Built in 1913 and opened as the Keystone Hotel, roughly half (81) of the 168 hotel rooms at 54 Fourth Street, which is now ‘The Mosser,’ were subsequently reclassified and rented as residential units without kitchens (i.e., SRO units) which average 142 square feet in size, thirteen (13) of which remain occupied by permanent residents, four (4) of which have been occupied by the same tenants for over 20 years.

As proposed, sixty-eight (68) of the SRO units will be permanently converted to tourist hotel rooms, which are expected to fetch rates of up to $599 per night, with the thirteen (13) rooms occupied by permanent residents to remain as “residential” units for now and the aforementioned four (4) to receive lifetime leases.

Rather than providing replacement SRO units on a one-to-one basis, Mosser Companies is planning to pay a yet to be determined “in-lieu fee” to an affordable housing fund in order to move forward with the conversion.

And while the conversion will result in a reduction in existing SRO units, which are affordable by design, it will also result in more market-rate hotel rooms and “contribute to [the economic health of San Francisco] by creating jobs at the hotel” and meet the needs of tourists whom are “more likely to spend money in nearby restaurants, bars and retail shops,” as noted in the project’s application.