It was one of the first signs we had of San Francisco's rental market picking up steam post-pandemic, and after running afoul of the city's planning department and building inspectors, a sleeping-pod residence on Mint Plaza is facing eviction by its landlord.

SFist brought the column Apartment Sadness back earlier this month, as signs seem to be pointing to rising residential rents and lower vacancy again, trends which tend to bring some of the city's saddest dwelling units out of the woodwork, so to speak.

But back in September 2023, the column came briefly back to life to highlight a sleeping-pod complex that appeared to have just stealthily opened as 12 Mint Plaza, near Fifth and Mission. We only learned about it because ABC 7 sniffed it out, having spotted a budding AI engineer on social media showing off his $700/month sleeping pod in the heart of San Francisco — the story being that the AI boom was bringing newcomers back to SF seeking cheap places to live while building their chatbot dreams.

This of course is nothing new, and back during the "Web 2.0" boom of the 2010s, similar tech dorms and pod arrangements were popping up around SF and down on the Peninsula in response to SF's high rents.

Lo and behold, a month later, the company behind the Mint Plaza complex, Brownstone Shared Housing, was hit with a building inspection and notice of violations. Those violations included illegally converting a toilet into a shower, illegally installing pod bunks without any permits, and having a completely hazardous front door that required a key to get out of.

Brownstone Shared Housing ended up not getting kicked out, and we learned a year later that it had fixed its violations and gotten its permit approvals from the city retroactively. But in the midst of dealing with all this, operator James Stallworth appears to have fallen behind on lease payments to the building's owner, Kansas-based developer Prime Co. (Last we'd heard, the owner was an entity called Elsey Partners, so the building has possibly changed hands.)

Those arears total around $150,000, as the Chronicle reports today, or about a year's worth of rent. Stallworth doesn't exactly explain why this happened, only that occupancy, originally planned for 30 people, was lowered to 13 by the city while the permitting issues were worked out. The complex now has 26 sleeping pods, and Stallworth tells the paper that they are mostly occupied, but doesn't provide specific numbers or rents.

Stallworth also reportedly signed a new lease with the landlord, giving them 80% of the profits on the pod rentals each month, which seems less than lucrative for Brownstone Shared Housing. And he says he was surprised the landlord decided to file an eviction suit last week.

Still, Stallworth isn't giving up on this concept, and sees a future for the sleeping-pod market in SF. He tells the Chronicle he's in the "final stages" of negotiations for another space that would house 100 sleeping pods (he told ABC 7 something similar back in October 2024), and he plans to keep 12 Mint Plaza open just long enough to transition the remaining tenants there to the new location.

Previously: After Getting City Approvals, Developer of Mint Plaza Sleeping Pod Complex Plans Much Larger Version

Photo via Brownstone Shared Housing