live far away in the exurbs for affordability? In other words come in to town on Monday, crash here through to Friday when you go home and spend the weekend with your family. Works even better for those who work long shifts for fewer days. Like hospital staff who work 3 x 12 hour shifts and then go home for the remaining four days.
There are firefighters and police officers who have assembled their own DIY crash pad scheme via trailers and Winnebagos. This would be an upgrade.
The intent is to rent the rooms to whoever will pay the most.
Is this intended to rent annually/monthly like an SRO?
This is a real head scratcher…this is valuable property. Make it an office or an apartment building.
temporary use, low cap-x to convert, hold the property for another decade and catch a better part of a future cycle for a full rebuild. Maybe spend the time collecting neighboring lots that can be combined in a larger development.
You might want to run the numbers before scratching too much. Keep in mind that they have been trying to lease the two buildings, which total around 9,000 square feet, for $45 per square foot per year.
That rent would have amounted to roughly 400K/Y
With 24 rooms, provided they can extract 1400/month (big IF), they would collect more or less a similar amount but the overhead (security, administration, maintenance, upkeep) will eat some of that.
Its a trojan horse for later sticking 100 condos on the footprint. Simple as that.
Jackson Square desperately needs more residential.
are this many people allowed in that small of space per code?
Hope there is a window or ventilation in the 85 sf room. No smoking please.
So instead of being the Paris of the West, we’re now the Tokyo of the West. Great.
No. Tokyo is clean. Very clean. We are more like Phnom Penh – sans friendly locals.
Why not just build a salary-man tube hotel like they do in Tokyo.
I stayed a night in one of those in Tokyo
I have no doubt we have too many low life degenerates in the US for anything like it to work here
True dat. There are a lot of cool Japanese ideas that won’t work here because they rely on people behaving nicely. Like vending machines that sell sake.
Or the ones that sell used schoolgirl panties?
Seriously though, isn’t it hilarious how hard everyone pushing for these projects bends over backwards not to call them SROs?
Which is kinda stupid. SROs were a valid housing choice up until the 50s, serving all income levels, even luxury, until they fell out of fashion and became dumping grounds for the poor.
This one could go either way. Let’s hope it doesn’t end up as another low rent hole.
“As small as 85 square feet”? SF public housing standard was only 80 square feet. Feds wouldn’t pay for more.
WOW! Think of all the new business Larry Flynt’s Hustler club will now get, being right across the street! And don’t forget…Palm Beach Video! 2 real selling points!
Tech shtetl housing.