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Frisco_Zig
May 15, 2007, 4:48 PM
Beats me.
There are many other ways of being urbane and civilized (none of which SF has attained, of course) beyound or besides HK.
I have no love of Hong Kong as an urban development model.
It's a great and exciting place, but there are other ways to do things, and ways I'd prefer to see them done if I'm to live with the results.
I also have no great love of most of the extraordinarily mediocre and largely ill-considered high-rise buildings which are enthused about by the bigger is better crowd here, if for no reason than that they are effectively impossible to demolish, unlike your average piece of 3 story SF crap (at least until it reaches all of 10 years old and gets into the hands of "historic preservationists"...)
Hong Kong, Vancouver, or Foster City? Those are my only choices?
Though I understand your points to my mind there are 2-3 areas in SF where new residential high rise buildings would be appropriate this is one. The sort of density that you're an advocate for seems to not be politically possible on any helpful scale
I don't see anything ill considered about this building or its setting.
viewguysf
May 16, 2007, 1:47 AM
Beats me.
There are many other ways of being urbane and civilized (none of which SF has attained, of course) beyound or besides HK.
I also have no great love of most of the extraordinarily mediocre and largely ill-considered high-rise buildings which are enthused about by the bigger is better crowd here, if for no reason than that they are effectively impossible to demolish, unlike your average piece of 3 story SF crap (at least until it reaches all of 10 years old and gets into the hands of "historic preservationists"...)
One does not deserve to live here if one fails to realize that San Francisco is urbane and civilized in a plethora of ways. How jaded can one possibly become? It's true that architecturally we are not Chicago, yet in many other ways we are far advanced, greatly civilized and exist in a very urbane environment. In totality, San Francisco is one of the great cities of the world and has been internationally recognized for its high quality of life and beauty. Jettison the bitterness and indulge yourself in what is offered here in our stunning corner of the planet. Where it is weak or in need, work to make it better in a positive manner.
coyotetrickster
May 16, 2007, 3:12 AM
One does not deserve to live here if one fails to realize that San Francisco is urbane and civilized in a plethora of ways. How jaded can one possibly become? It's true that architecturally we are not Chicago, yet in many other ways we are far advanced, greatly civilized and exist in a very urbane environment. In totality, San Francisco is one of the great cities of the world and has been internationally recognized for its high quality of life and beauty. Jettison the bitterness and indulge yourself in what is offered here in our stunning corner of the planet. Where it is weak or in need, work to make it better in a positive manner.
Evidently, some folks prefer to stay jaded. There is always room for improvement, anywhere, but broadside dismissals without any substantiation, well, I'll call the Dept. of Justice for that.
SFView
May 17, 2007, 7:03 AM
San Francisco may not be Chicago, but a little bit of Chicago is moving to San Francisco - Solomon Cordwell Buenz (SBC) http://www.scb.com/
Here is an article from California Construction Magazine - May 2007. Much of the article is old news to SSP:
http://california.construction.com/features/archive/0705_Cover.asp
Cover Story - May 2007
San Francisco Market Report
Sleek and Stylish
New high-rise towers reshape San Francisco's skyline
By Robert Carlsen
While homebuilders across the country wring their hands over slumping housing starts, developers in San Francisco are applauding the anticipated sellout of at least two of three major residential high-rise buildings now under construction.
These three projects - One Rincon Hill, The Infinity and Millennium Tower - are kicking off the redevelopment and reimagination of two neighboring neighborhoods south of Market Street - Rincon Hill and the Transbay Terminal.
The Rincon Hill Plan, adopted by the Board of Supervisors and signed by Mayor Gavin Newsom in August 2005, envisions housing for as many as 20,000 new residents, retail shops and neighborhood services along Folsom Street; and transforming Main, Beale and Spear streets into "traffic-calmed, landscaped residential streets lined with town homes and front doors."
The first of the new Rincon developments is the two-tower One Rincon Hill project, which is being built by Bovis Lend Lease with a design by Chicago's Solon Cordwell Buenz & Associates. The first phase is the taller tower, 62 stories (the other is 45 stories); the entire project is expected to cost about $270 million.
Attached to the first, southern tower will be a podium parking garage surrounded by town homes. The town homes will be two-stories from the ground floor and three stories on top with their own elevators. An interior park and pool will flesh out the podium building.
Mike Kriozere, principal for the project's developer, San Diego's Urban West Associates, boasted that 90 percent of the south tower's 390 units were sold within the first two weeks of coming on the market in January.
"With a high-end product, that is usually the case, and San Francisco is a city of high-end buyers," Kriozere adds.
Units remaining range from $600,000 to $1.2 million; the 14 town homes around the south tower podium start at $1.4 million.
Kriozere says construction on the north tower and adjacent podium buildings will start before the south tower is complete in early 2008.
John Lahey, president of Solon Cordwell Buenz & Associates and principal in charge of One Rincon Hill, says his firm's experience with tall buildings, both in his hometown of Chicago and elsewhere in the country, made it a natural to create what the Rincon Hill Plan requires as "tall, slender and well-spaced buildings."
"The main issues with highrises in San Francisco revolve around seismic needs," Lahey says. "It's a big design factor."
Working with structural engineer Magnusson Klemencic Associates of Seattle, Bovis and SCB are introducing a technology that functions to reduce sway from earthquakes and strong winds. One Rincon Hill is the first building in the country to feature a tuned liquid damper system, which is a water tank at the top of the building.
Lahey says the design also utilizes outriggers that allow large openings and maximum glass for every unit. "From every unit, you can look straight down with no obstructions in the frame," he adds.
Lahey says his firm's experience also helped in developing an urban ambience to the project.
In following the neighborhood's design plan, "we wanted to do something on the urban level that interacts with the street … a simple, easily recognizable form, elegant and vertical," he adds.
Lahey says SCB is opening an office in San Francisco and hopes to work on more buildings like One Rincon Hill.
The Infinity is also within the Rincon Hill Plan, and Carl Shannon, managing director of developer Tishman Speyer, says sales are "far in excess in what we anticipated at this point."
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The 656-unit Infinity project is nearing completion of its first of two planned towers going up in two phases. The first-phase, 37-story tower features 237 units, and the project also includes eight- and nine-story adjacent podium buildings with 120 units and amenities.
This 1,736-acre mixed-use development at 300 Spear Street, down the hill from One Rincon Hill, will also have a 41-story tower.
Webcor Builders is the general contractor. The architects include Heller Manus of San Francisco and Arquitectonica of Miami.
"We're thrilled at the number of units sold so far and the pricing we've been able to achieve," Shannon says. "We've been selling six to seven units per week now, and we even recently raised prices."
Shannon, like Lahey, equates the popularity of the high-rise units to wealthy people looking to buy maybe a second, or third, home. "San Francisco is an incredibly desirable place to live," he says.
The few units remaining for sale range from studios at $595,000 to three-bedrooms at $1.065 million.
(It's also important to note that both these Rincon project developers have paid the city tens of millions of dollars to offset the city's requirement for a percentage of affordable units made available in every new project. The city in return is using the money to fund affordable-only projects in needy areas.)
Meanwhile, the mayor and city are putting a lot of emphasis on the Transbay Transit Center redevelopment project. Plans call for high-rise residential and commercial space surrounding a new transit facility, which will accommodate light rail, Caltrain and local and regional transit buses.
"The city and the region badly need new housing close to jobs and transportation as an alternative to suburban sprawl," says Marcia Rosen, executive director of the city's Redevelopment Agency. "The new high-density, transit-oriented development in the Transbay Redevelopment Project Area will include six new residential highrises that will address the city's housing needs in a balanced, livable neighborhood with towers far enough apart to allow sunlight and open space in the new neighborhood, and controls to ensure that ground-floor space is activated.
"This new residential neighborhood will be a mixed-income neighborhood, with 35 percent of the new housing units permanently affordable for low and moderate income households."
The first of the projects is the Millennium Tower at Mission between Fremont and Beale streets, across from the current Transbay Terminal facility.
Scheduled for a late 2008 completion, the $400 million building rises 58 stories and features 420 one-, two- and three-bedroom units plus two penthouses. The Millennium also features a two-story glass atrium, 8,000 sq ft of retail, a five-level underground parking garage and enclosed pool and spa area.
The developer of the Millennium Tower is New York-based Millennium Partners. The general contractor is Webcor Builders, and the architect is Handel Architects.
"Similar to the making of the Four Seasons on Market Street, Millennium Tower will change the face of the Tranbay Terminal for the better," says Glenn Rescalvo, partner and project architect for Handel Architects.
"It will bring luxury living to part of San Francisco that even born and raised San Franciscan couldn't have imagined."
Rescalvo says the Millennium Tower is also critical in making an urban connection between what his firm refers to as the financial district to the newly developed Rincon Hill area.
"This project will start the 24/7 lifestyle that is desperately needed in the part of San Francisco," he adds. "It will bring more commerce, more pedestrians and revitalize this district."
To further the redevelopment and get some buzz going, the city is sponsoring an international design competition for the new transit center itself and an adjacent mixed-use high-rise.
A number of local and regional architectural firms are interested in this project, including Skidmore Owings & Merrill, SMWM and Heller/Manus. Even famed architect Renzo Piano has a team involved.
The two-stage competition is expected to take a total of 36 months, with the winning team announced in August.
The first phase of the project begins with the building of the temporary terminal, commencing in 2008, to serve passengers while the new Transit Center is under construction. Construction of the new Transit Center and complementary Transit Tower is scheduled to begin in 2010 and be completed in 2014.
This first phase of the project includes design and construction of the Transit Center building, the rail foundation, bus ramps, and bus storage facilities, and design of the underground rail level component of the Transit Center.
The second phase of the project, the construction of the Caltrain Downtown Rail Extension, is estimated to begin in 2012 and be completed and operational by 2018, or earlier, if funding allows.
The project's capital cost is estimated at $3.4 billion.
coyotetrickster
May 17, 2007, 8:27 PM
"This 1,736-acre mixed-use development at 300 Spear Street, down the hill from One Rincon Hill, will also have a 41-story tower."
Is this right? 300 Spear cannot possible have 1,736 acres as part of it's development 'footprint.' Golden Gate Park is about 1,000 acres. Who's smoking crack in the fact checking department?
mthd
May 17, 2007, 9:14 PM
"This 1,736-acre mixed-use development at 300 Spear Street, down the hill from One Rincon Hill, will also have a 41-story tower."
Is this right? 300 Spear cannot possible have 1,736 acres as part of it's development 'footprint.' Golden Gate Park is about 1,000 acres. Who's smoking crack in the fact checking department?
maybe they use the same fact checkers as the business times?!?!?!?!? :haha:
BTinSF
May 18, 2007, 5:46 AM
^^^My guess is the comma should have been a period. As in 1.736.
coyotetrickster
May 18, 2007, 1:55 PM
^^^My guess is the comma should have been a period. As in 1.736.
Hello Copy editor.:)
fflint
May 18, 2007, 9:01 PM
Journalists nostalgic as the Trib exits Tower
Chip Johnson
The San Francisco Chronicle
Friday, May 18, 2007
The news deadline at the Oakland Tribune tonight will mark not only the end of another workday. It will be the end of an era for a newspaper that for nearly a century has occupied a landmark building with a clock tower that has defined the city's skyline.
Trib reporters, editors and some advertising staff members will report for work Monday at new digs -- one floor of an 11-story office building in an industrial business tract across the freeway from McAfee Coliseum.
The Tribune Tower at 13th and Franklin streets will keep its name and the clock tower, but for veteran journalists, including some who cut their teeth working out of the old building, the move is like a death in the family.
"I have to admit that the new office we're moving into is very nice, probably the nicest quarters I've ever had, but nothing can replace the charm and mystery the Tribune Tower held," police reporter Harry Harris said Thursday.
I worked in the tower 15 years ago. So did my editor, and many current and former colleagues.
The Tribune became a symbol of the decline of newspapers and their struggle for survival long before the World Wide Web took hold -- and long before free, online advertising stole our lunch and a new generation of media consumers logged on to their laptops for the latest headlines and gossip.
Our newsroom back then was scrappy and bold, just like Oakland. We thought we could compete with any news media outlet in the country, never mind its resources -- or our lack of them.
"The tower, like the middle finger, was our logo, and now that it's a shell, we can acknowledge the end of an era," commented Al Martinez, a longtime columnist for the Los Angeles Times who worked as a Tribune reporter before that.
Martinez is just the tip of the iceberg of the talent that has passed through the newspaper over the years. In 1990, the Trib won a Pulitzer Prize for its photographs of the deadly collapse of the Cypress Freeway in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
The quake didn't knock down the 20-story tower, built in the early 1920s and laced with steel, but it left its mark. The elevators were knocked out, and there were cracks in the walls everywhere -- which were patched over with duct tape for awhile.
Harris has worked at the paper since he was 17 years old. His mother told him three years ago he was conceived in the building. His father, Albert "Kayo" Harris, worked as a Tribune photographer in the 1930s and ran a commercial photo business after World War II, but maintained close ties with the paper.
"It's hard to accept, but you could almost see it coming," said Harris, 59, who left the tower once before, in 1992, when MediaNews bought the paper from then-publisher Robert Maynard and moved staff to Jack London Square before returning to the tower eight years later. "What makes it harder is I don't see us coming back this time."
The paper's exodus from the downtown tower is the latest move by MediaNews to consolidate its Bay Area newspaper holdings, which include the San Jose Mercury News, the Contra Costa Times and more than a dozen local newspapers.
The newspaper group is negotiating a buyout or other means to terminate its agreement to lease the tower until 2010, said Kenneth Meyersieck, a senior vice president at Colliers International, a commercial real estate company representing Eddie Kislinger, a Southern California real estate investor who bought the Tribune Tower 18 months ago.
"I met with the owner yesterday, and we're disappointed that they're leaving but it creates a new opportunity for us," Meyersieck said.
Kislinger, who purchased the building from Oakland developer John Protopappas, has a knack for entrepreneurship that dates back to his college days at UC Berkeley, where he convinced university officials in the mid-1960s to use People's Park, then a vacant lot, as parking lot for Saturday football games. He founded, and later sold, Leopold's Records, and has plans for the tower property.
The Tribune's departure leaves a huge void in the building: The newspaper took up nearly 70,000 square feet of the 89,000-square-foot building, Meyersieck said.
Kislinger has hired the San Francisco architectural firm of Page & Turnbull to come up with a plan to historically restore the lobby and interior of the building and "bring it back to life in the right way," Meyersieck said. Kislinger has already invested $500,000 in the building's exterior.
Kislinger said he purchased the building because he believes former Mayor Jerry Brown's plan to repopulate the city's downtown district is working and redevelopment will not stop.
"You hate to lose a tenant like this, but it's a tremendous opportunity for us," Kislinger said. "The building is an icon, there's an upside on rents, and my take on Oakland is that there is enormous potential there."
I sure hope so, because there's a lot of history in that old building.
BTinSF
May 21, 2007, 4:27 AM
$300M housing dream
John Stewart teams up to replace 'projects' with neighborhood
San Francisco Business Times - May 18, 2007
by J.K. Dineen
John Stewart has always gravitated to what he calls "brain-damage" projects: the sort of Byzantine, public-private, mixed-income housing collaborations that most developers wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole.
But when it comes to brain damage, nothing the John Stewart Co. has taken on compares with Hunters View.
In a joint venture with partners Devine & Gong and Ridgepoint Non-Profit Housing Corp., Stewart and his team are proposing to raise $300 million to demolish a 267-unit public housing project on a Hunters Point hillside and replace it with a roughly 667-unit mixed-income neighborhood.
The public housing would be replaced one for one, but the new neighborhood would also feature 80 affordable rentals, 50 below-market for-sale units, and 250 to 300 market-rate condos, which would be priced at about $425 a square foot.
The project is tough even for the Stewart Co., which manages 20,000 residential units -- many in inner city neighborhoods -- and employs 1,000. For the first time in the Bay Area, the developers are trying to replace a public housing project with private money.
In the past, public housing has been replaced using money from HOPE VI, the federal program Stewart Co. used to replace the $160 million North Beach Place. But that money is gone, cut drastically by the Bush administration, leaving company executives to scramble for new funding sources.
"How do you find a substitute for a $25 to $30 million HUD grant -- something that has been a key part of every other public housing revitalization that has taken place to date?" asked Jack Gardner, president and CEO of the John Stewart Co.
The answer, says Stewart, company founder and chairman, will be a combination of foundation money and a "cross-subsidy" that will pump money from the market-rate condo sales into the public housing rebuild.
The cost to rebuild the public housing is $80 million to $100 million. The rest of the $300 million will pay for the low-income and market-rate units. In recent months, Stewart has launched an aggressive effort to raise money from private foundations. It has been hard going.
The developer scored a coup with $2.2 million from the Ford Foundation -- a combination of loan and grant. The San Francisco Foundation, Local Initiative Support Coalition (LISC), and the Mayors Office on Housing have chipped in $1 million.
Some $4 million in predevelopment money is still needed -- the sort of early funding that used to come from HUD. Stewart hopes that prominent Bay Area philanthropists will follow the example of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which sank $50 million into rebuilding public housing in its hometown of Chicago.
"We're trying to get foundations to do what they don't want to do -- and they have stayed away from this like crazy," said Stewart. "The president killed a very fine grant program. So the question is, can we get non-government organizations to fill in for the federal government? So far they have not all flocked to us."
The North Beach model
North Beach Place has been held up as a model of turning a drug-addled, dangerous project into a healthy mixed-income community. There is even a Trader Joe's on the ground floor, the only time the grocery chain has located below public housing.
North Beach Place was built with $28 million in federal money and $10 million from the Mayor's Office of Housing. John Stewart Co. put in $48 million in equity and took out a $70 million construction loan. A total of 11 funding sources were used.
But as an urban enclave, Hunters View is a much tougher environment. While North Beach Place is surrounded by upscale neighborhoods, Hunters View is nestled in a toxic, isolated hillside economically devastated by the departure of the Navy in 1974 and environmentally ravished by both the industrial uses and a nearby power plant.
"It's nasty up here," said Tessie Ester, president of the Hunters View Tenants Association. "Asthma, roaches, rats -- most (people) are sick up here."
The history has given Hunters View residents a strong skepticism of outsiders and the John Stewart Co. has been no exception. Ester said she wonders if current residents would be allowed to stay once the project is reconstructed.
"We didn't ask for them to come up here. I think they want the hill -- this is prime land," she said.
Stewart said Hunters View tenants have been bused to North Beach Place and the reception has been largely positive.
"We take them to North Beach and say if this is gentrification, so be it," said Stewart. "They see the stacked washer dryers in their units -- not outside, not down the hall. They don't see dumpsters. They don't see graffiti. When they talk to the women who run the households, what they hear is not just the architecture, it's the security."
Gardner said the three different housing types would be built simultaneously and the developer would work closely with nonprofits to improve the adjacent Malcom X School, an under-enrolled elementary school that the city school district has threatened to close.
An isolated maze
The redevelopment is being designed by Solomon Architecture. Principal Dan Solomon, who has been involved in rebuilding dilapidated housing projects across the country, said Hunters View stands out even among depressed projects.
"Hunters View is one of the most problematic, partially because it is even more isolated and even more disconnected than many of the other distressed public housing around the country," said Solomon.
The development is a maze of long looping cul-de-sacs, both disorienting and cut off from surrounding neighbors. The new physical plan would transform the street labyrinth of the old barracks site plan into the grid of a typical city neighborhood. Street corridors will capture downtown views; small buildings would step up the hill, as they do in Telegraph Hill or Bernal Heights. Dangerous pockets of unsupervised, unowned open space will turn into well-defined areas more like Dolores Park or Alamo Square.
"Quite a lot of open space is shapeless, formless, ownerless and dangerous," said Solomon. "It's a textbook case of taking well established principals of San Francisco neighborhood planning and doing exactly the opposite.
"This is not going to magically fix everything wrong with Hunters Point -- but without fixing this, there is no hope."
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2007/05/21/story3.html?t=printable
BTinSF
May 21, 2007, 4:30 AM
Joie, Larkspur in final three for Presidio's hotel project
San Francisco Business Times - May 18, 2007
by Ryan Tate
Two Bay Area hotel companies are among three finalists vying to develop a 100-room lodge on coveted land in San Francisco's Presidio.
Joie de Vivre Hospitality of San Francisco and Larkspur Hospitality of Larkspur both made it through a process in which the Presidio Trust winnowed 13 contending development teams to four, one of whom has dropped out of contention.
The prize is the chance to develop and operate a park hotel that Presidio officials hope will become a landmark in the same league as the Ahwahnee, a popular lodge in Yosemite National Park. Though Presidio officials would like to offer rooms across a wide range of prices, hoteliers hope to command a premium for the location, on the waterfront adjacent to the Golden Gate Bridge and with rules freezing the amount of land under development.
"We want a place that has endurance, not a flash in the pan," said Adam Engelskirchen, the Presidio Trust's real estate director.
Larkspur is going it alone, while Joie de Vivre is teaming with attorney and entrepreneur Stephen Ledoux. Also in the running is a joint venture from two firms, Washington, DC-based developer Federal Development and Texas resort company Benchmark Hospitality.
Joie de Vivre and Larkspur are both proposing close to 100 units, while the Federal-Benchmark team is expected to come in "a fair amount larger," said Engelskirchen.
Engelskirchen based his summary of the proposals on presentations made at a public Presidio Trust meeting May 10.
All projects come close to a specified 45-foot height limit, he added.
All finalists plan to build on Anza Esplanade, a narrow strip of land in the heart of the park. They also plan to reuse historic structures on nearby but non-adjacent land.
The Federal-Benchmark team plans to make use of three historic barracks across the parking lot from Anza Esplanade.
The Presidio Trust Board of Directors expects to choose a developer by the end of June, Engelskirchen said. In addition to environmental sustainability, the board is looking for designs that maintain the character of the Presidio, and offer a good financial return to the trust.
rtate@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4968
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2007/05/21/story5.html?t=printable
BTinSF
May 21, 2007, 4:37 AM
New science building OK'd on UC Berkeley campus
San Francisco Business Times - May 18, 2007
by Steven E.F. Brown
A new biomedical and health sciences building is set to rise on the northwest corner of the University of California, Berkeley, campus.
UC Regents approved the construction of the new building this week. It will go up after Warren Hall, an aging building which houses the public health school and library, is knocked down next year. Warren Hall is 52 years old and can't be made earthquake safe, the university said.
The new five-story building will be named the Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences. It will house laboratories, classrooms and offices used in biomedical and health research, focusing especially on the molecular basis of diseases. It will also house a brain imaging center and labs for stem cell research.
It will be a green building, with sod roofs and natural lighting to reduce electrical use.
Staff and students in the public health department will be dispersed to other locations on campus. The department's library will move to the basement of University Hall, across Oxford Street, which borders the campus on the west side.
No decision has been finalized about where the library and public health department will move permanently. A new building has been proposed for them, but hasn't yet been approved.
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2007/05/14/daily48.html?t=printable
San Frangelino
May 21, 2007, 5:39 PM
It's not much more than a place marker, but the Californian on Rincon Hill now has a web page. http://www.californianrinconhill.com/index_s.html
BTinSF
May 21, 2007, 11:35 PM
^^^Wierd they chose photos that make it look like the view will be from about 2 blocks from the TransAmerica Building on the one hand and that cut off the actual location of the building just at the edge of the photo on the other hand.
coyotetrickster
May 21, 2007, 11:52 PM
^^^Wierd they chose photos that make it look like the view will be from about 2 blocks from the TransAmerica Building on the one hand and that cut off the actual location of the building just at the edge of the photo on the other hand.
Wonder if they've heard about this really cool application called Photoshop?:rolleyes:
Reminiscence
May 22, 2007, 4:32 AM
Perhaps they were not pictures of the project itself, but rather to emphasize the city it will be in? They dont even provide renderings yet, so I'll stop short of calling it an incorrect representation.
BTinSF
May 22, 2007, 7:16 AM
^^^It's not incorrect, just rather pointless. Web sites for other buildings that show these views from on-high purport to show the expected view from that building. So far, none of that on the Californian site (maybe because you'd be looking at about the 30th floor of One Rincon Hill).
Reminiscence
May 22, 2007, 7:37 AM
Yes, I think you are right. However, its good news that we're beginning to hear more about this one. The website may not be up yet, but being under construction is a good sign of progress, in my opinion
coyotetrickster
May 22, 2007, 2:09 PM
Yes, I think you are right. However, its good news that we're beginning to hear more about this one. The website may not be up yet, but being under construction is a good sign of progress, in my opinion
Getting back to the Cathedral Hill Tower. Anyone notice the far horizon view (i.e. what you see in the skyline between St. Mary's and the Sasquatch, err, I meant, Sequoia.), it's mostly the ugly concrete wall of the St. Francis Tower. So, anything that would occlude the Statlinesque-era architecture of the SFT is a good thing. Also, do any of the long, long-time SF Forumers have any idea if there was a second St. Francis Tower planned, or a similar long-abandoned expansion, 'cause that is one ugly block o concrete from the Wester exposure!
dimondpark
May 22, 2007, 4:28 PM
Brenda Payton: Wayans deserves leeway
Column by Brenda Payton
Article Last Updated: 05/22/2007 08:38:33 AM PDT
I THOUGHT the project was a good idea before Keenen Ivory Wayans swept through City Hall last week and flashed his dazzling smile. Honest. His celebrity presence did nothing to sway my opinion about the Wayans Brothers' proposal to develop a movie studio and arts and entertainment district at Oakland's old Army Base. Seriously.
Learning of a growing impatience among city council members after 18 months and no visible progress on the project, Wayans did what any movie star knows to do. He showed up and sprinkled generous amounts of star dust.
Celebrity is a potent force.
In fairness, he did more than that. He and his partner explained legal issues were behind the delay in presenting the city with a formal proposal. They said they had been working behind the scenes and they're ready to introduce their development team and financial partner. After meeting with council members, Wayans said he'd learned from his mistakes.
Humble and famous — that's some combination.
Wayans' finesse aside, the project is a tremendous opportunity. As proposed, it would include a movie studio — with sound stages and production offices — retail outlets, a hotel, an arts and entertainment district, digital arts education and a children's zone.
It would provide untold jobs while being constructed and create a film and entertainment industry. It would not require any public funding. Let me say that another way. It would not require any dollars from the city.
Maybe I should put that in all caps. The project's impact is larger than the jobs and the sales tax income it would generate. Oakland would have a one-of-a-kind attraction. A movie studio and theme park developed by movie stars. We would be a major tourist destination.
Again, the potential is greater than the tens of millions of dollars the project would generate for the city and its residents. It would restore the city's long-battered self esteem. It may even elevate the city's self-image higher than it's ever been.
For all the years I've lived in Oakland, I've marveled at the discrepancy between the city's reality and its reputation. Most Oakland residents are aware of the city's unique charm and beauty; still, the constant bad rap takes its toll. We've developed a collective inferiority complex.
Years ago, when the big downtown mall, with Bullock's department store as an anchor tenant, fell apart after so many years of planning, I asked some city insiders what had gone wrong. They said it came down to the fact some city planners on the project simply didn't believe Oakland measured up.
On one hand, it seemed inconceivable a negative attitude could undermine a multimillion-dollar project. On the other hand, how could such a project overcome a fundamental lack of faith?
Oakland has behaved like Cinderella waiting for Prince Charming on a number of occasions — with Raiders owner Al Davis, former Mayor Jerry Brown and Mayor Ron Dellums.
In the case of the Wayans Brothers' proposal, the glass slipper seemed to materialize out of thin air. They saw a potential in our city most of us had never imagined.
Their interest in the Army Base is not altruistic. It gives them the space they need to build something that could grow. They clearly think they can make the numbers work for them. That makes the proposal even more appealing. They don't feel sorry for us. They see an excellent business opportunity. In Oakland.
I'm hoping Wayans comes back with the information and plans that answer the city council's questions. It would be fabulous to see how their project transforms the city.
One note of advice, the development team would do well to meet with West Oakland community representatives as the brothers originally promised. Their quality of life is at stake and they must be heard. The problems caused by the truck traffic going to the Port of Oakland have to be resolved.
With that said, welcome, Wayans Brothers. And it really has nothing to do with that dazzling smile.
Clarification: In last week's column about a study of disparity in city contracts, I started by asking readers to hold a thought: "Ten of the 12 companies that receive more than 25 percent of the City of Oakland contracts are owned by white men. That's
83 percent."
A number of readers did the math while they were holding the thought. Wouldn't that mean businesses owned by white males had about 20 percent of the city's contracts? Well, no. I was so focused on the concentration of contracts among a few businesses owned by white males, I neglected to add a sentence saying there was a similar disparity in the remaining 75 percent of the city contracts. So for example, firms owned by white males held 63 percent of the construction, 64 percent of the architectural and engineering, 89 percent of the professional services and 79 percent of the goods and services contracts. Sorry for the confusion.
Columnist Brenda Payton can be contacted at bpayton@angnewspapers.com.
dimondpark
May 22, 2007, 4:59 PM
OAKLAND
Wayans brothers get panel's OK for film studio, theme park
City Council still must approve plan for old Army base
Jim Herron Zamora, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
An Oakland City Council committee unanimously approved Tuesday a preliminary plan by Hollywood's Wayans brothers to move their production facilities to the old Oakland Army Base and build an adjacent theme park.
The council's Economic Development Committee approved a plan to enter negotiations with the hit filmmakers' development firm after about 50 people addressed the committee to support the plan. The proposal is expected to go to the City Council on Tuesday of next week .
One person after another said the theme park would bring tourism to Oakland, while the production company would give the city's image a much- needed boost.
"I'd rather have a film production studio here than a casino anytime,'' said Jeny Rodriguez, referring to an unpopular 1990s plan for an Indian casino at the site.
The proposal by a family-run company entails developing 70 vacant acres near Maritime Street and Grand Avenue, transforming it into a 30-acre theme park with a hotel and retail stores, a 30-acre film production studio with offices and a 10-acre back lot for production.
The theme park would follow the lines of Universal Studios in Los Angeles but with a hip, urban atmosphere reflected in the Wayans brothers' comedies.
The brothers -- Keenan Ivory, Damon, Shawn and Marlon Wayans -- have produced and/or starred in "White Chicks" and "Scary Movie," as well as the early 1990s hit TV show "In Living Color." Each sits on the board of directors of their development company, the Fulton development group.
Fulton Vice President Clinton Bolden, who gave a presentation that included a high-rise "Keenan Ivory" luxury hotel, said the brothers had chosen Oakland over other cities that courted them more aggressively.
"This family is not really begging for this opportunity,'' Bolden said. "This family is presenting an opportunity that will benefit the whole community. ... This family has a vision."
If their plan is approved by the City Council, the Wayanses will receive a one-year exclusive negotiating agreement. Many details of the project remain unclear and would be negotiated before it returned to the City Council for final approval. If constructed, the project, it is believed, would be the nation's largest African American-owned theme park.
"It's probably one of the most exciting projects I've ever seen,'' said Councilwoman Jane Brunner, who heads the committee. "We really don't have many details. At this point it's really an idea from some people who clearly have the money. If it goes through as planned, it will be an amazing project."
Councilwoman Nancy Nadel, who represents West Oakland, has been trying to get more movies filmed in the city for years and has spent nearly a decade trying to find new development for the old Army base.
"I want to express my support for the concept," said Nadel, adding that the project would "match really well with the talents in our community."
But Nadel noted that in recent decades, Oakland had seen lots of developers and groups propose great ideas that had never gotten off ground.
"The devil's in the details," she said, "but at this point we're very excited about the project.''
E-mail Jim Zamora at jzamora@sfchronicle.com.
BTinSF
May 22, 2007, 5:19 PM
^^^Well I hope it's successful for Oakland's sake but having lived in Orlando I'm kind of sceptical about the whole theme park thing. There are quite a few marginal theme parks around America and only the largest, best known (and best financed) like Disney really seem to do well. To me, a theme park seems an underuse of that spot at the heart of Bay Area transportation (it's near the Bay Bridge, West Oakland BART and the Bay).
dimondpark
May 22, 2007, 6:07 PM
^^^Well I hope it's successful for Oakland's sake but having lived in Orlando I'm kind of sceptical about the whole theme park thing. There are quite a few marginal theme parks around America and only the largest, best known (and best financed) like Disney really seem to do well. To me, a theme park seems an underuse of that spot at the heart of Bay Area transportation (it's near the Bay Bridge, West Oakland BART and the Bay).
Im extremely skeptical of the theme park. That area is perfect for film and tv production-those jobs also are extremely high paying and not a lot of change would be needed aesthetically and logistically. Pixar has been churning out hit after hit quietly in Emeryville for years-its been a real boon for them and I would like to see the Wayans approach this project in the same vein. The theme park on the other hand opens a whole new range of issues first of which is transportation and traffic congestion-we're talking in the shadows of the Macarthur Maze. Not to mention the fact that the majority of jobs associated with theme parks are lower paying and then you have the abandoned train tracks, industrial facilities, potential industrial clean ups and what not.
Ive heard whispers that other movie studios from Southern California are waiting to see how the Wayans project pans out to see if possibly expanding into West Oakland might be viable alternative to Vancouver..that could bring a totally new economic element to not only Oakland but also The Bay Area and most of these hollywood types will be spending any off time in SF anyway so I see a lot of potential for the whole region-all we can do is wait and see if Oakland is able to get it right.
but I digress.
BTinSF
May 23, 2007, 3:00 AM
Compromise sought for CCSF Chinatown campus
Bonnie Eslinger, The Examiner
2007-05-22 10:00:00.0
Current rank: # 38 of 11,665
SAN FRANCISCO -
While City College of San Francisco is still hoping to get community approval for a new 17-story Chinatown campus that critics say is too big for the neighborhood, Chancellor Phillip Day said the college is open to constructing two smaller buildings.
Opponents of the proposed $122 million glass building — planned for the corner of Washington and Kearny streets — say it will cast shadows over nearby Portsmouth Square, conflict with the character of Chinatown, and increase traffic and parking impacts.
City College officials and supporters of creating a permanent Chinatown campus say the current situation — which spreads upward of 6,500 students over eight leased sites throughout Chinatown, North Beach and the Marina — is untenable for educational purposes.
The plan, however, has been protested by a wide variety of interests, including the owners of the neighboring 310-foot-tall Hilton Hotel, which does not want to have its views of the Bay blocked by the 228-foot CCSF building, to Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin.
According to a new draft environmental impact review for the project, the 17-story building would contrast with the predominately two- to four-story structures in nearby North Beach, Chinatown and Jackson Square, and would negatively alter some views. The project would not result in a substantial increase in demand on parking or vehicle traffic, however, since most students, faculty and employees walk to campus or use public transportation.
Several project alternatives were also noted in the review, including building a slightly smaller 201-foot-tall building on the proposed site, with a second building up to 78 feet tall on an adjacent empty lot. To split the project into two buildings would add between $25 million and $30 million to the cost, Day said.
Frances Hsieh, who is part of a coalition of residents, community leaders and business owners protesting the 17-story building plan, said City College’s alternatives don’t go far enough to mitigate local concerns.
The group paid San Francisco-based Heller Manus Architects to draft an alternative design for the project with two buildings: one 10-stories-tall, the other eight.
City College doesn’t require city approval for the project if it receives a two-thirds majority of approval from its board of trustees.
City College is holding a public meeting on the Chinatown Campus and the Draft Environmental Impact Report today at Gordon Lau Elementary School, 950 Clay St., starting at 6 p.m.
beslinger@examiner.com
Source: http://ewww.sfexaminer.com/printa-741231~Compromise_sought_for_CCSF_Chinatown_campus.html
viewguysf
May 23, 2007, 3:13 AM
Getting back to the Cathedral Hill Tower. Anyone notice the far horizon view (i.e. what you see in the skyline between St. Mary's and the Sasquatch, err, I meant, Sequoia.), it's mostly the ugly concrete wall of the St. Francis Tower. So, anything that would occlude the Statlinesque-era architecture of the SFT is a good thing. Also, do any of the long, long-time SF Forumers have any idea if there was a second St. Francis Tower planned, or a similar long-abandoned expansion, 'cause that is one ugly block o concrete from the Wester exposure!
I was in the St. Francis tower when it opened in 1972 and worked at the hotel from 1977 until 1983. I've never heard of any plans for an addition. The tower is narrower on the south side than the north side because of the property that could be purchased at the time. Corridors are behind the blank wall and then single stacks of guest rooms that face east into Union Square. On the north side, the building is wide enough to have stacks of rooms both on the east and the west with the corridors in the middle.
Part of the original hotel was demolished to make way for the tower on the south side, including the famous Mural Room which used to feature big band entertainment. On the north side, Western Hotels (the forerunner of Western International Hotels and then Westin Hotels and Resorts) of Seattle demolished the old Women's City Club building which was quite handsome. The club then moved into the 12th floor of the Post Street side of the main building where it remained for many years until its lease expired and they were given the boot.
craeg
May 23, 2007, 5:02 AM
Why is city college even bothering with this bullsh*t. Just build it how you want it, nattering nimbys be damned.
mahanakorn
May 23, 2007, 7:58 AM
Quote from article re: Chinatown CCSF building: The plan, however, has been protested by a wide variety of interests, including the owners of the neighboring 310-foot-tall Hilton Hotel, which does not want to have its views of the Bay blocked by the 228-foot CCSF building, to Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin.
If Hilton wanted to make nice instead of play hardball, they could donate air rights over and around their motor lobby entrance to CCSF. The benefits: 1) The 17 story tower proposed by CCSF across Washington Street could be reduced in height to preserve views from the Hilton and overcome the objections of the neighbors. 2) The ugly and unused bridge to nowhere over Kearney could be demolished (or given a destination other than a pair of locked doors). 3) The college could build a glassy mid-rise classroom structure on Kearney between Washington and Mercantile that presents a more attractive face to Portsmouth Square. The Hilton's visibility and signage on the new building could be stipulated as part of the donation agreement. 4) The owners of the Hilton site would likely be rewarded with a significant tax benefit for their philanthropic gesture.
Portsmouth Square is an unattractive but active and interesting space. This is an opportunity to improve its environs.
coyotetrickster
May 23, 2007, 1:25 PM
I was in the St. Francis tower when it opened in 1972 and worked at the hotel from 1977 until 1983. I've never heard of any plans for an addition. The tower is narrower on the south side than the north side because of the property that could be purchased at the time. Corridors are behind the blank wall and then single stacks of guest rooms that face east into Union Square. On the north side, the building is wide enough to have stacks of rooms both on the east and the west with the corridors in the middle.
Part of the original hotel was demolished to make way for the tower on the south side, including the famous Mural Room which used to feature big band entertainment. On the north side, Western Hotels (the forerunner of Western International Hotels and then Westin Hotels and Resorts) of Seattle demolished the old Women's City Club building which was quite handsome. The club then moved into the 12th floor of the Post Street side of the main building where it remained for many years until its lease expired and they were given the boot.
Thanks for the info View. It's still fugly, the western exposure.
The_Analyst
May 23, 2007, 9:26 PM
Quote from article re: Chinatown CCSF building: The plan, however, has been protested by a wide variety of interests, including the owners of the neighboring 310-foot-tall Hilton Hotel, which does not want to have its views of the Bay blocked by the 228-foot CCSF building, to Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin.
Kind of hilarious...yes, let's build a wide squat oversized mid-rise on the site instead of a taller slender tower. I envision sort of a Wal-Mart style with a few extra windows. That will fit right in with the neighborhood and preserve the Hilton as the area's most delightful and beautiful tower. :haha:
BTinSF
May 24, 2007, 12:08 AM
^^^No surprise who'll be designing it, either (Heller-Manus).
I read this right after analyst's post on the port land issue and the pattern is pretty clear (as if it wasn't before): same supervisor, same issue, same SF political b*llsh*t.
viewguysf
May 24, 2007, 2:25 AM
Thanks for the info View. It's still fugly, the western exposure.
Yes, I agree. In hindsight, the City would have been better off if the very historic St. Francis had been left in tact and the tower never built. The old hotels are dramatically affected by towers; The Fairmont is another case in point.
coyotetrickster
May 24, 2007, 3:07 AM
Yes, I agree. In hindsight, the City would have been better off if the very historic St. Francis had been left in tact and the tower never built. The old hotels are dramatically affected by towers; The Fairmont is another case in point.
Well, given where the Fairmont is, there was no way in hell that tower wouldn't screw it up.
BTinSF
May 25, 2007, 11:24 PM
BizTimes:
It's a lot with a "fully entitled office tower": a 19-story/350,000 sq ft tower at 350 Bush and a 5-story/50,000 sq ft structure with a roof garden connected to St. Mary's Park at 500 Pine. It's for sale for an expected $60-70M. There already exists a Heller-Manus design for the structures ( :yuck: ) and Jeffrey heller says whoever buys the site "could start driving piles right away".
The design incorporates "the historic terra cotta facade, pediment and columns of the Mining Exchange Building and includes outdoor balconies and 120-car parking garage".
I'll post the article when it's available.
condodweller
May 26, 2007, 8:24 PM
BizTimes:
There already exists a Heller-Manus design for the structures ( :yuck: )
I really hope they don't use the H-M design -- it looks extremely dull:
http://www.350bushstreet.com/property_desc.shtml
I will not go on again with my feelings about facadism...
Edit: Actually, it looks like they'll incorporate the Mining Exchange, so I do have to give them credit for not doing the facade thing...
BTinSF
May 28, 2007, 7:54 AM
Last financial district dirt could fetch $70M
San Francisco Business Times - May 25, 2007
by J.K. Dineen
For years the fenced-in parcel at 350 Bush St. has been one of the city's most-talked about pieces of dirt, a fully entitled office tower site in the heart of the financial district.
Now it is for sale, and could attract a record-setting price of $150 to $175 per buildable square foot, between $60 million and $70 million, according to brokers.
Owners Shorenstein Properties and the Swig Co. have retained Eastdil Secured to market the property, which is entitled for a 19-story, 350,000-square-foot tower. The deal also includes 500 Pine St., which is permitted as a five-story, 50,000-square-foot structure with a rooftop garden connected to St. Mary's Park. Under the city approvals, the two buildings must be developed simultaneously.
The two parcels near European-flavored Belden Place and the Bank of America building are considered the only remaining office development sites in the north financial district. While Shorenstein has been actively leasing the building, company officials have been reluctant to begin construction without an anchor tenant in hand. But with vacancy rates at 9.8 percent in the central business district, and average rents approaching $50 a square foot, some brokers have suggested that tenant demand would warrant new speculative construction. Just one spec office highrise is now under construction, Tishman Speyer's 555 Mission St.
Architect Jeffrey Heller, whose firm HellerManus designed 350 Bush St. and 500 Pine St., said whatever firm snaps up the sites should start driving piles right away.
"Now is the perfect time to build those buildings -- the market timing couldn't be better and the buildings are ready to go," said Heller.
The design incorporates the historic terra cotta façade, pediment and columns of the Mining Exchange building and includes outdoor balconies, and a 120-car parking garage.
Both Shorenstein and Swig declined to comment. In June 2006, Shorenstein Vice President Tom Hart told the Business Times that his company had considered selling the site to a residential developer in 2005, but decided to stick with office.
"It's office where office should go," said Hart at the time.
Consultant Lynn Sedway of the Sedway Group, a subsidiary of CB Richard Ellis, said whoever buys the parcels could go spec.
"We've been saying for years we're going to have an office space shortage," said Sedway, who sits on the board of the Swig Co.
While the California Street canyon still represents the spine of San Francisco's business community, the south financial district has been gaining ground in recent years. The two most well-regarded office towers constructed in the past decade -- 560 Mission St. and 101 Second St. -- are both along South of Market's dynamic and rapidly developing Mission Street, where Millennium Partners is building a new condo tower and Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Contemporary Museum, with a blue metal cube popping out of an old brick power station.
Sedway said the new energy along Mission Street has "leveled the playing field" between the two sides of Market Street. The Bush Street building lacks coveted bay views, but has "wonderful views toward Union Square and Nob Hill" and those views will remain, Heller said.
"I do not contemplate any tall buildings in that area -- ever," said Heller.
jkdineen@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4971
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2007/05/28/story8.html?t=printable
BTinSF
May 28, 2007, 8:03 AM
Peebles unloads SoMa space for $31M
San Francisco Business Times - May 25, 2007
by J.K. Dineen
Najib Joe Hakim
Miami developer Don Peebles has sold 250 Brannan St. for $31.2 million to Denver real estate and railroad tycoon Pat Broe, marking the latest in a series of condo conversion projects to be abandoned as the office market takes off.
Peebles bought the 104,000 square foot brick-and-timber space in March, 2006, for $19.8 million and planned to convert it to 54 deluxe loft condominiums. But in the year he spent getting the building approved for condos, the city's real estate landscape shifted significantly, according to Peebles Senior Vice President Daniel Grimm. Suddenly SoMa vacancy rates had dipped into the single digits and tech firms were clamoring for the kind of wide-open creative space 250 Brannan St. offers.
Grimm said Peebles Corp. spent less than $2 million on the property in entitlement and carrying costs. While the deal represents a quick $11.4 million pay day for Peebles Corp., Grimm said it was "a tough decision."
"We like San Francisco and continue to believe in it as a residential and commercial market. But we are businessmen and had to take a look at potential risk and return," he said.
The Broe Group, which owns $1 billion in railroads and real estate across the country, is the third investor in recent months to buy a fully-entitled office-to-residential project with the intention of reverting to the former commercial office use. Grubb & Ellis Managing Director Daniel Cressman is now marketing 153 Kearny St., which had won approvals for 45 condos, and Ellis Partners paid $18 million for 717-721 Market St., which Portland Pacific had entitled for 50 lofts. Both buildings are expected to return to office use. Just two major conversion projects are under construction: 74 New Montgomery St. and 733 Front St.
The building at 250 Brannan St. has come full circle since it was leased by DoubleClick at the top of the dot-com bubble. While DoubleClick leased the entire structure, it never occupied more than 30,000 square feet and had vacated entirely by 2004. The building had been vacant for two years when Peebles bought it.
While making a handsome profit on 250 Brannan, Peebles -- a flamboyant entrepreneur sometimes called the Prince of South Beach -- has struggled to gain a toehold in the Bay Area. In November, Peebles narrowly lost a ballot measure that would have allowed him to build an mixed-use "downtown" on 87 acres in Pacifica. And early this year, Peebles dropped a plan to construct a 380-unit tower at 340-350 Fremont St. after he was unable to come to terms with seller Archstone Smith and joint venture partner Jackson-Pacific. His firm also was a close third in bidding for 140 New Montgomery St., which Wilson Meany Sullivan is in contract to buy.
Grimm said the firm is working closely with the California Coastal Commission to find a new use for the Pacifica land. He said after going though the ballot initiative last fall, Peebles Corp. has a better understanding of what Pacifica residents might support.
"We're still working to increase our investment in Northern California," he said.
Colliers broker Tony Crossley, who represented Peebles, said the city's slow entitlement process gave Peebles a chance to do "reality checks along the way."
"If you can book a lot of profit without going through the development process, why wouldn't you do it?" said Crossley.
Crossley doesn't expect to see any more office to residential conversions in this cycle.
"I believe residential conversion is over -- we're done," said Crossley.
jkdineen@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4971
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2007/05/28/story15.html?t=printable
BTinSF
May 29, 2007, 3:19 AM
Tishman, Lehman near deal for Archstone-Smith: WSJ
Mon May 28, 7:45 PM ET
Tishman Speyer Properties and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (NYSE:LEH - news) are close to a deal to acquire real estate investment trust Archstone-Smith Trust (NYSE:ASN - news), according to the online edition of The Wall Street Journal.
The total value of the deal could top $20 billion, including debt, the report said.
Shares of Archstone rose about 8 percent on Friday after reports that Tishman and Archstone were in discussions about a transaction, the report said. The U.S. financial markets were closed on Monday for the Memorial Day holiday.
Lehman, Tishman and Archstone-Smith could not be immediately reached for comment.
This could have interesting implications in SF. Tishman Speyer is an important developer in SF. They are doing 555 Mission for example. Archstone, on the other hand, owns some "fixer-upper" properties like Fox Plaza. Could this deal result not only in a good renovation of Fox Plaza but possibly also the construction of a second tower on that block (which the BizTimes said would be permitted under present planning codes when Archstone bought it)?
coyotetrickster
May 29, 2007, 2:24 PM
This could have interesting implications in SF. Tishman Speyer is an important developer in SF. They are doing 555 Mission for example. Archstone, on the other hand, owns some "fixer-upper" properties like Fox Plaza. Could this deal result not only in a good renovation of Fox Plaza but possibly also the construction of a second tower on that block (which the BizTimes said would be permitted under present planning codes when Archstone bought it)?
Wasn't there something about a second tower preliminary plan going forward already? With the Argento and the new tower proposed at 10th & Market, that whole intersection is poised for some big, big changes.
BTinSF
May 29, 2007, 4:34 PM
Wasn't there something about a second tower preliminary plan going forward already? With the Argento and the new tower proposed at 10th & Market, that whole intersection is poised for some big, big changes.
I don't think so. As far as I know, it was as I said above--BizTimes mentioned that the planning code would permit a well-capitalized buyer to build a second tower at the time Archstone bought the property, which wasn't very long ago.
By the way, the deal is done (unless, as suggested, another bidder jumps in--that got mentioned because the share price went higher on the markets than the offer meaning Wall Street traders think somebody else could make a higher offer):
1 hour, 24 minutes ago
Real estate investment trust Archstone-Smith (NYSE:ASN - news) will be acquired by real estate company Tishman Speyer and investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings (NYSE:LEH - news) for $22.2 billion, including debt, the companies said on Tuesday.
Archstone is one of the biggest U.S. apartment REITS, with a portfolio concentrated in Washington, New York, Boston, Southern California, Seattle and the San Francisco Bay area.
Archstone shareholders will receive $60.75 per share, a 22.7 percent premium over the share price on May 24, before reports about a possible deal were first published.
The shares rose as high as $61.35 on Tuesday morning, above the deal's price, indicating there might be interest in the REIT from other bidders.
Archstone's board of trustees unanimously approved the deal. Completion of the transaction, expected in the third quarter, is contingent on the approval of Archstone shareholders.
Morgan Stanley is the financial adviser to Archstone. Lehman Brothers Inc. and Bank of America are financial advisers to the buyers.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070529/bs_nm/archstonesmith_takeover_dc_2&printer=1;_ylt=Asybt4EHMOKOTKNHB4iWfiSb.HQA
BTinSF
May 31, 2007, 12:14 AM
San Francisco Sizzle
May 30, 2007; Page B6
With technology making a comeback, both San Francisco and the Silicon Valley office markets are finally in recovery, with rising rents and decreasing space. For example, Silicon Valley's vacancy rate is 12.4%, down from a high of 27.2% at the end of 2002 when the tech bust hit the market the hardest.
And as industry experts have seen in other cities including Boston and New York, tenants in San Francisco are willing to pay top dollar for fabulous views. Asking rental rates for a "full view," defined as panoramic views of the Bay and Golden Gate bridges, is averaging close to $80 per square foot in the best-quality office buildings -- a rate not seen since the height of the tech boom, says Maria Sicola, executive managing director of research for Cushman & Wakefield.
One trend affecting those markets: Some traditional Silicon Valley employers have been looking for space in San Francisco because they have found their younger work force prefers an urban environment to the sprawling tech campuses. Google Inc., based in Mountain View, Calif., already subleased space at San Francisco's Hills Plaza from Gap Inc.
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB118049132870618102.html
rocketman_95046
May 31, 2007, 3:41 AM
Well I was up in SJ in April and was wondering what was under construction in south downtown SJ... Well now i know thanks to Socketsite. This makes three 20+ story highrises under construction in downtown SJ with 200+ units each... SJ will sure be changing over the next few years.:tup:
http://www.socketsite.com/360Residences.jpg
...By the numbers: 1/2/3 bedroom condos; 23 Stories; 213 units (ranging in size from 795 to 3440 square feet...
http://www.360residences.com/
http://www.socketsite.com/
San Frangelino
Jun 1, 2007, 5:30 PM
From http://www.socketsite.com/ and http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/highlights/2007/06/04/story4.html
Highrise Housing (And More) For Candlestick Point
“Top Vision [Development] has hired architect C.P. Wang of the renowned C.Y. Lee & Partners -- the firm that designed Taipei 101, the world's tallest fully inhabited skyscraper -- to design the final phase of St. Francis Bay, which will include a 16-story, 465-unit tower nestled into Bayview Hill, the grassy knoll separating the development from Monster Park.”
"Top Vision Development has sold out the first phase of its 769-unit St. Francis Bay, a total of 128 units. Meanwhile, construction on phase two is nearly complete, and thus far about 110 of the 176 units have been sold . . . Grading has begun on the site [for the final phase] and construction will start this year."
"In addition to St. Francis Bay, three other developers have pending projects in the area. Signature Properties has started work on 125 units at Candlestick Cove, a project which will eventually total 499 units. Developer George Yerby plans to demolish two office buildings and replace them with 500 units. And Universal Paragon Corp., which owns three office buildings, has plans to construct 1,100 units in seven highrise buildings."
http://www.socketsite.com/Top%20Vision%20Candlestick%20Tower.jpg
Reminiscence
Jun 2, 2007, 12:13 AM
June's approximate progress:
http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/85/sfdiagramoh4.gif
BTinSF
Jun 2, 2007, 2:02 AM
BizTimes has a somewhat downbeat article about Oakland's major projects and focuses on the proposed 37-story Gensler-designed condo tower (including a nice rendering).
It also reports bids from contractors are due this summer on UCSF's $600M Mission Bay hospital. And the Tribune Press Building has reopened in Oakland after being rahabbed.
BTinSF
Jun 3, 2007, 11:48 PM
Fight looms over Oakland tower
San Francisco Business Times - June 1, 2007
by Ryan Tate
His ultra-modern, ultra-tall condo tower may never get built in downtown Oakland, but developer Mark Borsuk isn't giving up just yet -- nor is he giving an inch.
Designed by San Francisco architecture firm Gensler, the glassy building would rise 37 stories and 395 feet, second only to the Ordway building as the city's tallest. In a design rendering submitted to city officials, the structure dwarfs the much older, four-to-six story buildings surrounding it.
Some neighbors have complained loudly to the planning commission that the design and height don't fit with the neighborhood, and the complaints appear to have gained a sympathetic ear among commissioners. The project could also be scuttled by affordable housing mandates expected to come to the city council by the fall.
Though the project is unique in its design, it is in many ways like a spate of other proposed downtown projects -- big, bold and in danger of crumbling as Oakland's development climate changes.
Threats include not only the objections from neighborhood residents, who voiced general highrise complaints at a recent meeting with council members Nancy Nadel and Pat Kernighan, but also the weakening housing market and stubbornly high construction costs, particularly for highrises.
Borsuk isn't budging, and hopes his plan will survive a series of upcoming planning meetings.
"We have a very distinct and definite plan for the structure -- that is an unalterable vision (and) we will not dumb it down," Borsuk said.
Among the other proposed downtown highrises is a 63-story office tower from developer Peter Wang at 1930 Broadway; a 42-story condo tower from builder David O'Keefe at 222 19th St.; an approximately 30-story, condo tower from Balco Properties Ltd. at 325 7th St; and a 19-story condo tower by KH Associates, at 226 13th Street.
Just one block from Borsuk's project is a proposed 33-story from Golden Harvest Co. at 250 12th Street. National homebuilder DR Horton has entitlements for a 22-story tower at 188 11th Street.
All those projects are in the early stages of the development pipeline but, like Borsuk's project, are potentially imperiled by a changing market and political winds in Oakland.
If Borsuk, who described himself as a former Wall Street and Tokyo financier, can get the required planning commission approvals -- and financing -- he could start building as early as next year. As now envisioned, the 245 luxury condos would sell to well-heeled buyers and offer more amenities than is typical for an Oakland housing project, including a door man.
rtate@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4968
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2007/06/04/story5.html?t=printable
BTinSF
Jun 3, 2007, 11:51 PM
Contractors drool over UCSF Mission Bay job
Construction companies are lining up for a job that promises to be one of the biggest contracts of the next five years, UCSF's $600 million hospital in Mission Bay. Bids are due this summer.
Thus far the players are: Turner Construction; a joint venture between McCarthy Building Cos. and Clark Construction; and Rudolph and Sletten.
Other big jobs out to bid include the proposed LEED platinum building at 525 Golden Gate Ave.
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2007/06/04/newscolumn1.html
Hal Incandenza
Jun 4, 2007, 6:24 AM
YIMBYs represent! From today's Chronicle:
Rally backs proposed CCSF Chinatown campus
Several hundred people gathered for a rally at Portsmouth Square at 1 p.m. this afternoon to show support for a proposed City College campus whose leading opponents include the owners of the nearby 27-story Hilton Hotel that will be partly shaded by the new building.
Carrying protest signs that read "Come Home Prodigal Son Leland Yee and Prodigal Daughter Fiona Ma," the crowd filled the square, signing petitions and listening to speakers demand that the proposed 16-story glass and steel structure be built immediately.
Assemblywoman Ma and state Senator Yee have spoken out against the project, to be built at Kearny and Washington streets. The proposed 16-story, $122 million Chinatown-North Beach campus would replace a smaller campus nearby.
Advocates say it will provide long overdue educational resources for working class immigrants. Among the speakers supporting it Sunday were San Francisco Board of Education member Norman Yee; executive director Vincent Pan of Chinese for Affirmative Action and San Francisco assessor Phil Ting.
"We're putting people before profit," Ting told the crowd. "In our community, education comes first."
A public hearing on the project is scheduled June 28 at City College, 33 Gough St. For details and to read a draft environmental impact report on the project, visit www.ccsf.edu.
munkyman
Jun 6, 2007, 11:52 PM
Does anyone know when the SF PUC plans on breaking ground on their proposed LEED building? Or if the plans are not that far advanced, how far along they are in the planning stages? I would assume that planning such a building would take years in SF's anemic planning process.
I read an article that said they planned on breaking ground in October 2007, but I don't know how reliable that is (the article is below).
http://www.sijournal.com/energy/7768457.html
High rise shrinks energy use by Becky Brun
6.1.07
The new San Francisco Public Utilities Commission building could be the country’s most energy-efficient urban high-rise office building, says KMD Architects.
Designed to perform 60 percent more efficiently than California’s already stringent building code, the building could attain Platinum certification under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, according to KMD project manager, David Hobstetter.
The 260,000-square-foot tower includes on-site renewable energy generation, including vertical axis wind turbines and rooftop and wall integrated solar panels. When the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, the building could produce 100 percent of its own energy needs, Hobstetter says. Overall, on-site generation is expected to meet nearly 40 percent of the building’s total annual energy needs.
Among its energy-efficient attributes, the building features a ventilation system that sucks hot air out of the building to keep it cool. The Public Utilities Commission (PUC) serves 2.4 million water and sewer customers in San Francisco and three other Bay Area counties, and provides power for municipal requirements in the City and County of San Francisco.
It plans to break ground on its new 12-story office tower by October 2007. The $125 million project is being financed by a combination of bonds sold against future rent savings, and the sale of surplus PUC property, according to a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle.
viewguysf
Jun 7, 2007, 1:52 AM
[QUOTE=munkyman;2882062]Does anyone know when the SF PUC plans on breaking ground on their proposed LEED building? Or if the plans are not that far advanced, how far along they are in the planning stages? I would assume that planning such a building would take years in SF's anemic planning process.
I read an article that said they planned on breaking ground in October 2007, but I don't know how reliable that is...
Not to mention that the present building on the site needs to be demolished and no obvious preparations have been made.
BTinSF
Jun 7, 2007, 3:22 AM
^^^3 posts above yours, I posted the following quote from SF Business Times: "Other big jobs out to bid include the proposed LEED platinum building at 525 Golden Gate Ave."
OK?
dimondpark
Jun 11, 2007, 8:05 PM
Sterling, Hines Pony Up $281M for SF Office
June 11, 2007
By Adam Perrotta, News Writer
http://www.cpnonline.com/commercialpropertynews/photos/general3/333_Bush.jpg
A joint venture between Sterling American Property Inc. and Hines has acquired 333 Bush Street in San Francisco, a 43-story, 543,000-square-foot Class A office tower. The partnership purchased the building for $281 million from TMW Property Funds, a subsidiary of Prudential.
Located in the city's Financial District, 333 Bush (pictured) is currently 75 percent leased, with tenants including America Online and the law firm Heller Ehrman L.L.P. The tower was designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill and is sited near Union Square, the Crocker Galleria and many restaurants and hotels. Hines will lead the property management and leasing of the property.
Sales velocity in San Francisco has been moving briskly of late, with nearly half of all downtown properties having changed hands in the past two years; Sterling head of acquisitions Tarak Patolia identified the city as "one of the fastest growing office markets on the West Coast," and the firm has been an active buyer there, having acquired five previous properties in the area since 2005. The Financial District has been a particularly strong submarket, with average asking rents at $43.84 per square foot for Class A space during the first quarter of the year, according to real estate services firm Grubb & Ellis Co.
Sterling is the real estate investment arm of Sterling Equities and American Securities L.P. Since 1991, the firm has invested more than $4 billion into properties across 43 states via five funds.
Real estate investor, developer and manager Hines currently has more than 950 properties under development, completed, acquired or managed for third parties. The firm operates across all major property type sectors.
http://www.cpnonline.com/cpn/property_type/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003597125
BTinSF
Jun 12, 2007, 3:20 AM
Opponents want say in U.C. extension site plans
Old UC Berkeley Extension’s makeover can move ahead with denial of historic status.
Adam Martin, The Examiner
2007-06-11 10:00:00.0
Current rank: # 187 of 6,641
SAN FRANCISCO -
A massive proposed development at the site of the former UC Berkeley Extension campus has cleared one hurdle as the site was denied historic landmark status, but opposition to the project still rages among conservationists.
Opponents of the development —which would include rental housing, retail space and a retirement home for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people — say the site does have historic value, and that they may opt to appeal Thursday’s decision by the San Francisco Planning Commission.
The campus has been the subject of a contentious battle over its future since it closed in 2003. The university extension, which owns the property, entered into a negotiating agreement with AF Evans, in which the developer has exclusive rights to propose a development on the property.
“The income stream is critical for the survival of UC Extension. This is the thing that underpins their financial viability. They couldn’t stay at the site because the buildings are dilapidated,” said Elisabeth Gunther, a land-use attorney representing the university extension.
The original site of San Francisco Teachers College, which then became S.F. State, the commission voted 4-3 to deny the landmark status. It remained a S.F. State campus until the 1960’s move to 19th Avenue.
“I consider it a vote that the [Planning] Commission wants us to move forward and come back to them with our plan, with more conversations with the community, so we can get a project going,” said Ruthy Bennett, vice president of A.F. Evans Development.
But as the developer prepares to break ground, preservationists are working to have more of a say in the project and the building’s future.
The five-building campus, most of which was built between 1924 and 1935, qualifies for the National Register of Historic Places, planner Tara Sullivan-Lenane said at a recent Planning Commission meeting. The development plan calls for tearing down Middle Hall and the administration wing of Richardson Hall.
A few facts
» The development would contain 450 residential rental units in seven new buildings and three rehabilitated buildings on a 5.8-acre parcel.
» At least 15 percent — about 68 units — would be reserved for low-income tenants.
» Six of the seven proposed new buildings would be four stories — approximately 40-50 feet tall.
» One of the proposed new buildings would be eight stories — approximately 85 feet tall.
» The project would include 430,800 square feet of residential space, 10,000 square feet of community space, 127,360 square feet of parking and 5,000 square feet of commercial space.
- Source: San Francisco Planning Department
Facility would house LGBT senior citizens
The proposed development at 55 Laguna St. includes an 85-unit facility for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender seniors.
Openhouse, the nonprofit organization that is working with developer AF Evans to build the facility, says there are more than 17,000 LGBT senior citizens in The City and more than 60,000 living in the Bay Area.
The organization asserts on its Web site that many LGBT seniors do not feel comfortable “coming out” at traditional senior facilities. “To be in hiding puts their physical, emotional and social well-being at risk,” the Web site states.
Those in the LGBT community, while they usually have a strong support network, age at the same time as their friends.
“Because LGBTs are more likely to be childless, single and to live alone than their heterosexual counterparts, they age without the traditional family support and assistance in assessing senior services,” according to Openhouse.
The facility would include 66 studios and one-bedroom units and 19 two-bedroom units.
http://ewww.sfexaminer.com/images/newsroom/1A130CD2-3048-2F0A-AAAB12F853FB5DD0.jpg
Source: http://ewww.sfexaminer.com/a-774137~Opponents_want_say_in_U_C__extension_site_plans.html
FourOneFive
Jun 13, 2007, 3:45 PM
did anyone catch the NOP that was put up on the SF Planning Department's website for 222 Second St.
www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/planning/FinalNOP.pdf
the pdf doesn't contain any images, but they do describe the dimensions of the project. some highlights:
"25‐story, 350‐foot‐tall office tower containing approximately 430,700 square feet of office space"
"the proposed building would be an irregularly shaped, eight‐sided polyhedron in plan view"
the project is going to be designed by Thomas Phifer and Partners of New York and Heller Manus Architects (ugh!)
it looks like Tishman Speyer has reduced the height/scale of the tower from the 435', 33 story, 700,000 sq ft proposal that was announced last november. the current proposal does match the existing zoning so the project won't have to go to the board of supervisors for a zoning change (some crazy NIMBY may still appeal the EIR though.)
let's hope that the EIR will examine the 435' alternative as well.
viewguysf
Jun 14, 2007, 5:26 AM
did anyone catch the NOP that was put up on the SF Planning Department's website for 222 Second St.
www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/planning/FinalNOP.pdf
the pdf doesn't contain any images, but they do describe the dimensions of the project. some highlights:
"25‐story, 350‐foot‐tall office tower containing approximately 430,700 square feet of office space"
"the proposed building would be an irregularly shaped, eight‐sided polyhedron in plan view"
the project is going to be designed by Thomas Phifer and Partners of New York and Heller Manus Architects (ugh!)
it looks like Tishman Speyer has reduced the height/scale of the tower from the 435', 33 story, 700,000 sq ft proposal that was announced last november. the current proposal does match the existing zoning so the project won't have to go to the board of supervisors for a zoning change (some crazy NIMBY may still appeal the EIR though.)
let's hope that the EIR will examine the 435' alternative as well.
It sounds as if the building will have a very interesting shape, but yes, taller would be much better and would really stand out in that location, particularly from the freeway.
BTinSF
Jun 14, 2007, 4:20 PM
Court shoots down land-use referendum
Adam Martin, The Examiner
2007-06-14 10:00:00.0
Current rank: # 88 of 10,338
SAN FRANCISCO -
A petition that would place a decision before San Francisco voters to turn over about 1,400 acres to a city agency is not valid because it did not include sufficient background documents, according to a San Francisco Superior Court decision.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Patrick Mahoney appeared to side with San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera on Tuesday in denying the validity of a referendum petition that called for a citywide vote on a 2006 ordinance placing the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency in control of Candlestick Point and the Hunters’ Point Shipyard. An ambitious development of residential and commercial space as well as a new stadium are slated for the site.
In September 2006, Herrera refused to allow the referendum on the ballot, even though it had collected more than the required 21,615 signatures. He asserted that the petition’s organizers had not attached sufficient documentation for signatories to know what they were endorsing.
The petition included a copy of the San Francisco resolution that gave the redevelopment agency control of the land, but it did not include supporting documents referred to within the resolution. Those documents, according to the resolution, are on file with the city clerk.
“We don’t think the attachments were necessary under the law. The text meant just the text of the ordinance, which was attached,” said Michael Grob, an attorney for the Defend Bayview Hunters Point Committee, which sued The City in December to overturn Herrera’s decision.
In his opinion Tuesday, Mahoney wrote that “without including a plan, a voter did not know the boundaries of the project that was expanding from 137 acres to 1,361 additional acres.”
“The court recognized that omission of the redevelopment plan by signature gatherers unlawfully deprived voters of their right to know what the ordinance sought to accomplish,” Herrera said in a statement Tuesday.
Activists now have the option to appeal the decision, but they may not recirculate the referendum petition, Herrera’s spokesman Matt Dorsey said Tuesday. Grob said he and his client had not decided on whether to appeal the decision.
Source: http://www.examiner.com/printa-780044~Court_shoots_down_land-use_referendum.html
BTinSF
Jun 18, 2007, 4:57 AM
AvalonBay puts another big bet on apartments
San Francisco Business Times - June 15, 2007
by J.K. Dineen
Apartment developer AvalonBay has bought the last remaining parcel in Mission Bay's north of Mission Creek area from condo builder Signature Properties, an indication that rental housing is gaining steam as some segments of the condo market cool off.
The price of the fully entitled project was about $26 million, but that includes project design work by Miami-based Arquitectonica, as well as piles that Signature had already purchased for the development, according to Meg Spriggs, development director for AvalonBay.
The parcel at 353 King St., between IntraCorp's Arterra and AvalonBay Phase I, had been entitled for 260 condominiums. AvalonBay has slightly reduced the size of the building to accommodate the apartments, which are generally smaller than condos, but the number of units and the overall design will remain the same.
The project comes after several years in which rental housing developers have struggled to gain a foothold amid an overheated condo market. But with rents having increased 21 percent over the past three years, apartment developers like AvalonBay, Archstone-Smith and Urban Housing Group have become increasingly aggressive in tying up land and beginning construction.
Signature Properties President Michael Ghielmetti said AvalonBay approached them and "offered what we felt was a fair price." Signature has two other condo projects on Berry Street, 235 Berry and 255 Berry, which are selling, but not as fast as the developer had hoped.
"It's a good market for rentals and a little slow on the condo side," said Ghielmetti. "There are a lot of other condo projects and I wasn't anxious to compete against the number that are out there."
The project represents the third phase of AvalonBay's hefty bet on Mission Bay, an investment that will include 823 apartment units valued at between $350 million and $400 million when complete. The first two phases are 97 percent leased, said Spriggs. Monthly rents average about $3 a square foot, with one bedrooms leasing for about $2,500 and two-bedrooms for $3,500.
In addition to Mission Bay, Avalon Bay has acquired a site near City College at 1150 Ocean Ave. and is seeking others.
"We believe the fundamentals are strong in the San Francisco market and we want to commit more resources here. We are not going to stop at 800 units in Mission Bay," said Spriggs.
Spriggs pointed to 2 percent job growth and a housing market where average prices, despite the national slowdown, are still nearly $800,000. In addition, average mortgage payments are double average rental payments.
"All those fundamentals translate into what we think is a strong rental market," said Spriggs.
There are few large apartment projects being built in San Francisco. Urban Housing Group has projects under construction on both sides of Mission Creek, the 193-unit Edgewater on Berry Street, which will open in August, and the 192-apartment 555 Mission Rock, which just broke ground. Trinity Properties has entitled but not started its long-awaited development which will bring 1,900 units to 1177 Market St. And Archstone-Smith is working with the Planning Department and neighborhood to entitle three acres at Eighth and Harrison streets for upwards of 700 units.
Urban Housing Group President Jim Brooks sees rental developers in a good position to rescue broken condo projects.
"A tightening restriction on credit is making borrowing costs higher and pushing some people into the rental pool," said Brooks. "By and large you have had an eroding (of the) for-sale market with a tightening credit market. You're seeing a little bit of a correction in land values."
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2007/06/18/story4.html
BTinSF
Jun 18, 2007, 5:12 AM
Noteware and Goldman add 2nd Bayview project
San Francisco Business Times - June 15, 2007
by J.K. Dineen and Ryan Tate
James Noteware and Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group have wrapped up their purchase of 5800 Third St., a 338-unit condo project slated for the former Coca-Cola plant site in the Bayview/Hunters Point neighborhood. Citigroup is providing the construction financing for the project. The sellers were Lennar Corp. and Levin Menzies & Associates.
The $146 million development is the second collaboration between Noteware and UIG to build housing in the Bayview. Their first project is the 198-unit family housing development under construction on Jamestown Avenue near Monster Park. The first homes will be ready in January.
The new project will be across the street from the new Carroll Station on the Third Street T line. Noteware Development CEO James Noteware said the project would help "kickstart the revitalization of the Third Street corridor." Between the two projects, the partners are investing $250 million in the southeastern corner of the city.
Christiani Johnson is architect on the project. Chris Foley of Polaris Group brokered the deal for both sides with Skip Whitney and Clayton Jew of GVA Kidder Mathews also advising the seller.
Alicia Glen, managing director of Goldman Sachs' Urban Investment Group, said the project -- with units starting in the $500,000s -- would provide "moderately priced, quality housing that working families can afford and bring much-needed retail to diverse and vibrant neighborhoods like the Bayview."
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2007/06/18/newscolumn1.html?t=printable
BTinSF
Jun 18, 2007, 5:14 AM
S.F. State adds to space at its Westfield campus
San Francisco State is soaking up 18,353 square feet more at the Westfield San Francisco Centre, bringing its total presence in the new mall-office complex to 125,000 square feet. With the expansion, S.F. State will occupy all of the fifth and sixth floors, said Frank Fudem of NAI BT Commercial, who represented the university. Microsoft signed a deal in December for 75,000 square feet on the seventh and part of the eighth floor. Forest City, which is a joint partner with the Westfield Corp. in the venture, also has recently taken space on the eighth floor.
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2007/06/18/newscolumn1.html?t=printable
San Frangelino
Jun 18, 2007, 3:28 PM
James Noteware and Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group have wrapped up their purchase of 5800 Third St., a 338-unit condo project slated for the former Coca-Cola plant site in the Bayview/Hunters Point neighborhood. Citigroup is providing the construction financing for the project. The sellers were Lennar Corp. and Levin Menzies & Associates.
Here's a small rendering on 5800 Thrid Street from http://www.cjarchs.com/
with a bigger one at http://www.levinmenzies.com/index2.html
http://www.cjarchs.com/images/project-images/in-progress/5800-3rd.jpg
I wonder what the status is on this project two blocks north along Third Street from http://www.dbarchitect.com/
http://www.dbarchitect.com/work/ontheboards/www-20111/20111slideshow/20111_armsrong_seaerial_w800.jpg
http://www.dbarchitect.com/work/ontheboards/www-20111/20111slideshow/20111_armsrong_aerialbuilding3_w800.jpg
rocketman_95046
Jun 22, 2007, 3:22 AM
Another San Jose update from Webcor...
Central Place...
http://www.webcor.com/auto_images/large/centralplacejune200741182386509.jpg
http://www.webcor.com/auto_images/large/centralplacejune200731182386479.jpg
San Frangelino
Jun 23, 2007, 5:28 AM
David Baker + Partners did an overhaul of their website and it includes a new spread for the Market Gateway Tower Proposed in Downtown San Jose.
The link (For all the renderings):
http://www.dbarchitect.com/project_detail/100/Market%2520Gateway%2520Tower.html
The Sample:
http://www.dbarchitect.com/images/dynamic/slideshow_images/image/ppt-skyline_2a.slideshow_main.jpg
http://www.dbarchitect.com/images/dynamic/slideshow_images/image/ppt-corner.slideshow_main.jpg
Also Check out Dagget Place Proposed for San Francisco. Good infill for an area in transition.
http://www.dbarchitect.com/project_detail/99/Daggett%2520%2520Place.html
rocketman_95046
Jun 23, 2007, 6:27 AM
^isnt that building under construction already in SJ? I thought i saw them pile driving that site when i was up there a couple months ago...
San Frangelino
Jun 23, 2007, 3:26 PM
You might be thinking of the http://www.360residences.com/ which is on the block directly north this project and has just started construction. This one according to the website is still in the design phase
As a sidenote....on the 360's website there is a virtual tour for the tower that shows how it will look on the tower as well as shows the site for the Market Gateway Tower. Its a tolerable video if you turn off the sound.
San Frangelino
Jun 23, 2007, 3:52 PM
I made this map awhile back ago to place the projects and proposals in San Jose. It's based on one that was done for Sacramento awhile back ago.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1325/600997011_b2d3dec046_o.jpg
and here are most of the links to the projects:
1. Central Place- Under Construction
http://www.sjheartofthecity.com/block3_b.htm
2. City Heights- Nearly Complete
http://www.cityheightssj.com/
(http://www.cityheightssj.com/)
3. Axis- Under Construction
http://axissanjose.com/
4. 360 Tower- Under Construction
http://www.360residences.com/
5. City Front Square- Proposed/Approved
http://www.sjredevelopment.org/monthlyReports/housing.pdf
6. Park View Towers- Proposed/ Approved
http://www.tsgarch.com/
7. 99. W Santa Clara- Proposed/ Approved
http://www.hellermanus.com/portfolio_categorylist_hm.cfm?categoryid=%22%24H6%5C%0A
8. 200 Park Avenue- Proposed/ Approved
http://www.mve-architects.com/page.cfm?pgid=7&catid=33&subcatid=36&pid=82
(http://www.mve-architects.com/page.cfm?pgid=7&catid=33&subcatid=36&pid=82)
9. 1 S Market Street- Proposed/ Approved
http://www.amaa.com/portfolio/project/?category=housing&project=129&redir=L3BvcnRmb2xpby8/IzE=
10. Market Gateway Tower- Proposed/ Approved
http://www.thecorecompanies.com/communities-drawing-coregateway.html
11. First United Methodist Tower- Proposed/ Approved
http://www.saitowitz.com/
12. 8 E San Fernando St.- ?
13. Almaden Towers- ?
rocketman_95046
Jun 23, 2007, 11:16 PM
^Thanks for the info:cheers:
roadwarrior
Jun 29, 2007, 1:54 PM
Would be nice for San Jose to annex Moffett Field and move their airport there, so that they would no longer have the height restrictions and the downtown wouldn't look so stumpy.
krudmonk
Jun 29, 2007, 4:50 PM
Would be nice for San Jose to annex Moffett Field and move their airport there, so that they would no longer have the height restrictions and the downtown wouldn't look so stumpy.
With the $billions going into SJC and the NIMBYs in Sunnyvale/Mountain View, that will never happen. All we can hope for now is a spread-out skyline. A large, dense cluster would be fine even if they aren't scraping any bit of the sky. That might take away from the hills anyway.
BTinSF
Jun 29, 2007, 11:05 PM
Brandywine's downtown tower nears completion
In less than four months, Brandywine Realty Trust is set to open Oakland's first new downtown office highrise in five years.
The nine-story tower at 2100 Franklin St. near 21st street is attached to an existing building at 2101 Webster St., which Brandywine bought four years ago.
The older building is utilitarian and clunky. While the new building is glassy, with floor-to-ceiling windows, and a curved wall wrapping around the combined building's entrance on 21st street. Inside the new wing, a central atrium will bring additional light to interior offices.
All that natural light, along with a special coating on the glass, special paint on the roof and improved air circulation are meant to help the building earn a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification. The certification would make Brandywine a LEED pioneer in the Oakland market.
Senior Vice President Dan Cushing said the company believes it can comfortably exceed its initial goals of base-level LEED certification and qualify for LEED silver, a higher standard. The building might even reach LEED gold, Cushing said.
Whatever environmental kudos it earns, the building will ultimately be judged by Brandywine on how quickly it attracts tenants. The company's Oakland portfolio, clustered around Lake Merritt, is only 3 percent vacant without the new building. Health care giant Kaiser holds roughly a quarter of that space.
Cushing said the company is out selling, but has no leases yet to announce. Most office tenants like to be able to walk around inside a completed building before signing a five- or 10-year lease.
jkdineen@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4971 / rtate@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4968
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2007/07/02/newscolumn1.html?t=printable
BTinSF
Jun 29, 2007, 11:13 PM
Developer's pitch revives talk of junking Cow Palace
San Francisco Business Times - June 29, 2007
by Eric Young
A recent proposal to replace the Cow Palace with housing and shops has revived a long-running debate over the future of the aged Daly City landmark.
A private development firm last week told the Cow Palace board it wants to raze the Cow Palace to build new housing and retail. Board members rejected the idea, but left the door open for the developer, Pro Sports Venture Capital, to come back with additional details about its proposal and its own financial standing.
It's not the first time the state-owned Cow Palace, opened in 1941, has caught the eye of developers with visions of new uses for the 67-acre site at Geneva Avenue and Carter Street. This latest proposal has revived a discussion of whether the venue should remain.
"When it was built 60 years ago, it was a different world," said Ivor Samson, a lawyer for Pro Sports Venture. "Now it's a valuable property in a densely populated area. Daly City needs things to support the population" like more housing, he said.
Some Daly City officials want to convert the venue.
"The Cow Palace is a white elephant," said Patricia Martel, the city manager of Daly City. "The uses of the Cow Palace, except for the Grand National (rodeo), are unwelcome in our community," she said, referring to events like the Exotic Erotic Ball and gun shows.
The hall has hosted all manner of events from political conventions to Liberace concerts and religious revivals.
The Cow Palace board defended the facility.
"We're not interested in selling the Cow Palace," said Henry Kuechler III, president of the nine-member board that oversees the venue on behalf of the state of California. The Cow Palace continues to do enough business to support itself, and its marquee event, the annual Grand National Rodeo and livestock show, "is a good service to the urban community," Kuechler said. "It's a valuable lesson to show some people that milk doesn't come from the bottle."
Still, some changes are coming to the Cow Palace grounds. Daly City's redevelopment agency is negotiating to lease 13 acres of the Cow Palace's parking lot to build housing and stores. It's not clear when those negotiations will conclude.
eyoung@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4969
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2007/07/02/story8.html?t=printable
peanut gallery
Jun 30, 2007, 10:40 AM
I'd hate to see it go. I've made a lot of great memories in that place, including my very first rock concert. But I haven't been inside in years. Is it holding up or falling apart?
Reminiscence
Jul 2, 2007, 1:14 AM
July's approximate progress:
http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/9531/sfdiagramtz6.gif
rocketman_95046
Jul 2, 2007, 8:09 PM
Interest in downtown San Jose high-rise living shows in deposits
Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal - June 29, 2007by Sharon Simonson
Nearly 25 percent of the 124 condos in the first downtown San Jose condominium high-rise are in escrow with sales expected to close in the next two weeks.
Martin Menne, president of MCM Diversified, Barry Swenson's development partner on the City Heights project, says sales have gone better than anticipated and buyer interest had been good since they began marketing the project in November. The company has had permission from the state to actually close escrow on its units only since April 26.
"We have had a price increase already, and we are having good deal flow," Menne says. "There is good interest in downtown, and people are saying they want to be part of the area's renaissance."
New home builders generally are satisfied if they are selling between one and two homes a week in a subdivision. Based on eight weeks of sales time, City Heights is on target with that pace and offers a glimpse into the level of buyer enthusiasm for high-rise condos in the center city. City Heights is situated near downtown's northeast edge, adjacent to San Pedro Square. Its units start in the $300,000 range and rise to more than $1 million.
Another 20 or so high-rise housing projects are in various stages of execution in downtown. Interest in buyer reception has been strong, not only among developers but also the city of San Jose, which is pushing to bring residents to downtown as the necessary spark to jump-start the area's long-awaited rebirth.
Overall, San Jose home sales have slowed in the past two years from the frenzied pace of the national housing boom during 2004 and 2005, but the market remains reasonably healthy, particularly compared to troubled markets in places such as Florida. Thus far, Silicon Valley median home prices have continued to rise, buoyed by sales of houses priced at about $850,000 and up. Entry-level home sales rates have slackened substantially. The pace of home sales above $2 million also has tapered off.
Besides City Heights, three other high-rise condominium towers are under construction in downtown now. But, the only other one offering units for sale is Mesa Development at its 360 Residences. The $200 million luxury high-rise near South Market and East San Carlos streets is in the opening phase of construction; all units are to be delivered by June 2009, according to public record.
The state issued its approval to Mesa to allow the company to enter escrow with buyers only on May 1. Before May 1, Mesa accepted only buyer "reservations" and returnable deposits. Now Mesa can require buyers to hand over "hard money," or unreturnable deposits.
Charles Young, Mesa development director, declined to say how many of the 213 condos in the 23-story tower the company has sold. Mesa is seeking 3 percent to 5 percent deposits for its units, with deposits growing as the units become more desirable, he says. It is asking for 10 percent deposits on its six penthouses. On a $600,000 condo -- the cheapest in the building -- a 3 percent deposit is $18,000.
Mesa's marketing strategy differs markedly from the one employed at City Heights and the other developments now under construction. Neither Hollywood's CIM Group nor Spring Capital of Oregon have yet secured state approval to close sales in their downtown condo towers. Both developments are much farther along in their construction than is Mesa.
Young says Mesa's approach has been deliberate.
"In our mind, it takes some of the risk out of the deal because you know what the demand for your product is, and you're not waiting until the whole building is built," he says. "We wanted to set our financial goals and let the buyer ride the market with us."
Developers who wait until later in construction to sell probably won't have to spend as much money on marketing -- Mesa invested in an elaborate off-site sales office in lieu of having a building to show -- and they're betting that home prices are still rising. Selling later gives those gains to the developer, not the buyer, he says.
Of course, if housing values fall, the developer who waits also must absorbs the declines.
Michael Kriozere, whose Urban West Associates plans to begin construction at the beginning of 2008 on a two-tower condo project adjacent to San Jose's Fairmont Hotel, says he favors the Mesa method and has used it successfully in San Francisco. He plans to begin selling his units as soon as his construction starts with delivery expected 20 months to 24 months later.
California law allowing the earlier sales has only been in effect about a year, he says.
"If you can sell units before you finish a building, and people are moving in right away after it's done, the money you have invested in the building is outstanding a much shorter period of time," he says. "The interest is calculated on how long the money is out, and you can save a ton of money."
Meanwhile, a principal with San Jose's Northpoint Development says the company has secured up to $24 million from new financial partners to complete the initial work on three proposed condo high rises in downtown. Alex Erickson declined to identify the partners for the three projects. The sites are near St. James Park, San Jose State University and the new San Jose City Hall.
"This is the initial capitalization of our projects and will allow us to get entitlements," he says. "It is a huge step."
He hopes to begin construction next summer. He now begins his trek to gain construction financing, he says.
San Frangelino
Jul 8, 2007, 2:23 AM
Nothing terribly groundbreaking, but I happened upon a flickr.com photo that showed this structure well under construction on Park Presidio and Clement St in the Richmond District.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1396/751565888_e5b75bec11_o.png
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1181/751565876_f945f7e429_o.png
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1137/751565870_6665c065fd_o.png
Its a Beth Sholom Synagogue by http://www.saitowitz.com
I found it interesting that a structure like this made it into the architecturally conservative neighborhoods.
BTinSF
Jul 8, 2007, 3:45 AM
^^^Are they getting away with that because it's a religious institution? I think it's wonderful, but no way do I think anybody could put something that radical in a San Francisco neighborhood if it were, say, a retail outlet.
BTinSF
Jul 8, 2007, 4:49 AM
Lot next to AT&T Park is up for grabs
John King, Chronicle Urban Design Writer
Sunday, July 8, 2007
There's no telling when Major League Baseball's All-Star Game again will visit San Francisco. But here's a good bet: The 14-acre parking lot across China Basin from AT&T Park will be gone.
What might replace it, though, is as murky as the Giants' long-term game plan without Barry Bonds.
The land is owned by the Port of San Francisco, which sees a blank slate to be filled with buildings that spin off money to restore decrepit piers elsewhere on San Francisco Bay. Politically adept environmentalists imagine a vast new park or even wetlands.
And the Giants? Team officials just want to make sure there's ample parking no matter what vision wins out.
"Responsible planning dictates that there is dedicated parking as part of the area's overall transportation strategy," said Jack Bair, the team's general counsel. "Not all of our fan base can hop on Muni."
When the ballpark opened in 2000, the Giants were pioneers on the southern edge of central San Francisco. But now they're the centerpiece of an active part of the city -- and when the team's lease on the 2,000-space parking lot expires after the 2009 baseball season, the port acreage might be the only empty land in sight.
Most of the changes are connected to Mission Bay, a rapidly emerging redevelopment district already home to more than 1,600 housing units that stretch for two blocks beyond the ballpark's first-base line. Three upscale housing projects are rising from former lots next to the port land. There's a new UCSF campus and private research buildings.
That transformation is also obvious to port officials, who see their 14-acre rectangle as the culmination of everything taking shape around it.
"It's on the bay, it's at the channel, it's across from the ballpark. It has the opportunity to be a bit of an exclamation point," said Dan Hodapp, a senior port planner. "This piece of land is probably the most interesting location that Mission Bay has to offer."
The port controls 600 acres along the bay shoreline, including 39 piers and 43 inland parcels. But when the state handed off the port to the city in 1969, San Francisco also received a decrepit waterfront that has continued to deteriorate.
In recent decades some piers have been restored. Others have been torn down to open up views. Even so, the port last year estimated that it will cost $1.5 billion to bring its remaining property up to modern standards of accessibility and seismic safety.
Port planners estimate that if the Giants parking lot is leased to developers -- reserving land near the water to expand an existing bayside park -- it could bring $8 million in annual revenue that would be used to create waterfront open space and to preserve historic piers.
To this end, port planners have held several public meetings to study how the 14 acres might evolve. At the most recent, in late June, Hodapp unveiled scenarios that would allow high-density growth.
The scenarios include offices and condominiums, an 1,800-seat concert venue and streets that extend from Mission Bay. The scenarios also made room for one or two slender towers in the 25-story range -- roughly 100 feet above what's permitted nearby.
But minutes after Hodapp told the small crowd that "we're entering a new era of planning" and that towers could "make the site more noticeable," the reaction was as chilly as the waters of McCovey Cove.
Several audience members complained that the prior Mission Bay plan -- adopted in 1991 but never built -- reserved the entire site for a waterfront park. One speaker called for the wetlands debated back then; another chided port planners that "you need to celebrate the bay."
Giants executive Bair criticized plans to trim the public parking to a garage with at most 1,600 spaces -- spaces that also would be used by employees of the proposed half-million-plus square feet of office space.
Other speakers feared views of the bay would be lost. One protested that the scenarios didn't include bicycle lanes.
"That was one of our more difficult meetings," said Hodapp, who has scheduled a July 31 public meeting to review what sort of "vision and objectives" might be appropriate for the site.
Bair said the Giants hope to see "more of a public-oriented space" -- an approach that allows for at least 2,000 parking spaces but also includes shops, restaurants, a performing arts center of no more than 5,000 seats, and a large waterfront park.
And despite the cool response, environmentalists say there's room for an approach that everyone can live with.
"The port is looking at maximizing its revenue. The rest of us are looking at something that's been considered open space for the last 20 years," said Jennifer Clary, president of the environmental group San Francisco Tomorrow. "I don't think anybody really expects to see a 14-acre wetland."
Online resources:
For information on the Port's planning efforts:
links.sfgate.com/ZJV
Source: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/08/GIANTSLOT.TMP
krudmonk
Jul 8, 2007, 5:02 AM
I found it interesting that a structure like this made it into the architecturally conservative neighborhoods.
Yeah, that thing would look much better on the other side of the city.
Reminiscence
Jul 8, 2007, 7:43 AM
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1181/751565876_f945f7e429_o.png
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1137/751565870_6665c065fd_o.png
I also think its nice that something like this is being thought of, but the structure itself looks like some sort of gigantic water tank; at least thats what the renderings remind me of. It does not look well with that neighborhood.
krudmonk
Jul 8, 2007, 4:53 PM
I hope that area is developed soon so the Warriors won't jump across the Bay. Oakland needs to hold on to at least one team.
BTinSF
Jul 8, 2007, 5:53 PM
I think that synagogue is great where it is. It shocks you. I say good. Some of these neighborhoods need to have a surprise or two. But I was more interested in the process--how it got to be there in spite of what I'm sure was intense opposition by the neighbors. I seem to vaguely recall that churches/mosques/synagogues have some sort of "freedom of religion" exemption from zoning and other laws. Is that the case?
roadwarrior
Jul 8, 2007, 5:57 PM
^^^Are they getting away with that because it's a religious institution? I think it's wonderful, but no way do I think anybody could put something that radical in a San Francisco neighborhood if it were, say, a retail outlet.
Maybe true, but I personally like this type of development. It really breaks up the monotony of the Edwardians, Victorians, etc. I'm all for preserving history, but I'm also a modernist and I like it when SF creates such bold statements in its architecture. I just wish that there were more of these going up and not just near downtown.
krudmonk
Jul 8, 2007, 8:29 PM
Maybe true, but I personally like this type of development. It really breaks up the monotony of the Edwardians, Victorians, etc. I'm all for preserving history, but I'm also a modernist and I like it when SF creates such bold statements in its architecture. I just wish that there were more of these going up and not just near downtown.
Modern doesn't have to be cold or obnoxious.
roadwarrior
Jul 8, 2007, 10:39 PM
Modern doesn't have to be cold or obnoxious.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I personally like the look of it and if it is ostentatious, I say bring it on. San Francisco needs more bold buildings and less subtlety.
San Frangelino
Jul 10, 2007, 5:03 PM
From http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2007/07/the_official_cathedral_hill_tower_1481_post_street_webs.html#comments
The Official Cathedral Hill Tower (1481 Post Street) Website
A plugged-in tipster directs us to the ADCO Group’s website for the proposed Catherdral Hill Tower (1481 Post Street). Think summary, FAQs (“We hope to get our final permits sometime in 2008, so we expect that the project will be completed by 2010.”), and a complete rundown of community meetings (both past and future).
http://www.1481poststreet.com
viewguysf
Jul 11, 2007, 3:28 AM
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I personally like the look of it and if it is ostentatious, I say bring it on. San Francisco needs more bold buildings and less subtlety.
Unfortunately, we'll only be able to tell if we like it when we behold it. With all of the misguided renderings that we've had to endure recently, I'm not holding my breath. Let's hope it looks good in reality or otherwise it won't bode well for future bold architectural attempts in the neighborhoods.
Gordo
Jul 11, 2007, 3:31 AM
I walked by the halfpipe before it was enclosed a few weeks ago. I kept expecting to see Tony Hawk...I like the design though.
SFView
Jul 11, 2007, 5:58 AM
(edit)
BTinSF
Jul 13, 2007, 5:35 PM
Height limit could sink port's plan
Migden seeks waterfront building cap: Forty feet
San Francisco Business Times - July 13, 2007
by J.K. Dineen
Najib Joe Hakim
A last-minute push by Sen. Carol Migden to limit heights along the Embarcadero could kill efforts to develop a series of surface parking lots along the northeast waterfront, according to the Port of San Francisco and business advocacy groups.
For two years the port has been hammering out legislation that would give the cash-strapped agency development control over nine so-called seawall lots, port-owned parcels along the Embarcadero.
The legislation looked like a ray of hope for the port, which argued that selling the right to develop the lots would generate money to help pay for its $1.4 billion in infrastructure needs. The legislation would transfer control of the lots, which are not directly on the water, from the State Lands Commission to the city.
But earlier this month, under increasing pressure from neighborhood groups, Migden altered the bill to prohibit building anything higher than 40 feet on four of the more valuable parcels near the foot of Telegraph Hill. The altered bill, passed July 2 by the Assembly Natural Resources Committee, drew the wrath of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and Port Director Monique Moyer, who suggested that Migden had caved in to property owners looking to "maintain waterfront views."
"There is no state interest in height limits along San Francisco's waterfront, nor should the state accept the testimony of a small subset of San Francisco residents," stated Moyer.
Housing made unfeasible
The 40-foot limits would essentially make any sort of housing development unfeasible, according to Tim Colen of the Housing Action Coalition. Colen said the amendment "doesn't benefit the larger interests of the city of San Francisco."
"This would wreck the value of the land for the port," said Colen. "At 40 feet, what is the point? That's two floors of housing above retail."
Migden said the resolution, Senate Bill 815, provides ample opportunities for the port to generate cash and doesn't impose height restrictions on the largest of the seawall lots, the 600,000-square-foot lot 337, next to AT&T Park. She said the bill "strikes a balance between the port's need to bring in revenue and the concerns of neighbors who will live next door to these developments.
"The bill offers many elements that are more than fair to the chamber and the port, including complete access to develop the parking lot next to the AT&T Park which is bigger than two city blocks," said Migden.
Given that the state lands commission oversees the uses of the seawall lots, Migden said she "(takes) exception to the argument that the state has no business ensuring the lots' future development."
The amendment was pushed by the Telegraph Hill Dwellers, Friends of Golden Gateway, and the Barbary Coast Neighborhood Association. Telegraph Hill Dwellers President Vedica Puri said the changes simply reinforce current 40-foot zoning in the Northeast Waterfront Historic District, where three of the lots are.
"The port needs revenue, the neighborhood needs protection and developers need certainty," said Puri. "This accomplishes all of that. I've yet to hear a compelling answer as to why the height limits that are existing are so bad."
The answer, say critics, is that it's impossible for a developer to make development pencil out at those heights.
"I think what it does is limits the ability of the port to generate the revenue they desperately need to open up the waterfront to the public," said Rob Black, director of policy for the chamber.
Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of the think tank San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, said he supports most of the bill, which also gives the city control over a number of port-owned "paper streets" as well as a 36-acre parcel on Treasure Island.
"Returning control of the San Francisco waterfront to San Francisco is a really important idea and has been a long time coming," he said. "I don't see how having the state zoning height limits is consistent with the larger purposes of the bill."
Fred Allardyce, a Sotheby's luxury real estate broker and president of the Barbary Coast Neighborhood Association, called the 40-foot height restrictions "sacrosanct." He also objected to the argument that developers and the port would be hard-pressed to turn a profit without building above the restriction.
"Build tasteful condos down there and I could sell them in a day," Allardyce said. "The neighborhood is fabulous."
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2007/07/16/story2.html?t=printable
rocketman_95046
Jul 31, 2007, 4:44 AM
DOWNTOWN S.J. CONDO TOWERS TO LOSE A FLOOR
By Katherine Conrad
Mercury News
Article Launched: 07/27/2007 01:37:07 AM PDT
A logjam that threatened a multimillion-dollar development in downtown San Jose has been cleared with the developer and the city agreeing to a "financial haircut."
Developer Mike Kriozere, principal at Urban West Associates, agreed to lop a floor off each of his two 25-story residential towers as long as the city lowers its price on the land, currently a parking lot on Market Street near the Fairmont Hotel.
Losing a floor on each tower reduces the total number of condominiums from 414 to 400 and the price on the 1.5 acres, known as Block 8, to $27.2 million from $28.6 million, the price agreed to by the city in June 2006.
"Instead of waiting around for God knows how long it will be . . . you break the logjam," Kriozere said. "That's what reasonable people do."
It was not a resolution that made either side happy. But Harry Mavrogenes, head of the city's Redevelopment Agency, said neither side wanted to risk a delay.
"We can lose (14) units now, or wait another year for the studies to be complete and lose the market," he said.
Kriozere's project, City Front Square, has been on hold because of an unresolved conflict that flared up in December between the city, downtown boosters and Mineta San Jose International Airport over the height of downtown buildings. At issue is how to reconcile flight paths over the downtown and the city's proposed high-rises.
Airport officials argue that tall buildings pose a risk to airplanes
when they are forced to change flight paths because of wind conditions. Developers, meanwhile, assert that many projects aren't profitable unless they reach a certain height.
A consultant hired by the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce, the San Jose Downtown Association and the airport is currently studying the conflict. A report is expected at the end of August.
With a decision by the city months and maybe a year away, Kriozere said he worked with Mayor Chuck Reed to figure out how to get the project back on track. The developer noted that he could have lowered the nine-foot ceilings in the units rather than eliminate a floor, but he didn't want to "cheapen" the luxury project that will offer concierge services, spas and 24-hour door staff.
"We want to go ahead a build the building, and the mayor wants it built," Kriozere said. "I make a sacrifice; the Redevelopment Agency makes a sacrifice. It's fair. A delay hurts everybody."
Kriozere said final touches on the drawings will be done soon and he hopes to start construction on the $250 million project sometime after the new year. The first tower should be complete by 2010.
Kriozere also is building One Rincon Hill in San Francisco, a high-rise condominium project at the foot of the Bay Bridge. The units, which sell for about $1,000 a square foot, are almost entirely sold out. New residents can begin moving in later this fall, he said.
He is convinced that luxury condos will be a hit in San Jose, as well, though the price of the units has not yet been decided.
Contact Katherine Conrad at kconrad@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5073.
http://www.mercurynews.com/businessheadlines/ci_6476969
San Frangelino
Jul 31, 2007, 3:04 PM
^ Well 24 stories as opposed to 25 shouldn't make much of difference in the aesthetics. Its a great looking project by the renderings, I especially like the curved glass form within the otherwise boxy shape.
Reminiscence
Aug 2, 2007, 6:26 AM
Here's what I've seen so far in August:
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/3214/sfdiagramqp5.gif
snufalufugus
Aug 7, 2007, 12:48 AM
S.F. skyscraper designs released
John King, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, August 6, 2007
(08-06) 16:45 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- The long-awaited proposals for a new San Francisco skyscraper that would be taller than the Transamerica Pyramid are being unveiled this evening at City Hall - and images obtained by The Chronicle show three towers in the 1,200 foot range that look nothing like the Victorian homes for which the city is known.
There are three competing proposals from three teams that combine well-known architects with deep-pocket development firms. Each includes a design for a new Transbay Terminal at First and Mission streets as well as a high-rise that the winning team would both design and build.
The idea of allowing a super-tall tower is that the sale or lease of the land for the project will spin off money to finance the terminal, which the Transbay Joint Powers Authority -- the agency holding the competition -- hopes to start building in 2010.
But the idea is also to turn heads. According to the competition manual, "the Transit Tower is expected to be an iconic presence that will redefine the city's skyline" while incorporating the latest in green building and seismic safety systems.
Each competitor handed in its bid last month, but they've been kept under wraps until today. Here's what they have in common: Each one is very tall, and each one has a contemporary look.
-- English architect Richard Rogers and his firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners designed a tower for Forest City Enterprises with a streamlined metallic look that has marked other projects by the renowned architect.
-- Cesar Pelli -- designer of dozens of towers worldwide in recent decades -- and his firm Pelli Clarke Pelli would insert a tapering tower into the skyline next to a terminal with a rooftop open space. Hines is the developer.
-- The San Francisco office of Skidmore Owings Merrill, working for Rockefeller Group Development Corp. They propose a tower that twists as it rises, topped by a glass veil extending another 10 stories into the air.
There will be more information released at a 6 p.m. hearing of the Transbay authority's board of directors. The competition timetable calls for the directors on Sept. 20 to select which development team will get the nod.
E-mail John King at jking@sfchronicle.com.
http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2007/08/07/ba_transbay0701.jpg
http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2007/08/07/ba_transbay0702.jpg
http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2007/08/07/ba_transbay0703.jpg
http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2007/08/07/ba_transbay0704.jpg
http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2007/08/07/ba_transbay0705.jpg
http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2007/08/07/ba_transbay0706.jpg
http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2007/08/07/ba_transbay0707.jpg
http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2007/08/07/ba_transbay0708.jpg
quashlo
Aug 7, 2007, 4:58 AM
^Wow... First one to reply. :)
Here's my two cents, just looking at the renderings... First one is blah (this building shape seems overdone personally... reminds me of IFC in Hong Kong) and second one is ridiculous (maybe the renderings don't give it justice, but it just looks silly... reminds me of Sutro Tower or some moon rocket...)...
Now the third one looks positively stunning (the last rendering has me salivating), but I imagine a lot of engineering will go into making that building stand...
To be honest, I can't wait to hear what the "public" has to say about the renderings, but at the same time dread it, knowing that everything in the book will get thrown at the tower by the anti-Manhattanizers, the "vista preservationists," and the custodians of "quaint" San Francisco... And that, thanks to them, the tower may get chopped down to "acceptable dimensions" just like the TAP.
rs913
Aug 7, 2007, 5:34 AM
Now the third one looks positively stunning (the last rendering has me salivating), but I imagine a lot of engineering will go into making that building stand...
I agree with you...the second one is the worst, the first one is better (I actually think it'd work quite well) but it's the third one that makes you sit up and say, "wow, this would be amazing". The ground-level elements for all three of them are impressive to me...if any of them were built as is, we'd go from having the country's worst transit center to the best.
I really hope the museumists don't kill it. The pessimist in me says SF just isn't the kind of town where something like this can get built. The optimist says these plans could inspire this city to rise above its history of letting fringe groups keep it locked in the past.
munkyman
Aug 7, 2007, 8:28 AM
Agreed - the design of third tower is really awesome. I think the 2nd tower will be laughed at - and it will be the one that appears in all the opposition pamphlets, fliers, and websites (Guardian, anyone?). The 2nd tower just looks silly - although maybe the pictures don't do it justice, I don't know. But I mean there were only 3 designs...and one of them was that? Makes me wonder what Norman Foster and Santiago Calatrava would have come up with.
Regardless, if this thing does indeed get built at these heights, the 1st and the 3rd will likely be in the running. The 3rd tower, while bold and exciting, might be too much for a place like San Francisco. All the more reason for it to be put up here, in my opinion. Here's hoping the city and its residents support it, and that the heights don't get significantly lopped off.
Here is another article in the chronicle. The link also includes the pictures (although their the same as the above posted article).
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/07/TRANSBAY.TMP&tsp=1
BOLD PLANS FOR THE TRANSBAY TERMINAL
The West Coast's tallest building: 3 competing ideas show audacity that adds to the city's rising skyline
John King and Jonathan Curiel, Chronicle Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Three competing proposals for what would be the tallest building on the West Coast were unveiled Monday in San Francisco amid architectural hyperbole and political buzz.
There's no guarantee that any of the towers will be built, or that the design to be selected next month by public officials will reach the heights envisioned by the development teams. But the audacity of the designs -- and the favorable response from elected officials -- showed that the recent startling changes to the city's skyline are only a prelude to what could lie ahead.
"There they are," San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said with a wave of his right hand as black mesh was pulled from three lavish large models. The event was held in a crowded event room at City Hall filled with dozens of people and several television crews. "Today is an historic day."
The three proposals range in height from 1,200 feet to 1,375 feet -- each extending well past the 853-foot Transamerica Pyramid, the tallest tower in San Francisco. And each is accompanied by a transit terminal that is intended to function as a major civic gateway.
The competition is being held by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, a regional government body created in 2001 to bring about the construction of a new transit terminal in San Francisco that backers say could become the regional equivalent of Grand Central Station.
The authority would sell or lease the tower site to a developer, with the proceeds going toward the estimated $983 million cost of the terminal and related infrastructure projects, such as new bus-only ramps from the Bay Bridge.
While the public attention is likely to be on the towers, public officials stress the transportation payoff of the new terminal located one block from Market Street and BART.
"Through this facility we can create a statement to the rest of the world while creating a seamless transportation network connecting the Bay Area to the rest of the region and state," said San Mateo County Supervisor Jerry Hill, who chairs the Transbay authority's board of directors. "It will make daily commutes and longer trips easier."
Long-term plans for the transit complex include an extension of commuter rail lines from where they now stop at Fourth and King streets. The design would also allow for high-speed rail service from Southern California, although there is lukewarm support from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for putting a bond for such a system on the ballot.
In the early years of planning for the new terminal, it was assumed that any tower alongside it would climb no higher than 55o feet, the zoning cap now in the neighborhood. Now, though, public officials say the extra height is merited -- not just to boost the land sales, but to reflect the importance of mass transit and to show that San Francisco continues to measure itself against other cities of global status that also are seeing super tall towers proposed or built.
"It's certainly a banner day for San Francisco," said Dean Macris, the city's planning director. "One hundred years ago, no one could have imagined the city it is today."
Each of the bidders seized the opportunity to push the design envelope.
The most visually dramatic proposal is from a team that includes Skidmore Owings Merrill and Rockefeller Group Development Corp.
The team proposes a tower that would fold and twist as it rises and is topped by a publicly accessible rooftop space wrapped in glass. The first floor would be lifted 100 feet above the street.
By comparison, the design by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects for Houston-based developer Hines is relatively tame: a tapering, obelisk-shaped tower with a sleek skin. At the base there would be a glass-covered public square, while the transit station would be topped by an open-air rooftop garden extending more than two city blocks.
The third proposal is from a team that includes the Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, working for developers Forest City Enterprises and McFarlane Partners.
Like many designs by English architect Richard Rogers, this one has a muscular look. It rises straight up from a plaza on Mission Street and is topped by an enormous wind turbine framed by portions of the tower's metal structure that extends past the roof.
With an eye toward environmental issues, each of the three designs also emphasizes sustainable design elements such as the turbine.
For all the hoopla connected to the idea of a skyline-topping tower, there's no guarantee that any of the visions unveiled on Monday will be built -- or even that they'll be the deciding factor in determining which team wins the right to conduct exclusive negotiations with the authority.
Each proposal was evaluated in private last week at Fort Mason by an appointed jury that includes architects and engineers as well as a transportation expert and a real estate analyst. The jury will present its recommendation to the authority board on Aug. 30.
In evaluating the three proposals, jury members are directed to base 60 percent of their evaluation on the design for the transit station and on "functionality and technical issues," according to the evaluation sheet. As for the tower evaluation, economics are every bit as important as aesthetics, indicated by such directives as "The jury will focus on the timing and amount of revenue to the TJPA and the overall financial feasibility of the Tower proposal."
Another unresolved issue: how tall the tower will be allowed to be.
City planning officials aren't shy about wanting an extremely tall tower, and they encouraged the types of height in the proposals unveiled on Monday. But a full environmental study is needed before zoning can be changed -- and the formal planning work to test such heights only now is getting underway.
Whatever proposals do emerge will be scrutinized by potential foes in a city traditionally wary of high-rises. Indeed, a voter-approved proposition from 1984 makes it difficult to erect any tower that will cast shade on a public park. Tower foes also have allies at the city's Building Inspection Commission, where several members in the past year have voiced skepticism about the seismic safety of the narrow towers preferred by the city's Planning Department.
Still, support for the tower is considerable.
Besides public officials, it includes a number of environmental groups who in the past have lobbied for height limits but now see mass transit as a critical issue for the region. There's also support from civic groups that want to concentrate development in the core of the city -- the same impulse that prompted the residential towers now rising between Mission Street and the Bay Bridge.
But the tallest such tower -- One Rincon, which was recently topped off at Harrison and Fremont streets -- is 550 feet tall. Others near it are allowed to be no more than 450 feet. That's half the height of what the three development teams are proposing.
The Transbay authority is scheduled to vote on September 20 to select the development team. The goal is to have the new transit station in operation by 2014.
munkyman
Aug 7, 2007, 9:08 AM
Links to High Res Photos of the 3 Designs:
Proposed design by Pelli Clark Pelli Architects and Hines: (Photo: Business Wire)
(6.6 MB):
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?epi-content=IMAGE_VIEW&newsId=20070806006350&newsLang=en&contentItemId=1653808&moduleId=478837757&ndmConfigId=1000020
Proposed design by Richard Rogers Partnership and Forest City Enterprises with MacFarlane Partners (Photo: Business Wire)
(2.5 MB):
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?epi-content=IMAGE_VIEW&newsId=20070806006350&newsLang=en&contentItemId=1653813&moduleId=478837757&ndmConfigId=1000020
Proposed design by Skidmore Owings and Merrill and Rockefeller Group Development Corporation (Photo: Business Wire)
(3.8 MB):
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?epi-content=IMAGE_VIEW&newsId=20070806006350&newsLang=en&contentItemId=1653817&moduleId=478837757&ndmConfigId=1000020
All photos were taken from the BusinessWire article, linked here: http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070806006350&newsLang=en
munkyman
Aug 7, 2007, 9:15 AM
On closer inspection, the Pelli Clarke design definitely seems to be the most traditional, although it appears that the top floors are some kind of wind turbine? Not sure though. Still, if one of these supertalls would work in our risk averse city, it would be this one. Too traditional for my taste though.
The tower by SOM (3rd tower), while visually striking, appears to sit on "spider legs" that appear very similar, at least in concept, to those on the Transamerica Pyramid. Perhaps they were trying to draw from the city's current tallest building? Regardless, it would certainly make a very dramatic entrance into the building, and would also be a looker when one would step out of the Transbay Terminal. It's definitely the best one out of the 3, imho.
Second tower...still looks really ugly. Seriously don't know how we wasted a design slot on that one.
Maybe it's just me, but was anyone else expecting something...more from these designs?
Reminiscence
Aug 7, 2007, 10:00 AM
Maybe it's just me, but was anyone else expecting something...more from these designs?
I've been saying the same thing on the Transbay Towers thread in the Highrise Proposals section. Its not just you. I know I went in with high expectations (and naturally and those names are world known), but came out somewhat disillusioned. I dont know why Rogers made it in with that design instead of Foster or Calatrava, who knows what they could have come up with.
I say build Skidmore Owings and Merrill's proposal, but 1500' or taller.
munkyman
Aug 7, 2007, 12:19 PM
haha, I can't believe I didn't check the "Highrise Proposals" section. I was wondering when I first signed onto the california forum why there were so few posts. Then I went to the Highrise Proposals section and saw like 100 posts.
vanhattan
Aug 8, 2007, 3:43 AM
Congratulations San Francisco! :cheers: My vote goes to the SOM design, very bold and inviting yet mostly unique. I hope it goes through the hoops of fire that I am sure await it at the approval boards and that it getis built soon.
SF is an exciting place to be with all the planed skyscrapers to completely transform your beautiful skyline to even greater dimensions. I think SF is long overdue for some energetic buildings. Way to go, another major score for your city. Keep the photos and renderings coming. :cheers:
towerguy3
Aug 8, 2007, 5:46 AM
when does construction start?
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