For years, the Academy of Art operated as one of San Francisco's most prolific — and controversial — property hoarders. At its peak, the school controlled dozens of buildings across the city, many of which sat underutilized or were converted to school use without proper permits. The city eventually forced a reckoning, requiring the Academy to bring properties into compliance or convert them to housing. The Fisherman's Wharf sale appears to be part of that slow unwinding.

So here's the big question: will this actually become housing?

On paper, the conversion designation is promising. San Francisco desperately needs units, and repurposing existing buildings is often faster and cheaper than building from scratch. Fisherman's Wharf isn't exactly a neighborhood people associate with residential living — it's mostly tourists, sourdough bread bowls, and sea lions — but adding housing stock to any part of the city is a net positive, especially when it doesn't require years of entitlement battles.

The concern, as always, is execution. San Francisco has a remarkable talent for turning straightforward real estate transactions into decade-long bureaucratic odysseys. A new owner with housing intentions still has to navigate planning, permits, and whatever curveballs the city's approval process throws at them. We've seen "marked for housing" properties languish in limbo before.

The Academy of Art selling off properties it never should have hoarded in the first place is progress — slow, reluctant progress, but progress. The real test is whether the city can get out of its own way long enough to let someone actually build. We're cautiously optimistic, but this is San Francisco. We've been burned before.

We'll be tracking what happens with this site. Stay tuned.