Kilroy Realty Revised Flower Mart Plan for Flexibility
The developer replaced a fixed office-campus model with a design that allows for residential or commercial use.
Updated on Oct. 5, 2026 in Remote Work
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Kilroy Realty Corp has presented a revised development proposal for the 6.5-acre Flower Mart site in San Francisco's Central SoMa. The plan swaps a previously approved 2 million square foot office complex for a flexible design featuring seven buildings capable of housing 3,500 residential units or 2.66 million square feet of commercial space.
Why it matters
The shift reflects a broader developer pivot toward design flexibility to navigate uncertain demand for office versus residential or institutional real estate. Current market conditions and elevated construction costs have rendered the original, singular-use office campus project in Central SoMa unfeasible for the developer.
The revised design covers a 6.5-acre site with seven buildings, capping residential structures at 600 feet and commercial structures at 350 feet. This proposal follows the completion of the Central Subway in 2023 and the new wholesale flower market in 2025.
The players
Kilroy Realty Corp
A publicly traded real estate investment trust that develops and manages office, life science, and mixed-use properties in major West Coast markets.
San Francisco Planning Commission
The local regulatory body responsible for guiding land use, development policy, and zoning decisions within the city.
The details
Kilroy Realty Corp proposed replacing the original three-building office campus with a more granular site plan consisting of seven buildings organized by a new grid of streets and alleys. This design introduces smaller pocket parks and allows the developer to toggle between high-density residential and commercial configurations depending on future market appetite. Construction will only proceed once project economics improve.
Timeline
The Central Subway opened to the public in January 2023.
The new San Francisco Flower Market relocated and opened in January 2025.
The Planning Commission extended an approval for the 725 Harrison project in September 2026.
Kilroy Realty presented the revised Flower Mart proposal in late September 2026.
Market Landscape
This pivot reflects a departure from the office-heavy development patterns incentivized by the Central SoMa Plan. It tracks a broader trend of commercial developers incorporating residential options to mitigate risks associated with high office vacancy rates.
Operators in the construction and commercial real estate sectors should monitor this site as a bellwether for the viability of large-scale, adaptive mixed-use projects in dense urban cores. Business owners should watch for similar rezoning requests as developers struggle with the feasibility of legacy, office-only projects.
The takeaway
Developers are increasingly prioritizing modular, multi-use site plans over rigid single-use projects to survive current market volatility. Business operators with long-term real estate leases should audit their own proximity to these emerging mixed-use grids to anticipate changes in foot traffic and neighborhood amenities.
Further reading
For more on the changing utility of urban office districts, see Remote Work.
Source note: This article includes information reported by San Francisco Chronicle.
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