UC Law San Francisco's $288 million renovation of the 28-story tower at 100 McAllister St. has completed major structural work on the building's gutted core, the Examiner reported on Thursday. "We got the building topped off before the rains come," chief financial officer David Seward said. Crews had removed the entire top floor, leaving the hollowed core exposed. That opening has now been covered, and the crane over the site can come down.
The art deco and Gothic Revival tower, at the northwest corner of McAllister and Leavenworth at the edge of Civic Center and the Tenderloin, was once the West Coast's tallest hotel skyscraper. UC Law acquired it for student housing in 1980. When the work is finished, Seward told the Examiner, it is expected to provide about 280 beds at below-market-rate prices for students at UC Law and other schools.
When it opens, and what will be inside
The school's Academic Village page says the renovated tower is expected to be completed in fall 2027 and will provide 80 residential units ranging from one- to six-bedroom apartments, plus academic, administrative and amenity space. Seward told the Examiner completion is "projected for next winter." Those two timelines are not the same; this account reports both and does not choose between them.
The same official page says the project is supported primarily through a significant State of California investment. Seward told the Examiner the state has provided $90 million for the project, plus millions more for debt payments, and that the tower is being upgraded to University of California seismic-safety standards. Plans include academic space, an athletic center with a basketball court to replace one that was originally there, community spaces, and a large assembly room in a hall once used for religious gatherings. Nonprofit organizations serving local youths will be given access to the new recreation center, he said. The school is also restoring brick, copper, stucco and other historic fabric, the Examiner reported.
Why the tower matters for student housing
The tower is meant to be a centerpiece of UC Law's Academic Village, several buildings on two blocks in which the school will have invested about $750 million since 2016, Seward said. UC Law has about 1,120 students. The village already serves students from other institutions, including UCSF, UC Davis, the University of San Francisco, San Francisco State University and University of the Pacific. A nearby building at 198 McAllister, reopened in 2023, has 656 affordable student-housing beds, the school's site says. The historic tower opened in 1930 as a hotel and church project of the Temple Methodist Church, according to a history by architecture firm Page & Turnbull that the Examiner cited from Planning Department records.
The school has not, in the materials reviewed for this story, published an application process or rental rates for the new beds. Those details are expected closer to opening.