Plan to convert Hearst Building, home to old Examiner, to a hotel

The landmark Hearst office building at Third and Market streets, once the home of the San Francisco Examiner, would be converted to a luxury hotel under a plan the owners expect to submit to the city in the next few weeks.

The property would capitalize on the structure’s colorful history as one of three newspaper buildings — The Chronicle and the Call were the others — at the intersection of Third, Kearny and Market streets, once known as the Newspaper Angle.

A few years ago, JMA Ventures converted another city landmark, Ghirardelli Square, into Fairmont Heritage Place, a mix of a hotel and fractional condos.

JMA Ventures partner Todd Chapman said Ghirardelli Square, which has the city’s highest hotel room rates, shows that visitors to San Francisco are hungry for accommodations that mix city history with modern amenities.

Chapman said the move toward hospitality was partially inspired by the work of one of the building’s tenants, Future Bars, which operates three businesses in the structure: the Local Edition and Lark bars, as well Cask, a spirits shop.

Local Edition, which opened four years ago, has decor that is an homage to the city’s newspaper history with displays of vintage newspapers, printing presses, Dictaphones and Linotype machines.

The transformation of the building could be bad news for some nonprofits that have long called the structure home and that now face a difficult real estate market.

Nonprofit tenants include the California Preservation Foundation, the National Trust for Historic Places, the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation and Death Penalty Focus.

The influx in new hotel projects is being prompted by a mix of booming tourism, robust business travel, healthy convention business and a development that has added only a handful of major hotels in the past 15 years.

Before it was purchased by the Hearst family, the southeast corner of Third and Market was home to the Nucleus Hotel.