[peanut gallery]

So, which two are they delaying? Or did I miss it somehow?

[WildCowboy]

They haven't said which two buildings they were.

I just don't understand why they're delaying things. It seems like the prospective tenants are on good footing, and Alexandria is in pretty good shape all things considered, so why aren't the banks willing to lend? It seems like these would be situations banks would be preferring to lend into these days. It almost seems like Alexandria isn't even trying to find financing.

Edit: BTW, the pile caster for 1600 Owens was hauled away yesterday afternoon, so it looks they're done with that. As I previously mentioned, I've heard nothing about continued construction on this, so I think it's going to be on hold for a while.

[BTinSF]

All companies are hoarding cash these days. REITs in general have substantial debt that has to be rolled over periodically (typically equal to about 50% of equity) and, in an era where the ability to borrow when needed is uncertain, having plenty of cash on hand is wise. The problem is not so much that Alexandria isn't doing OK (see below) but that the companies that lend to commercial real estate are doing far from OK--many of them are on the verge of going out of business.

Concerning Alexandria:

Alexandria Real Estate lowers 2008 FFO forecast
Thursday October 30, 3:31 pm ET
Alexandria Real Estate Equities reduces full year FFO guidance by a penny

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) -- Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. gave updated guidance for 2008 funds from operations on Thursday, lowering its outlook by a penny.

The company updated its full-year 2008 outlook to $5.85 per share, down from guidance of $5.86 given in August. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect funds from operations, or FFO, of $5.87 per share.

The company, which owns and operates properties in the science industry, reported Thursday that funds from operations increased 6 percent on a per share basis in the third quarter, matching analysts' estimates.

Funds from operations was $48.8 million, or $1.53 per share, compared to $42.7 million, or $1.45 per share, for the third quarter of 2007.

FFO, which adds such items as amortization and depreciation back into net income, is considered a key measure of REIT strength because it gives a more accurate picture of cash performance.

On Wednesday, a J.P. Morgan analyst report reduced its rating on Alexandria Real Estate Equities to "Neutral" from "Overweight."

Analyst Anthony Paolone wrote that the neutral rating was due to earnings challenges in 2009 "from rising interest rates and deteriorating fundamentals in the labspace business."

Shares were down 64 cents to $66.51 in afternoon trading.
Source: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081030/alexandria_real_estate_outlook.html?.v=2&printer=1

So it has its own issues but so far they seem manageable. Restricting building and borrowing is one way to manage them.

[WildCowboy]

Thanks for the info, BT.

Another week, another leap forward on the steel on UCSF's CVRB (webcam (http://www.cpfm.ucsf.edu/projects/cp_cvrb.html)). They may be able to wrap up the steel by Thanksgiving if they keep the pedal to the metal.

http://i35.tinypic.com/2yy7eyo.jpg

[peanut gallery]

They certainly don't seem to be slowing down. Thanks for the updates.

North of the channel, Avalon's skin is getting close to completion and the taller tower crane is gone. I hope to make it over there Thursday or Friday to get a visual update.

[WildCowboy]

The CVRB building's steel is done in time for Turkey Day, and the crane is down. From the webcam (http://www.cpfm.ucsf.edu/projects/cp_cvrb.html):

http://i36.tinypic.com/160zzv8.jpg

[peanut gallery]

From today's Chronicle (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/02/DDUV14E03A.DTL):

http://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2008/12/01/dd-place02_ph_0499503421.jpghttp://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2008/11/27/mn-sprawl28_ph_0499437199.jpg
http://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2008/10/18/ba_mission_bay_parks.jpg

Yes. Mission Bay is still a work in progress.
John King
Tuesday, December 2, 2008

As soon as the first block of Mission Bay Commons was landscaped in 2002, the sloping lawn and redwood trees were encased by a chain-link fence. The park had empty lots for neighbors on three sides. One lot was studded with steel piles driven into the ground - an office building put on hold.

Today that six-story structure is finished, as is a nine-story condominium project across the way. But to the west are more fences, more empty lots and another set of rusting piles left by another development firm biding its time.

This is San Francisco's newest frontier: the east edge of Mission Bay, a redevelopment district that has advanced in fits and starts for 20 years. The gap-toothed topography doesn't signal failure. Rather, it demonstrates how economic cycles move at their own pace, no matter what planners or politicians might want.

Certainly that's the case where I sit the day after Thanksgiving, far from the shopping throngs of Union Square.

Traffic is light, parking's a breeze, and I'm the only person using one of the 12 benches in this first piece of the Commons, which eventually will march across the 303-acre district. Because of this first block's age, the wooden benches are weathered and the shrubs have filled in.

To the west, the remaining five blocks of the common are dirt. But streetlights have been installed, the sidewalks are paved, shade trees are taking root.

The infrastructure signals the future waiting to happen. Just beyond where I sit, a developer is poised to build a laboratory for drugmaker Pfizer Inc. Across from that site, Bosa Development drove the piles now on view in anticipation of erecting 318 condominiums to accompany the nine-story complex dubbed Radiance that faces my bench.

But things may not happen as fast as planners expected. Bosa stopped work because the housing market is so soft, and the Pfizer building isn't even piles yet. As for that new six-story office building behind my bench, 500 Terry Francois Blvd., it's waiting for somebody to sign a lease.

If this were all I knew, what I see up close, I'd be ranking Mission Bay as a development folly on par with Ralph Nader's latest presidential bid. After all, why would anyone pour money into landfill south of South of Market, south of the parking lots for the Giants' ballpark that itself seemed off the map when it opened in 2000?

The answer can be gleaned from other buildings nearby - the ones that sprang up between the Dot-com Bust 0f 2001 and the Economic Meltdown of 2008.

One block to my west stands UCSF's Mission Bay campus, a 45-acre facility devoted to biomedical research and the reason that companies such as Pfizer are looking this way. The first laboratory building opened in 2002; now there are nine large structures finished, and another should be open next summer.

South of where I sit, along Terry Francois Boulevard facing the bay, an office building that stood empty for several years now houses Old Navy's headquarters. Keep walking and you encounter a pair of granite-and-glass structures across from the raffish Mission Rock Cafe. The life science firm Fibrogen is moving this week into one of the buildings, with an option to lease the other.

Cities evolve by their own set of rhythms, to a variety of tempos at any given time. A place like Mission Bay - where the slate is blank and every physical change comes in large-scale increments - reflects this more than most.

"There's such a diversity of land uses built into Mission Bay that there's a flexibility. Things keep moving," says Kelley Kahn, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency's project manager. "Housing may be dormant, but biotech comes alive."

Remember: The residential buildings north of Mission Creek along King Street seemed to spring up overnight, sparked by the housing boom that now has run its course. At some point down the road - perhaps sooner than we expect - the holes in the map south of the creek will "suddenly" fill in. More lab space, more offices, more housing.

Urbanistically, the danger is that this new neighborhood will look as though it was shipped in from the suburbs, albeit with more sophisticated plantings and public art. It's fair to say that nothing built so far is likely to dislodge City Hall from the list of beloved local buildings.

But we'll also get well-paying jobs, housing at all price ranges, and well-maintained parks and trails. Mission Bay Commons won't be an attractive one-block oddity; it will tie a Marina Green-like bayside park to the open space along Mission Creek that already exists.

"What's down there now is a little snapshot," Kahn says. "You get an inkling of what's going to be, but that's it."

In the meantime, if you're looking for a quiet vantage point from which to contemplate the city, I know just the spot.

[WildCowboy]

Nice article, although additional pictures would have been nice.

Couple of errors I spotted:

1. King mentions that the piles haven't yet been driven for the Pfizer building. That's incorrect...they were driven a year ago, well before the Pfizer announcement. They are nearing completion of the grade beams, so I expect it should start rising above ground level in the near future.

2. The map shows the two "not completed" park areas directly north of the single completed block of Mission Bay Commons, where King mentions sitting. The left of those two "park" areas is actually Radiance Phase I, not a park.

3. Also on the map, "south" of Channel Street (to the right of the "Channel St." label), it shows a long park extending up to Fourth St. Only a very small section of that is actually park, and you can just barely make out the future road that will delineate the park boundary. They mistakenly shaded everything else up to Fourth St., which is actually Block 13. Bosa has the western part of the block, while the eastern half is slated for affordable housing through the redevelopment agency.

[peanut gallery]

I noticed error #2, but not the others. Thanks for the info. I agree about the pix. Surely they shot more than that. Why not stick them on the website?

[WildCowboy]

I should also note that the eastern portion of Block 13 that I mentioned as redevelopment agency affordable housing is starting to get the planning process underway, and Mercy Housing has been selected as the developer. The address of the project is 1000 Fourth St., and it is slated for 134 rental units. The proposed design is an 8-story component at the Fourth St. end of the project and a 5-story component to the west.

The current schedule (financing pending) is for construction to begin in January 2011 and run through mid-2012.

[BTinSF]

The Latest Rendering For UCSF’s Medical Center at Mission Bay

http://www.socketsite.com/UCSF%20Childrens%20Hospital%20Watercolor-thumb.jpg
Source: http://www.socketsite.com/

[peanut gallery]

While I find much of Mission Bay a bit too homogenous and uninteresting, this one actually stands out a little thanks to the wings to the east and non-uniform surface to the west. Plus it provides the added benefit of blocking 409/499 Illinois from view.

[viewguysf]

While I find much of Mission Bay a bit too homogenous and uninteresting, this one actually stands out a little thanks to the wings to the east and non-uniform surface to the west. Plus it provides the added benefit of blocking 409/499 Illinois from view.

:notacrook:

[WildCowboy]

The old USave rental shop and the Sno-Drift dance club at the southwest corner of 3rd and 16th were torn down over the past couple of days. Sno-Drift in particular looked to have been broken into a couple of times in recent weeks, so I don't know if that drove the demolition of the buildings or if it was already in process.

All that's left on UCSF's hospital site now are the giant warehouse along Third/Mariposa and the small attached office building on Third that houses Burning Man's HQ.

[peanut gallery]

This sucks without pictures, but the facade on Avalon is nearing completion. A few more panels were delivered yesterday and it looked to me like the King side is done with the exception of some sections on the first floor. The shorter portion of the building has a circular housing around the roof mechanicals, very similar to its fellow Arquitectonica-designed neighbor, Infinity.

[peanut gallery]

I walked down to Mission Bay today and took some progress shots of Avalon Bay.

Here is Avalon Bay and its neighbor Arterra:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3117/3183186799_c25af72ff2_b.jpg

Avalon stretches along King quite a bit:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3450/3183187547_a643914b6b_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3086/3183175169_8070c7d90e_b.jpg

Looking north from the edge of the channel:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3347/3184017116_317a7b655a_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3517/3184013882_46d3fe64c9_b.jpg

I love these zig-zag cutouts:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3489/3183182161_444512c715_b.jpg

Another element that reminds me of Infinity are these stairs which lead to a central courtyard area:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3350/3184052868_43eb2bfb93_b.jpg

[peanut gallery]

I almost forgot. I also took a shot of UCSF's CVRB, on which WildCowboy has been keeping us updated:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3410/3183178407_39a92200cf_b.jpg

[livin' in the city]

PG,
Thanks for the great shots.

[peanut gallery]

You're welcome. Glad you enjoyed them.

[WildCowboy]

Nice shots, p.g.

My on-location updates will be coming to an end, as I'm moving to North Carolina in early February. I'll try to keep on top of projects virtually though! :)

[BTinSF]

Nice shots, p.g.

My on-location updates will be coming to an end, as I'm moving to North Carolina in early February. I'll try to keep on top of projects virtually though! :)

As a Duke alum, I hope you like humidity and freezing rain. The BBQ is great and the blooming azalias pretty, though.

[peanut gallery]

:( That's a bummer for us. We'll miss your semi-insider updates. Hope the move works out for you though. :)

[WildCowboy]

As a Duke alum, I hope you like humidity and freezing rain. The BBQ is great and the blooming azalias pretty, though.

:( That's a bummer for us. We'll miss your semi-insider updates. Hope the move works out for you though. :)

Thanks, guys...moving to Cary for a new job. Really looking forward to it, and we could actually afford to buy a house there! :)

[JAC6]

I drive by this building every day and decided to take a closer look at it this weekend.

http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg30/jcrotty_bucket/skyscraper/MB03.jpg

http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg30/jcrotty_bucket/skyscraper/MB02.jpg

http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg30/jcrotty_bucket/skyscraper/MB01.jpg

http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg30/jcrotty_bucket/skyscraper/MB04.jpg

[peanut gallery]

Great shots, Jac. I've been wanting to get some close-ups of it and just haven't had a chance. It's my favorite building south of the channel. I really love the random patterns and the color of the glass.

[fflint]

For your viewing pleasure, some crappy snapshots I took with my cameraphone on my Saturday ride through campus. On my weeknight rides, the campus is a bit livelier than what you see here.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3318/3213239835_32c7b1343b_o.jpg
Mission Bay skyline

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3257/3213239403_b68e4b5f4d_o.jpg
The main quad and busiest ped/bike axis already provide the outline of what the campus will eventually look like

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3258/3214086334_34b5de7b26_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3402/3213239209_9c72274baf_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3431/3214086732_408c84b0e2_o.jpg
The bulk of student housing fronts Eugene Friend Way. With a Quizno's, Peasant Pies and some coffee joint beneath the dorms, I suppose this qualifies as 'mixed use' development

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3531/3214087050_d90fbbcc10_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3358/3213239671_8f7946a932_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3108/3214086480_cb351c24a8_o.jpg
A portrait in new housing: One Rincon Hill, in the distance, soars high above Mission Bay's student residences

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3367/3213240133_4e71110937_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3123/3213240181_b85a892bff_o.jpg
Third Street below, with the main light rail stop at Eugene Friend Way just out of sight

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3452/3214086440_c0e36c9ddf_o.jpg
The corporate portion of Mission Bay lies east of the campus, across Third Street, and extends north and south out to the bayshore. The condos in the distance are being shown currently, and I've witnessed plenty of potential buyers on my daily ride-by.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3407/3213240007_2838cc2238_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3403/3214086912_60f874f2fc_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3321/3213239895_1d830d6141_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3369/3214087212_167f4d8023_o.jpg
The spine of Eugene Friend Way is anchored to the west by the student union tower

[BTinSF]

The Return of Seawall Lot 337
Tuesday, January 20, 2009, by Andy J. Wang
Dropped: Ferry Building developers Wilson Meany Sullivan's plans for Seawall Lot 337. With the Giants in tow. Finally. The project will build up 16 acres of housing, offices, entertainment and all that stuff over the course of 13 years. At the moment, the Port is sitting on the proposal, as their staff needs to review it first, but all will be revealed shortly. Breath: held. [City Insider]
Source: http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2009/01/20/the_return_of_seawall_lot_337.php

This is rather opaquely written but I take it to mean the Giants proposal (as modified) has triumphed after all. If so, I'm happy about it and look forward to the release of more information.

For those who may have forgotten, this was their original proposal:

http://sf.curbed.com/uploads/2008_02_SWLproposal.jpg
Source: http://sf.curbed.com/tags/sf-giants

[BTinSF]

New streetcar line could link to waterfront development
By John Upton
Examiner Staff Writer 1/20/09

SAN FRANCISCO – Under a new proposal submitted to the Port of San Francisco, a new bay-front streetcar line planned between The City’s Fisherman’s Wharf and the downtown Caltrain station would extend to go over the Fourth Street Bridge, hook left south of AT&T Park and stop at a 16-acre waterfront development.

The 10-block project to redevelop Parking Lot A, next to the ballpark, comes from a consortium of developers, financiers and the Giants, according to Port project manager Phil Williamson.

Some of the members of the four teams that originally proposed to redevelop the site have dropped out or merged, leaving a single proposal for the 10-block project, said Williams.

The latest plan, which has not been released to the public, includes 875 townhouse-style rental units; 1 million square feet of biotechnology, clean-tech and office space; 240,000 square feet of stores, restaurants and other retail; 2,650 parking spaces; and conversion of historic buildings on Pier 48 for events and exhibits, according to Williamson.

The proposal also includes more than 8 acres of public open space, including a 5-acre park that would be called Mission Rock Park and overlook McCovey Cove in China Basin, according to Williamson.

A city block-size park, Mission Rock Square, is proposed at the heart of the project, and it would be the final stopping point for Muni’s planned new E line.

Plans show the rail would be built in stages throughout the first decade of the redevelopment, according to Williamson. Construction at the site could begin by 2012, according to Wilson Meany Sullivan developer Kheay Loke.
The height of the tallest buildings has yet to be determined, according to Loke.

“Height limit is a hot topic in town and we need to work with the community,” Loke said.

An artists’ community, included in an earlier proposal, appears to have been dumped in the latest plan, according to Williamson.

Source: http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/New_streetcar_line_could_link_to_waterfront_development.html

[BTinSF]

Friday, January 23, 2009
University of California braces for impact from state budget cuts
San Francisco Business Times - by Chris Rauber

The University of California, and UCSF specifically, can expect to take a large and long-lasting hit when an emergency state budget is finalized, according to an internal UCSF report by retiring Chancellor Michael Bishop.

In that Dec. 23 report, Bishop said UC has already absorbed a $48 million cut in state funding during the current fiscal year, which began July 1, and anticipates cuts this year to total “at least $115 million.” In addition, Bishop said unfunded enrollment growth and increased fixed costs will “add another $100 million or more to the financial burden.”

“Looking further ahead, (UC) President Mark Yudof has advised that UC can anticipate cuts of as much as 10 percent in each of the three coming years, and has directed campuses to plan accordingly,” UCSF’s chancellor reported. In addition to those cuts, Ricardo Vazquez, a spokesman for the University of California’s Office of the President, noted Jan. 20 that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has requested a further $65.5 million mid-year cut to the system’s budget, which would also apply to the following fiscal year, but that isn’t official at this point. The system also plans to slash freshman enrollment next fall.

The financial pressures are heightened by UC’s need to resume making contributions to the retirement plan this year, after 18 years where investment income took care of that, and “substantial increases in health benefit costs,” which Bishop said would affect both the university and its employees.

The University of California system is based in Oakland, and it operates four major campuses in the greater Bay Area: UCSF, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis. The system headquarters employs nearly 1,900, UCSF has 21,567 employees, UC Berkeley employs 24,700, UC Santa Cruz about 7,600, and UC Davis about 18,600 full-time workers, according to various UC web sites.

Early last month, the Office of the President, the system’s headquarters, announced plans to slash $60.4 million, or 21 percent, from its 2008-2009 budget, along with 500 full-time-equivalent jobs. That’s on top of $8.7 million in cuts and 97 eliminated jobs during the first four months of the fiscal year. UCOP’s goal is to slash another 275 or more jobs and $25 million from its budget by the end of the 2009-2010 fiscal year.

UCSF impacts

At UCSF, state funding represents just 9 percent of the overall operating budget. But the state helps fund crucial areas such as maintenance and operation of facilities, utilities, and salaries for many staff and faculty, the chancellor said.

Eric Vermillion, associate vice chancellor for finance, said UCSF had been anticipating cuts in the range of 3 percent to 7 percent, and that it looks like 6 percent will be the final figure. “We need to plan comprehensively, (but) we can still do our mission (if) we plan carefully,” Vermillion said.

Although state officials said last month that more than 2,000 California public works projects were halted due to the budget crisis, two ongoing projects at UCSF are safe, at least for now: the cardiovascular research building at the Mission Bay campus and the stem cell research center at the Parnassus campus, Bishop said.

UCSF’s executive budget committee is working on a multi-year plan to cope with the crisis, which Bishop said could take three or four months to complete. “We are planning against worst-case scenarios, based on both our own assessment of the circumstances and advice from the Office of the President,” he said.

crauber@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4946
Source: http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/01/26/story17.html?t=printable

[AndrewK]

Source: http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/New_streetcar_line_could_link_to_waterfront_development.html

so what they are saying then is that the section of the T line between embarcadero and the caltrain station is going to become the lower half of this new E line (with the embarcadero portion of the F line as its upper half) once the T line switches to its new central subway route?

[peanut gallery]

Nice tour, fflint. A lot of views of the campus I never get to see.

[WildCowboy]

so what they are saying then is that the section of the T line between embarcadero and the caltrain station is going to become the lower half of this new E line (with the embarcadero portion of the F line as its upper half) once the T line switches to its new central subway route?

I guess so, but it sounds like a downgrade. The previous plan for the E-line was to bring it all the way through Mission Bay to the loop at Third and 19th, but now it's going to terminate up by the channel in SWL337. :(

[Reminiscence]

I don't recall hearing about this E Line, but it sounds like a nice idea to compliment the new development.

Regarding UCSF, these budget cuts are so not good for me and my dreams of going there for graduate school :no:

[LWR]

:previous:

Nor for me... if you're already "here".

[BTinSF]

I don't recall hearing about this E Line, but it sounds like a nice idea to compliment the new development.


The "E-Embarcadero" line using historic streetcars (as on the F-Market line) has been planned since the Embarcadero itself was rebuilt after the elevated freeway was demolished. That's why tracks connecting the southern segment used by the N and T lines and the northern segment used by the F line were installed at that time. But since then Muni has said it lacked personnel and/or cars to begin the service. Now, however, the TEP (Transit Effectiveness Project) has approved it and it's possible service could begin sometime in 2010. It's shown here in the TEP recommendation: http://www.sfmta.com/cms/mtep/documents/SFMTA_TEP_Recommended_11X17_SystemOffset_BoardChanges_10_08.pdf (Note that N, T and E are all shown running on the Embarcadero south of Folsom)

[BTinSF]

so what they are saying then is that the section of the T line between embarcadero and the caltrain station is going to become the lower half of this new E line (with the embarcadero portion of the F line as its upper half) once the T line switches to its new central subway route?

No.

The E-Embarcadero is a new service going the length of the Embarcadero (Fishermens' Wharf to the CalTrain Terminal--at least) and using historic trolleys like those on the F-Market line. It will complement the N, T and F lines, not change them. If/when the Central Subway is built, the T will run that route but the N will still run along the southern Embarcadero and the F along the northern Embarcadero with the E running the length of the Embarcadero, supplementing both.

If you've taken the F, especially along the Embarcadero, in the summer, you know the cars are horribly crowded. It's believed this will reduce that crowding a lot since many people just take the F from the Ferry Building to the Wharf.

[peanut gallery]

The "E-Embarcadero" line using historic streetcars (as on the F-Market line) has been planned since the Embarcadero itself was rebuilt after the elevated freeway was demolished. That's why tracks connecting the southern segment used by the N and T lines and the northern segment used by the F line were installed at that time. But since then Muni has said it lacked personnel and/or cars to begin the service. Now, however, the TEP (Transit Effectiveness Project) has approved it and it's possible service could begin sometime in 2010. It's shown here in the TEP recommendation: http://www.sfmta.com/cms/mtep/documents/SFMTA_TEP_Recommended_11X17_SystemOffset_BoardChanges_10_08.pdf (Note that N, T and E are all shown running on the Embarcadero south of Folsom)

Just to add a small note, they ran streetcars on the existing part of what will be the E line a couple of months ago on one of those Sunday Streets events. It will be nice to tie it into the Seawall development.

[viewguysf]

:previous:

Nor for me... if you're already "here".

I'm so looking forward to having some uplifting news from at least one sector of the economy versus the constant stream of bad news affecting seemingly everything. Just think of what we have seen across the Forum in the last year and a half--a downward trend has been turning into a virtual free fall off of a cliff for our favorite projects, developments and places.

One of the worst things for me is what has been happening to higher education in California. In addition to the UC system, the CSU is once again being devastated and the CCC is as well. The library construction and renovation project at SF State has been halted which will add millions of dollars to the cost of eventual completion. Hundreds of other projects across the system and state have also been halted. The CSU is turning away 10,000 eligible applicants next year; the CCC will also limit enrollment along with UC, meaning that many qualified students will be denied the opportunity for post high school education. The poor and middle class will, of course, be adversely affected.

We need to get with it, first and foremost by eliminating the requirement of a two-thirds majority to pass a budget in each chamber of our legislature. We are one of the only states that requires this and the entire process is being held hostage as a result.

[peanut gallery]

We need to get with it, first and foremost by eliminating the requirement of a two-thirds majority to pass a budget in each chamber of our legislature. We are one of the only states that requires this and the entire process is being held hostage as a result.

Amen to that.

Maybe this will brighten everyone's spirits, if even a little bit. New renderings of the Mission Rock proposal, from SocketSite (http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2009/01/the_proposal_for_san_franciscos_swl_337_a_weekend_speci.html):

http://www.socketsite.com/SWL%20337%20-%20One%20Proposal-thumb.jpg

http://www.socketsite.com/SWL%20337%20-%20One%20Proposal%20Park-thumb.jpg

http://www.socketsite.com/SWL%20337%20-%20One%20Proposal%20Buildings.jpg

[viewguysf]

Amen to that.

Maybe this will brighten everyone's spirits, if even a little bit. New renderings of the Mission Rock proposal, from SocketSite.


:previous: Let it be PG--bring it on!!

[Gordo]

I like the look of the new proposal for the Giants lot. Combines several of the good elements from the past proposals, IMO.

[BTinSF]

http://www.socketsite.com/Strata%20at%20Mission%20Bay%201-28-09.jpg

The Mission Bay new development previously known as 555 Mission Rock has been branded “Strata at Mission Bay.” 192 new apartments coming online in March of 2009 with an interest list now forming.
Source: http://www.socketsite.com/

[Gordo]

:previous: That's a really ugly building. I normally don't complain about the look of new construction too much, but wow. I need to go take a look up close - I'm sure that it's not as bad as it looks in that pic.

[BTinSF]

It doesn't strike me as any uglier than just about everything else at Mission Bay. I wouldn't even call most of it ugly. Just "uninteresting', "bland", "suburban".

The one building there so far that interests me is (surprise!) Legorreta's student union.

[HarshLiving]

Amen to that.

Maybe this will brighten everyone's spirits, if even a little bit. New renderings of the Mission Rock proposal, from SocketSite (http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2009/01/the_proposal_for_san_franciscos_swl_337_a_weekend_speci.html):

http://www.socketsite.com/SWL%20337%20-%20One%20Proposal-thumb.jpg

http://www.socketsite.com/SWL%20337%20-%20One%20Proposal%20Park-thumb.jpg

http://www.socketsite.com/SWL%20337%20-%20One%20Proposal%20Buildings.jpg

I like the proposal a alot.
But what about all the lost parking for the ballpark?

[livin' in the city]

They can park over at 535 Mission... please don't tell me they have put asphalt over those buried piles. Mission bay has at least enough variety in it's Architects to offer some interest and when all is said and done I think the open spaces through out will be something enjoyed by all of us for years to come.

[Gordo]

I like the proposal a alot.
But what about all the lost parking for the ballpark?

The proposal contains over 2650 parking spaces, of which almost 2000 will be available for Giants games. Seems a bit excessive to me, considering the amount of parking garages already in the area, but whatever.

[BTinSF]

I like the proposal a alot.
But what about all the lost parking for the ballpark?

Since it's the Giant's proposal, you can be sure that issue is covered.

[HarshLiving]

Since it's the Giant's proposal, you can be sure that issue is covered.

Yeah that makes sense. Plus who wants to pay $30 dolars to park there anyways.

[peanut gallery]

They can park over at 535 Mission... please don't tell me they have put asphalt over those buried piles.

Not to worry, it's covered in rock and surrounded by a chain-link fence. It looks like it will sit in that state until they're ready to dig out the piles and try again. However long that will take.


:previous: That's a really ugly building. I normally don't complain about the look of new construction too much, but wow. I need to go take a look up close - I'm sure that it's not as bad as it looks in that pic.

Funny thing is that I thought it actually looked better in that photo than it looks in real life, although I haven't got right up next to it. And that shouldn't be construed as a compliment to the image in that photo, by the way.

[BTinSF]

Avalon @ Mission Bay Phase III

http://www.socketsite.com/Avalon%20Mission%20Bay%20III%201-29-08.jpg
Source: http://www.socketsite.com/

I think this Arquitectonica design also gives us a substantial foretaste of Trinity Plaza.

[BTinSF]

Friday, February 6, 2009
Five Prime grabs more space at Mission Bay
San Francisco Business Times - by Ron Leuty

Pushing toward clinical trials with a handful of potential drugs, Five Prime Therapeutics Inc. is subleasing 5,000 square feet at 1700 Owens St. in Mission Bay to make batches of proteins.

The first-floor space — in addition to just under 30,000 square feet it subleases next door from the J. David Gladstone Institutes — caps a year of growth for the 100-employee San Francisco biotech. It secured an equity and collaboration deal with Pfizer Inc., grew employment at a 20 percent clip and built out its immunology group, its next major discovery area, said Five Prime President and CEO Gail Maderis.

“We’re bursting at the seams here in the Gladstone building,” Maderis said. “Having the Pfizer collaboration is expanding our headcount and our need for space.”

Five Prime is leasing the new space from Gladstone as well, which last year took about 10,000 square feet at 1700 Owens for its growing translation research programs.

Although Five Prime’s hiring will slow this year, Maderis said, the new process development suite in the Alexandria Real Estate Equities-developed building will give the company more firepower. Specifically, it will provide Five Prime with a 100-liter bioreactor to produce all the product it needs to reach clinical trials with drugs like its potential treatment for bone loss during cancer. It currently uses a 7-liter bioreactor in the Gladstone building.

Five Prime has one drug, designed to fight advanced solid tumors, in a Phase I trial and a total of nine in pre-clinical or selection stage. It focuses on oncology, metabolic diseases, regenerative medicine and immunology.

Privately held Five Prime, which Maderis said has upwards of two years cash at the ready, will continue to contract out manufacturing of clinical-scale drugs.

rleuty@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4939
Source: http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/02/09/story18.html?t=printable

[viewguysf]

Oakland seemed to be floating above Mission Bay today.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3420/3259166255_69ff756cfb_b.jpg

[peanut gallery]

What, did you just get a Flickr account today or something? Not that I'm complaining, mind you, but why have you been holding out on us?

[viewguysf]

What, did you just get a Flickr account today or something? Not that I'm complaining, mind you, but why have you been holding out on us?

Well, it was a guilty combination of factors. :coolugh: Lack of initial technical skill, laziness, loss of BT's oft posted instructions and capable guidance and I'm sure that I could find more excuses if I think about it. Actually, it's ironic too that I was going to start posting construction pics when you and then Downtown Dave blew everyone away with continuous stunners. I have pics of One Rincon and other buildings from beginning to end, but almost always from a distance.

I finally opened a Flickr account after my New England trip this past fall, so I thought it might be a good time to put it to use here and share with all of you generous guys. I have a view that exceeds 200 degrees and can literally see half of the City with only one set of Redwood trees that I need to shoot around. Since I added a way to access my roof though, even that isn't a problem if I go up there to shoot, which I haven't done yet. Maybe I should wait for a new camera before doing that.

In the meantime, here's an older version for you!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3406/3261309664_22d839e783_b.jpg

[BTinSF]

loss of BT's oft posted instructions and capable guidance

Where did I go to?

[viewguysf]

Where did I go to?

You were swallowed up in the threads since I couldn't locate your previous postings.

[peanut gallery]

Lucky for us that you've got it up and running now. I hope you'll post retrospectives of construction progress on the various projects. I love seeing the perspective from a distance where you can get a better sense of the effect these new buildings have on the overall skyline. And if you want to put together a thread for the city photo sub-forum, that would be cool too (hint, hint). ;) Your view is just incredible.

[HarshLiving]

Speaking of photographers, I have noticed tha DowntownDave has not posted anything in a while.

[viewguysf]

Speaking of photographers, I have noticed tha DowntownDave has not posted anything in a while.

I've been wondering the same thing. Dave, where are you? We miss your awesome shots!

[northbay]

I've been wondering the same thing. Dave, where are you? We miss your awesome shots!

his wife/gf probably complained that he was spending too much time on skyscraperpage and she wasnt getting enough attention

just talking from personal experience ;)

[peanut gallery]

Ah, so that's where you've been. I've noticed several formerly regular SF posters who haven't been around much lately. I wonder if it's because of the slowdown in development. Or maybe it's just people moving on to other things.

[viewguysf]

his wife/gf probably complained that he was spending too much time on skyscraperpage and she wasnt getting enough attention

just talking from personal experience ;)

Hmmm...wonder what he's taking pics of now?! :hug:

[BTinSF]

Friday, February 13, 2009
SFPD headquarters pick: Mission Bay
$200M project would add police presence to biotech hotbed
San Francisco Business Times - by J.K. Dineen San Francisco Business Times

San Francisco officials have identified Mission Bay as the top choice for a new $200 million police headquarters, a project that would bring a busy civic use to a neighborhood that has been defined by housing and life science development.

A new San Francisco Justice Facilities Improvement Study by architects Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum and Mark Cavagnero Associates identifies 1.5 acres of city-owned land on the southwest corner of Third Street and Mission Rock as the “preferred location” for a 265,000-square-foot building that could house police headquarters, the Southern District police station, a fire station, and parking for 171 police vehicles.

In addition to the Mission Bay site, the study looked at two secondary locations: a parcel at Third and Evans streets and another on Bryant Street, between Fourth and Fifth. Both of those sites would require the city to acquire privately owned property.

Built in 1985, the current Hall of Justice does not meet seismic codes and is half the size needed to meet standards set by the California Correctional Standards Authority.

Moving a major public agency to the nascent Mission Bay would create hundreds of construction jobs and could help bolster retail and housing projects in Mission Bay. Immediately south of the preferred site is Seawall Lot 337, where a development team headed by the San Francisco Giants, Wilson Meany Sullivan and Kenwood Development is planning to build 875 rental units, 240,000 square feet of retail and 1 million square feet of office space. On the other side of the site is Bosa Development’s Radiance condo project.

Kelly Kahn, Mission Bay project manager for the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, said the Mission Bay plan has always called for a small district police and fire station on the parcel, which is already home to a small historic brick fire house. But the notion of also building the police headquarters on the site emerged recently in discussions with the Department of Public Works’ Bureau of Project Management, which oversees public construction projects for the city. Kahn called the police headquarters idea “incredibly preliminary” but “generally well within what is contemplated for the block.” She said “at this point, our reaction has been pretty positive.”

“Our instinct is that we could do a really architecturally excellent and strong civic building there,” said Kahn. “We have our housing and biotech jobs and our parks and our supermarket and our library. A strong civic building could really add to the mix of uses, which is definitely part of the vision of Mission Bay.”

The agencies currently housed at the decrepit Hall of Justice at 850 Bryant St. would be split into two campuses, one possibly in Mission Bay and one near the current building, under the scenario outlined in the study. The cluster near the current Hall of Justice would include an 828-bed replacement jail, as well as offices for the district attorney, public defender, and police investigations and traffic divisions. The report outlines several possibilities for a new replacement jail, one to the east of the current Hall of Justice at Sixth and Bryant and one directly across Bryant Street.

Quickest scenario means 2014

Under the implementation schedule, construction on a Mission Bay police headquarters could start in 2012 and — under the quickest scenario — police brass could move in by early 2014. The other criminal justice campus would be built out in a longer period of time. The study calls for the new jail, with an estimated price tag of between $439 million and $444 million, to be completed by 2016. The other Hall of Justice facilities — police investigations and local justice agencies — would not be ready for occupancy until 2020.

But even though construction is years away, the new public safety complex is already a hot topic among city architects. The city has put out a request for qualifications to design the new police headquarters, which would be funded through a bond measure put to voters next November. The proposals were due on Feb. 2 and nine design teams submitted, according to Jim Buker, project manager of the Department of Public Works.

While the teams have not been disclosed, architecture sources said those seeking the assignment include: KMD Architects with Tom Eliot Fisch; Beverly Prior Architects with HellerManus; Studios Architecture; Skidmore Owings Merrill; Perkins + Will; Cannon Design; and the HOK/Cavagnero joint venture that compiled the study. The design teams will be interviewed the last week in February, and five finalists will be picked.

“We’re in a recession and this is a big job and a city job, which always get a lot of interest,” said Douglas Tom, a principal with Tom Eliot Fisch, who added that the level of interest was a “sign of the times.”

Other city buildings as well

In addition to the SFPD headquarters, Mission Bay could become home to the city’s 72,000-square-foot office of the medical examiner and the police department’s forensics lab, according to the facilities improvement study. The study says that the facility would be in leased space and that “planning for the facility is well under way.”

The city has been in negotiations to lease space in 1600 Owens St., one of the entitled life science buildings Alexandria Real Estate Equities plans to build in the biotech cluster, but those talks slowed down last summer as the credit crisis froze new commercial real estate development, according to San Francisco Director of Real Estate Amy Brown.

“It looked pretty promising, but everything came to a screeching halt when the credit dried up,” said Brown. “It may get back on track, depending on what happens with credit markets and development in general.”

Alexandria CEO Joel Marcus publicly stated Oct. 30 of last year that it was putting several Mission Bay projects on hold despite having tenants willing to lease between 200,000 and 300,000 square feet of build-to-suit space.

Email J.K. Dineen at jkdineen@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4971
Source: http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/02/16/story1.html?t=printable

So I wonder how Radiance buyers feel about having a fire station and police HQ next door--i.e. fire engines screaming by their high end homes at all hours. At least they apparently won't be getting the main jail with its less than high end customers as well.

[peanut gallery]

Sorry to nitpick, but JK sure messed up the location of this lot.

the southwest corner of Third Street and Mission Rock

On the other side of the site is Bosa Development’s Radiance condo project.

Immediately south of the preferred site is Seawall Lot 337

That would put it in the middle of China Basin. I think JK meant to say immediately north of the preferred site is Seawall Lot 337. If Lot 337 is immediately north and other side of the site is Radiance, then he's actually talking about the southeast corner of 3rd and Mission Rock, not southwest.

Anyway, not being a Radiance resident, I think this would be a great addition to Mission Bay. It needs more varied uses. I hope the architecture creates more variety for the area as well.

[Gordo]

Agreed with pg and the article - a civic use in the area would be nice and help generate some more daytime activity for retail and services (and I'm sure the folks at the police headquarters wouldn't mind being practically right next door to the ballpark).

[SFView]

Ah, so that's where you've been. I've noticed several formerly regular SF posters who haven't been around much lately. I wonder if it's because of the slowdown in development. Or maybe it's just people moving on to other things.

Yes, that's sort have been it for me. There isn't so much new development news as there used to be. Family and work tends to pull me away a bit, but I still continue to lurk. It seems that others also have school and work, etc. that pulls them away. I remember several regular posters that have or almost completely disappeared from the SF threads since the time I joined SSP in 2006.

[Kingofthehill]

How do you get to Mission Bay via MUNI?

[BTinSF]

How do you get to Mission Bay via MUNI?

Take the T-Third LRV which you can catch at any of the Market St. stations (underground) or along the Embarcadero (in the median) south of Market St.: http://transit.511.org/static/providers/maps/SF_712200722226.pdf

[WildCowboy]

Sorry to nitpick, but JK sure messed up the location of this lot.

That would put it in the middle of China Basin. I think JK meant to say immediately north of the preferred site is Seawall Lot 337. If Lot 337 is immediately north and other side of the site is Radiance, then he's actually talking about the southeast corner of 3rd and Mission Rock, not southwest.


Absolutely correct...this site is on the southeast corner of Third and Mission Rock, and as mentioned the brick SFFD toy drive headquarters building occupies a portion of the site. The 1.5 acre site, known as Block 8 in the Mission Bay plan, has been slated for a police and/or fire station from the very beginning. Nice to see plans for it start to move forward, as there have been doubts about whether the city would ever be able to move forward on the larger public projects (namely this and the public school site at the northwest corner of the UCSF campus).

[WildCowboy]

I've moved to NC, so I'm relying on you guys and anything else I can dig up on the Internet for updates. Checking UCSF's CVRB webcam (http://www.cpfm.ucsf.edu/projects/cp_cvrb.html) (at least during daylight hours), I see a red crane peeking out from over the cancer building in the background. Is this for the Pfizer complex at 555 Mission Bay Blvd S? I assume it is, as it looked like they were about done with the foundation when I left at the end of January.

Anything else new? 1500 Owens should be wrapping up...haven't heard an announcement on which biotech company is taking most of the space there yet.

[WildCowboy]

UCSF gets $125 million for the Mission Bay hospital. Terrific chunk of change, but they need a lot more. :)

http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/03/16/story3.html

[BTinSF]

Friday, March 20, 2009
Mission Bay’s Fourth Street could be its fast lane
San Francisco Business Times - by J.K. Dineen

Residents moving into the Strata at Mission Bay have bocce courts and barbecue pits, twinkling downtown views and a 24-hour gym.

But as the first renters took up residency in the 192-unit apartment complex this week, one small detail was missing: Fourth Street, the brand-new boulevard leading to the Strata, is still closed as construction crews wrap up the final touches. Phil Owen, president of Mission Bay Development Group, which is responsible for building the street, said it would open by early April.

“We are just finishing up the sidewalk, striping the streets, going through a punch list,” said Owen.

Strata, at 1201 Fourth St., is the first development to open on what is Mission Bay’s next frontier, a half-mile stretch of Fourth Street going from Mission Creek to the southern edge of Mission Bay at 16th Street. While it is not every day a new street is built in an older city like San Francisco, Fourth Street is especially significant because it was conceived as a central shopping and leisure boulevard for Mission Bay. Planners see it as the neighborhood’s answer to 24th Street in Noe Valley or Chestnut Street in the Marina: a hub of neighborhood commerce tailored to pedestrians and cyclists.

During the Strata’s opening weekend March 14 and 15, developer Urban Housing Group signed 15 leases and had 55 groups tour the property. The developer aims to lease 25 units a month, putting the company on pace to lease the entire building in eight to 10 months, according to Dan Deibel, Urban Housing Group’s vice president of development.

The Strata brings to 723 the number of housing units in Mission Bay South. Bosa Development has 99 units at the Radiance but has put its next phases on hold until market conditions improve. University of California, San Francisco, has completed 431 units of student housing.

Given that it will be a few years until Fourth Street flowers as a shopping and dining strip, Urban Housing Group pumped more money into amenities and common space than they might have otherwise. The Strata has a 20,000-square-foot courtyard with gardens, stretching areas and communal rooms for cooking, entertaining and movie watching. Deibel said it was important to give the building “buzz and cachet” to lure people to a part of Mission Bay that is still only half developed.

“We knew we were going to be south of the channel. And so we gave a lot of thought to creating a destination community here where you come home at night and you feel comfortable with everything you have here,” said Deibel.

The Strata is Urban Housing Group’s second San Francisco development. The developer sold the 193-unit Edgewater Luxury Apartments at 355 Berry St. for $115 million in May 2008 to United Dominion Realty Trust. The $595,855 per apartment price tag was record breaking.

While rents have softened in recent months, the San Francisco apartment community has held up much better than for-sale housing. In particular, the Mission Bay submarket, which includes AvalonBay’s Mission Bay communities and developments like South Beach Marina and Bay Village, all have occupancy rates above 90 percent, Deibel said. Average asking rents are about $3.25 a square foot at the Strata, about 10 percent lower than they would have been a year ago. Units range from $2,100 to just under $4,000 a month.

“We are at market,” said Deibel. “San Francisco had been growing at a pretty good clip, and I’d say the last six months it’s been flat. So we lost six months of the growth we planned. It’s a competitive market, and we will be competitive as well.”

On the retail side, Urban Housing is looking for a white-tablecloth restaurant, as well as other neighborhood-serving retail businesses. Brokers from Cornish & Carey Commercial have been touring the property with restaurant owners and had one deal fairly far along before the economy soured last year.

“Now that the Strata is open, we are looking forward to a lot of positive activity, and certainly the opening of Fourth Street will help as well,” said Marissa Miller of Cornish & Carey. “Once the street is open, tenants will be able to get a feel for how great Mission Bay will be.”


Email J.K. Dineen at jkdineen@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4971
Source: http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/03/23/story5.html

[BTinSF]

Socketsite is displaying a photo of palm trees being planted on 3rd St in Mission Bay:

http://www.socketsite.com/Third%20Street%20Palm%20Planting.jpg
Source: http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2009/03/third_street_sprouts_some_trees_a_pluggedin_readers_rep.html#comments

I guess they are the same or a similar species to the ones nearby at AT&T Park. Anyway, I like 'em.

[WildCowboy]

And that looks like the Pfizer building going up in the background. Seems to be going up fast...nice!

[BTinSF]

Friday, April 17, 2009
Promise of new connections rises with buildings
Institutes, companies to mix with clinicians
San Francisco Business Times - by Ron Leuty

Mission Bay is slowly but surely morphing into a one-stop health-care shop, as more research institutes play a vital role in transforming basic science into bedside treatments.

Institutes for cancer, orthopedics, cardiovascular and neurosciences are opening, under construction or moving forward with planning at the Mission Bay campus of the University of California, San Francisco. They follow on sites like the J. David Gladstone Institutes’ cardiovascular, virology and immunology, and neurological centers.

The institutes also come with the promise of linking with companies, patients and patient advocates, particularly as UCSF pushes on with plans to open a $1.3 billion women’s, children’s and cancer hospital with 289 beds in 2014.

“It makes all the sense in the world for us to be there,” said Frank McCormick, director of the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and its research institute.

The 162,000-square-foot building along Third Street that houses the cancer center and research institute officially opens June 2.

It’s a matter of convenience, since some lab researchers also see patients, but it also helps change culture when clinical practitioners and lab people are on the same campus, McCormick said. “It really does change the way people think about what they’re doing.”

The cancer center is on the northeastern edge of UCSF’s Mission Bay campus. Next to it, construction is under way on the $254 million, 236,000-square-foot Cardiovascular Research Institute.

Across Third Street, Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. is building a 210,000-square-foot building that will house Pfizer Inc.’s Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center, which is looking at stem cells, peptides, proteins and emerging technologies like RNA interference as well as new ways of delivering vaccines.

The hospital will be a stone’s throw to the south. A couple-minute stroll down the campus’ plaza leads to either UCSF’s neuroscience center — which could house nearly 600 employees and students by mid-2011 — or the Gladstone Institutes.

It’s those potential linkages between patients, researchers, clinicians and companies that excite David Hartman, president of the Multiple Sclerosis Society’s Northern California chapter. In fact, he’s already seen it work.

Soon after the society moved its offices in August from Oakland to the first floor of Alexandria’s 1700 Owens St., Hartman ran into Gladstone Institutes President Dr. Robert Mahley in the hallway. Gladstone, though based next door at 1650 Owens St., recently expanded its translational research center in the Alexandria building.

“We stumbled onto each other and just started talking,” Hartman said. “They have MS researchers there and we were sharing information about resources. We both are benefiting.”

The MS Society, with its focus on patients and their families, may presage the hospital’s ability to tie together different aspects of health care. For one, some $12.6 million in National Multiple Sclerosis Society research funds land back in the Bay Area, mostly in the UC system. And Dr. Doug Goodin, medical director of the UCSF Multiple Sclerosis Center, is on the MS Society’s local board of trustees.

The location also ultimately puts the MS Society closer to patients, who can cross 16th Street to the chapter’s classes or be directed to a UCSF researcher’s clinical trial.

It also could go a long way to showing philanthropists that their money is being put to good use.

“We have the ability to take a funder, walk them across the street and show them the research we’re enabling for them, then bring them back to see how the treatments are going to help people with MS by showing them the MS clinic or a program we have here,” Hartman said.

“That’s a gold mine for us. That’s a way of solidifying and making real where their investment is going.”


rleuty@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4939
Source: http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/04/20/focus2.html?t=printable

[BTinSF]

Friday, April 17, 2009
Recession slows arrival of shopping, eating venues
San Francisco Business Times - by Sarah Duxbury

Any bona-fide neighborhood needs a place to shop and eat.

For Mission Bay, that’s going to be Fourth Street. But before it becomes the south-of-channel cousin to Noe Valley’s 24th Street or Chestnut Street in the Marina, buildings must be built, offices and apartments filled, and those retail leases signed.

And that means that Fourth Street’s retail rollout will be more than fashionably late. The recession has without question slowed Fourth Street’s rise, but those most bullish on the neighborhood, and most versed in its vision, are nevertheless sure that it will look good once it arrives.

The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency and developers have worked hand in hand almost from the get-go to ensure that Fourth Street is fit for retail activity.

Strict limits — interior depths of at least 40 feet, maximum street frontages of 75 feet, high ceilings and stepped-back towers that allow light to reach the street — govern the ground floor architecture. Most spaces will max out at 3,000 square feet. Cosmetically, the sidewalks are generous and benches will provide shoppers resting spots. Metered parking will line both sides of the street, which some day will have between 80,000 and 100,000 square feet of retail.

“The vision of Fourth Street retail is neighborhood, independent owner-operators, goods and services spilling into the street,” said Erika Elliott, a broker with Cornish & Carey retail who is familiar with the Fourth Street vision. “It’s just like every other San Francisco neighborhood, except we have to build it.”

So far, only Urban Housing Group’s Strata is complete.

Retailer interest in the Strata’s 10,000 square feet has been muted, in part because retailers have been hard hit by the recession, and also because many wanted to see not only the building open, but the street itself.

“We knew going into the development that the built-out environment would need to be more in place to attract retail, and that’s what we’ve found,” said Dan Deibel, vice president of development for Urban Housing Group. “Our goal is to lease the retail over the next 12 months.” He hopes to have the restaurant space signed within six months.

Nor will Strata stand solo for long.

Mercy Housing’s building on Block 13 is under construction — it also will have up to 10,000 square feet of retail. UCSF’s housing building on Block 5 is likely the next to rise.

“It’s challenging. If the economy were better, there would be more buildings being built now and it would be easier for retailers,” said Amy Neches, project manager for Mission Bay. “One building is not a market. It’s tough out there.”

The other key to Fourth Street retail is that it will be strictly local. Chain stores are not welcome.

“We spend a lot of time with our developers talking about Fourth Street and talking about retail and talking about the vision and the importance of getting that mix that helps make this a really great place,” Neches said. “I jokingly tell them that nobody’s going to move to Mission Bay to be near a Jamba Juice. What makes people want to live here is this cool stuff going on at ground level. … They need to really buy into this as an amenity to sell their residential units.”

Among the kinds of shops planners see there are plenty of food outlets and everything else a neighborhood needs, from a dry cleaner to a drug store to a shoe repair. A wine shop or cheese shop would be nice, and so would a hardware store. Because the visionaries someday see young families in Mission Bay, some family-oriented retail is probable.

That the whole neighborhood is master planned makes it easier to engineer the “right” tenant mix.

“We don’t want to do what we had to do on King Street just to get it leased 10 years ago,” Elliott said of the national chains like Quizno’s that have set up shop just north of the channel.

The vision is therefore long, and planners simply hope that the landlords are as patient.

So far, they seem to be.

Today, the daytime population of Mission Bay is about 8,000, Elliott estimated. It will grow as Alexandria Real Estate Equities builds and fills buildings, and will grow again when the Radiance does its next phase, and it will keep growing for years to come.

As it grows, so too will retailer confidence and interest in Fourth Street. The “right” leases are hopefully not far behind.

sduxbury@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4963
Source: http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/04/20/focus3.html

[BTinSF]

Friday, April 17, 2009
Creating nightlife a challenge for businesses, neighborhood
San Francisco Business Times - by Vasanth Sridharan

Khaled Dajani already operates a successful sushi restaurant in Mission Bay called Tsunami Sushi. So it makes sense that when he started looking for a place to open his next venue, a whiskey bar, the fast-growing neighborhood was high on his list.

But Dajani, who owns and operates two restaurants, two bars, a wine store and a coffee shop in San Francisco with his brother Musa, said that opening his lounge in Mission Bay may not be possible.

Navigating the city’s bureaucracy is always a challenge, but it’s especially tough to get approvals for Mission Bay where he said there seems to be a predisposition against bars.

“It’s becoming hard, every time we’re opening a new venue, it seems it should be easier for us, but it seems like it’s getting harder,” he said. “The bureaucracy that’s getting established seems unbelievable. I will, in all honesty, gravitate towards buying an existing venue and transforming it instead of opening a new place in Mission Bay.”

Not everyone agrees with Dajani that opening a bar in Mission Bay has more hurdles than opening one elsewhere in the city. But many believe that nightlife and entertainment needs to be a part of the burgeoning neighborhood if it wants to attract young residents with disposable income. Thousands of housing units and millions of square feet of office and R&D space have sprung up in Mission Bay. But nightlife and entertainment have lagged behind.

Mission Rock Cafe, formerly Kelly’s Mission Rock, was a mainstay of the neighborhood long before it was “Mission Bay.” General Manager Ryan Faviñas said that the neighborhood part is important to remember if you want to be successful.

“It’s not just opening a bar in the city, it’s opening a bar in a neighborhood,” he said. “The neighborhood down here is very protective of itself. They want to keep it as safe as possible.”

Mission Rock Cafe has been a nightclub for the last several years, but has begun adding live music and is transitioning to a performance venue. Faviñas said that by working closely with the current residents of the neighborhood, the club has been successful. Still, he said that the transition hasn’t been seamless.

“Starting a venue in San Francisco isn’t exactly the easiest thing,” he said.

That being said, there are already some bars and venues in the area. In Mission Bay North, by the Giants’ AT&T Park, there are quite a few bars like MoMo’s and The Beacon. In Mission Bay South, which is the less developed side of the neighborhood, there are fewer — less than 10, said Marissa Miller, senior sales associate at Cornish & Carey Retail Services. Miller said that there are about 750 people living on UCSF’s campus in Mission Bay South, and another 3,000 to 4,000 residents. About 10,000 people are there working during the day.

But Terrance Allen, chairman of the San Francisco Late Night Coalition, a group that lobbies on behalf of bars and nightclubs, said that the troubles that operators like Dajani are facing are part of a larger problem plaguing the city. He said that it’s becoming harder for potential bar owners across the city to navigate the city and state bureaucracy in order to open a bar, and that he’s stepping up lobbying efforts to try to reform the state’s Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, which issues liquor licenses. The bureaucracy slows down the evolution in Mission Bay especially, because the area is just now being developed, so a nightlife scene has to be sculpted from scratch, so to speak, rather than built on an existing base.

Jocelyn Kane, deputy director of the Entertainment Commission, said that there is no sinister plan to curb nightlife in the city. And in Mission Bay, the holdup isn’t because of the bureaucracy.

“As it stands, I think the neighborhood has been marketed as a neighborhood, not necessarily as a part of the larger fabric of the nighttime areas,” she said. “And residential uses and nighttime uses don’t often go together.”

Kane also said that it’s too early in the evolution of Mission Bay to judge whether it will have a thriving nightlife. Once more people move in, then the bars and other venues will likely follow. She said that the police have been a little more restrictive with new venues recently, and that’s to make sure that everyone is safe when a venue does open. And she pointed out that there are definitely no policies specifically restricting nightlife.

Bob Davis, the director of the commission, sees more hope for Mission Bay’s nightlife, especially because the zoning allows for it. The noise ordinances allow the building department to take a stricter look at the specifications of residential development in the area and make sure that they have adequate soundproofing, which will help guard against complaints when nightlife does develop.

But what everyone agrees on is that Mission Bay will benefit from a nighttime economy, and the demand for one is increasing. Faviñas said that he’s recently seen an influx of people coming in, despite the economy. While Mission Rock used to be a place people drove into from other parts of the city, he’s seeing more local traffic.

“This is the new place to be,” he said.

But for Dajani, it might not be — especially not for a bar.

“Should we open another night venue, or should we go ahead and open a coffee shop? It’s way easier,” he said.

vsridharan@bizjournals.com
Source: http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/04/20/focus4.html

[BTinSF]

Friday, April 17, 2009
UC San Francisco scores on $250M center
Unique funding plan nets neuro building
San Francisco Business Times - by Ron Leuty

UCSF hopes to build a new Mission Bay home for its neuroscience programs on the foundation of innovative construction and financing deals.

The five-story, 237,000-square-foot building — connecting developer McCarthy Cook & Co., Nobel Prize-winning UCSF scientist Stan Prusiner and legendary angel investor Ron Conway — could be built by mid-2011, said Bruce Spaulding, senior vice chancellor of advancement and planning at the University of California, San Francisco.

The structure would be constructed on the west side of Rock Hall, between Fourth and Sixth streets, on UCSF’s growing Mission Bay campus. It would house UCSF’s neurology department — including Prusiner’s Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases and other programs focusing on diseases ranging from dementia to multiple sclerosis — and the W.M. Keck Foundation Center for Integrative Neuroscience.

In all, the building could hold some 600 researchers, staff, students and patients.

“This is going to be one of the places, if not the place in the U.S., where the breakthroughs in neurodegenerative diseases are made,” Spaulding said.

That might not be possible if UCSF had not turned to a private developer that will construct the building and sign a 30-year, fixed-rate lease with a nonprofit entity that will float public bonds in August or September, Spaulding said.

Only a few years earlier, UCSF was faced with rising construction costs, researchers searching for off-campus space and an evaporating pool of state cash.

“It will be maybe 20 percent cheaper than our other buildings,” Spaulding said about the building, citing the cost of the UC system amortizing debt as well as the ability to funnel tax-exempt construction financing to the developer that is cheaper than commercial paper.

The cost for the university to develop a typical sophisticated lab building is $1,400 to $1,500 per square foot.

Based on those costs and the projected 20 percent savings, the building could cost more than $250 million, but Spaulding said the total cost is still uncertain.

McCarthy Cook, one of the developers of the China Basin building where UCSF has some 300,000 square feet of space, won a competition that included more than a dozen developers responding to a request for proposals two years ago. The development team also includes Clark Construction Co. and its Edgemore Realty unit.

“It’s an experiment,” Spaulding said.

The rental rate hasn’t been set, because the UC system is in negotiations with the development team. The rate also is dependent on the bond sales.

By comparison, UCSF is paying $39 per square foot in the first year for its orthopedics institute to lease 42,000 square feet from Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. at 1500 Owens St. The institute opens this fall a little more than a block away from the planned neuroscience building.

The neuroscience building would be one of the first projects in the UC system — if not the first — to rely on this type of arrangement. The UC system typically uses a design-bid-build process for development.

UC Berkeley is considering two such projects: a 160,000-square-foot office building on University Avenue with Panattoni Developers of Sacramento and the 150,000-square-foot first phase of its community health campus near Shattuck and Hearst avenues with Lowe Enterprises of Los Angeles.

Both projects, however, are behind the planned 2011 completion date for the UCSF building.

Meanwhile, UCSF launched a $150 million fundraising campaign to pay for programs and new faculty at the neuroscience building. The effort has netted at least $50 million in pledges, including $14 million from a Dublin, Ireland, philanthropist.

The campaign is led by Conway, of Angel Investors LP, who in 2007 led a grassroots $7 million, 60-day campaign to fund research into Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease, a brain-wasting disease at the center of the research of Prusiner’s lab on UCSF’s Parnassus campus.

Conway, who also is vice chair of the UCSF Foundation, got involved in the CJD campaign after his longtime friend and Netscape founder Mike Homer was diagnosed with the disease in May 2007. Homer, 50, died Feb. 1.

“People like Stan Prusiner are excited about expanding facilities into this building,” Spaulding said. “There’s a lot of interest in these areas and a lot of potential.”

rleuty@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4939
Source: http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/04/20/story3.html

[WildCowboy]

Thanks for the articles, BT. The UCSF neuroscience building has been on the table for a long time, and it's nice to see that it looks like it's finally going to be a go. There are concerns that 20% cost savings and third-party developer will result in cut corners that make the building not fit with the rest of the campus, but hopefully it'll be fine.

Seems like there's lots of activity going on down there now. I knew that the Pfizer complex was going up , but didn't realize that Block 13 was underway as well.

I understand that the big warehouse at 3rd and Mariposa is coming down later this year to allow prep work for the hospital to begin. Exciting times...would love it if someone could get down there to shoot some pics of the activity. I've been gone almost three months now, and it seems like a fair amount has happened in that time.

[timbad]

wildcowboy (and everyone), let's see if this works. my first attempt at posting to the forum:

this should be a shot taken yesterday, of (from right to left) UCSF's cardiovascular center, the Helen Diller Cancer Center, and the Pfizer facility across Third. in the foreground you can see some of the street accessories in place on Fourth St, which is not officially open yet.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3524/3455876101_6eb96b5398_b.jpg

and here a shot south down Fourth St from the northern end of the new section. Strata housing on the left:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3497/3455872381_8a838efcd5_b.jpg

I do live in the neighborhood, and can get out most weekends, so if there are things of particular interest to people, I am happy to wander over, camera in hand...

[timbad]

oh, and btw, I haven't noticed any evidence that block 13 (just south of Mission Creek Park, adjacent to 4th St, right?) is under construction. I'll take a closer look next time I'm by there.

[rocketman_95046]

great pics timbad,

being a resident, do you like the way the neighborhood is coming together?

[WildCowboy]

Awesome pics, thanks. Looks like a nice streetwall going up there along Mission Bay Blvd S...can't wait for that whole stretch of the Commons to be put in. Any façade panels going up on the cardiovascular research building yet, or still just framing?

The opening of Fourth will probably change things a bit for UCSF's campus. Their little piece of it has been a private street for many years now, but now they'll be getting through traffic on it.

Looking forward to future updates. :)

[Downtown Dave]

I went down here on Sunday morning.

What is up with this hideous blank wall on Strata? Is there a stratum missing on this side?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v106/NelsonAndBronte/SanFrancisco/MissionBay/MissionBay-3710.jpg

The cancer center and its new neighbor.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v106/NelsonAndBronte/SanFrancisco/MissionBay/MissionBay-3714.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v106/NelsonAndBronte/SanFrancisco/MissionBay/MissionBay-3735.jpg

Progress on the buildings across the street, with detail of the facade of one of them.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v106/NelsonAndBronte/SanFrancisco/MissionBay/MissionBay-3779.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v106/NelsonAndBronte/SanFrancisco/MissionBay/MissionBay-3773.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v106/NelsonAndBronte/SanFrancisco/MissionBay/MissionBay-3726.jpg

The jagged metal here must be intended for some decoration on the garage:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v106/NelsonAndBronte/SanFrancisco/MissionBay/MissionBay-3742.jpg

This turned out better than I expected it to.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v106/NelsonAndBronte/SanFrancisco/MissionBay/MissionBay-3746.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v106/NelsonAndBronte/SanFrancisco/MissionBay/MissionBay-3753.jpg

I was surprised to see not one but two WHECs undergoing overhaul, as these are to be replaced soon with the new National Security Cutters.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v106/NelsonAndBronte/SanFrancisco/MissionBay/MissionBay-3757.jpg

I still can't warm up to this one:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v106/NelsonAndBronte/SanFrancisco/MissionBay/MissionBay-3771.jpg

A garden of piles:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v106/NelsonAndBronte/SanFrancisco/MissionBay/MissionBay-3781.jpg

Views of the other side, including Arterra and its neighbors:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v106/NelsonAndBronte/SanFrancisco/MissionBay/MissionBay-3792.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v106/NelsonAndBronte/SanFrancisco/MissionBay/MissionBay-3811.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v106/NelsonAndBronte/SanFrancisco/MissionBay/MissionBay-3821.jpg

[Gordo]

:previous: Great pics, Dave.

I assume the blank wall on the 3rd St side of Strata is that way because it's assumed that another development will shimmy right up next to it zero-lot line style that will front 3rd St.

[WildCowboy]

Awesome pics, Dave...thanks. Good to see things are chugging right along.

Nice to see that the first block of the Commons appears to finally be open after all those years of being fenced off.

That garage (450 South Street) with the metal framing going in is supposed to have a rather unusual façade to it...will be interesting to see how it turns out.

UCSF's cancer center turned out pretty well...looks almost just like the rendering, which is more than can be said for some of their other projects.

And yes, my understanding is that Strata is right up on the lot line, so whatever goes up on the eastern part of that block will be right up against it. The eastern part of the block is slated for Redevelopment Agency-led affordable housing.

[BTinSF]

I

What is up with this hideous blank wall on Strata? Is there a stratum missing on this side?


Very nice Latin declension. :awesome:

[pseudolus]

(via Curbed SF)

"Changing Skyline: Some waterfront lessons from the City by the Bay"

http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/43158507.html

Can't imagine what junk they're getting in Philadelphia that they'd be envying Mission Bay.

(edit) No need to imagine. Here it is:

http://www.howardmodels.com/architectural-illustrations-07/sugar-house-casino-philadelphia-pa-06061/cope-linder-sugar-house-800.jpg

[BTinSF]

AvalonBay III rents (Whoa!):

Rents in the building range from $2,100-$4,900 for one bedrooms, $2,100-$3,300 for two bedrooms and from $3,300-$4,900 for three bedrooms. [Meg Spriggs, AvalonBay senior development director] said she is “cautiously optimistic” the project can attain target rents, but said “we will meet the market on rents.”
Source: www.curbedSF.com

[viewguysf]

AvalonBay III rents (Whoa!):


Source: www.curbedSF.com

The top of the range for a one bedroom unit doesn't seem plausible. What's up with that?

[WildCowboy]

The top of the range for a one bedroom unit doesn't seem plausible. What's up with that?

No, it doesn't seem so. The Marseille is their sole 1 BR penthouse unit, and it's currently listed (http://www.avaloncommunities.com/avaloncore/nfloor_1br.asp?comm=337) in the $2700 range. They are also showing 2 BR units ranging from $2800-$4100.

And the site suggests in a number of places that there is nothing larger than 2 BR, so I have no idea what's going on.

[peanut gallery]

There have been some changes to the Mission Rock proposal. Gone is the music hall and half the retail space. Also, the expected revenue to the port has been reduced by about 40%. They plan to build in phases over 17 years (!) starting in 2013. The park won't go in for about a decade from today. In other words, don't expect to see anything happening for a very long time.

From today's Chronicle (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/12/BA5017IIQG.DTL):

S.F. waterfront project may be downsized
Robert Selna, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 12, 2009

A plan to remake one of the last large tracts of San Francisco's waterfront likely will be more modest than originally imagined and bring the cash-strapped Port of San Francisco less money than once hoped.

The Port Commission today will decide whether to allow port officials to negotiate exclusively with a team that wants to construct a neighborhood on a 16-acre tract that has been used as a parking lot for AT&T Park.

The builders, which include the Giants baseball team and developers of the Ferry Building and Treasure Island, have hashed out a proposal over nine months that is a work in progress and that has been influenced by the economic downturn.

Originally, port officials believed the agency might earn as much as $10.2 million per year by renting the parking lot land and the adjacent Pier 48. That figure has been whittled down to approximately $6.5 million.

The amount of proposed retail space has also been cut by more than half, to about 186,000 square feet. The developers also want to complete the project in phases over a 17-year period that would start in 2013. Work building a large waterfront park likely would not begin for nearly a decade.

Initial infrastructure development would be funded with private investment and port- issued bonds repaid through taxes generated by new development. In total, the project is estimated to cost $2 billion.

Jack Bair, Giants general counsel, emphasized that the proposal is not final and will be further refined. Nonetheless, he said he believes the plan is the "right mix of uses to generate a vibrant new community along the waterfront."

In about a year, the Port Commission will be expected to review a more detailed proposal, officials said.

"This development group has the equity needed to get this project done, they have the experience, and the plan is generally well thought of," said Jonathan Stern, a waterfront development manager at the Port.

Stern said the parcel - which roughly is the size of nine football fields - could generate more revenue than any other port property proposed for development.

As it stands, the project would produce approximately 10 commercial and residential buildings, including two towers near 200 feet and another taller than 300 feet. The area would be broken into 12 small city blocks and would feature 8 acres of open space, including the waterfront park.

One major parking structure and stalls in other buildings would accommodate 2,650 parking spaces for Giants games and other uses. There also are plans to refurbish Pier 48 for exhibitions and other events.

While the vision for the development is grand, it differs from what originally was proposed. In February, the Giants presented a scheme for an entertainment center tied to well-known names in food and music, including a 5,000-seat music hall.

Treasure Island builders Kenwood Investments, which had partnered with Ferry Building developers Wilson, Meany, Sullivan, proposed an arts destination with galleries and studios to lure visitors.

Each plan included apartments, offices, retail space and parking.

[timbad]

just a general update, since it's been quiet on this front for a while. yesterday I braved the fog and chill to wander over and see how things were progressing.

here's a shot of the cardiovascular research building and part of Pfizer.

on the former they have started putting in the glass on the section closest to the cancer center. on an adjacent lot (not in this pic) it looked like they had a mock-up of exterior panels set up, so those may be going in soon. btw, there is a rendering of the CVRB here (http://www.gaynerengineers.com/id156.htm):

Pfizer's exterior panels are going up fairly quickly. to me the building has a 'cheap' look to it compared to UCSF.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3327/3562261106_59308f51ed_b.jpg

another shot of Pfizer, and in foreground you can see where there has been digging for the last few months, in one of the Commons lots in front of the cancer center. this hole went down the equivalent of at least two stories, and has had concrete boxes poured in it. I assume this is part of water/sewer infrastructure, but maybe someone else knows better?

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2475/3561432195_37fdb2e5f5_b.jpg

at the other end of the Commons, near where the roundabout at Owens' northern end will be, they have also been digging for the last few months, and I wonder if the two sites are related/connected. here they seem to be digging an outlet to the creek nearby also. this pic essentially is looking down the axis of the future Commons from its western end (CVRB in the distance):

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3622/3561414589_b424a9f18b_b.jpg

speaking of underground construction, south of 16th, just to the west of where the UCSF medical center will be, they have also been moving a lot of dirt excavating a trench over the last few weeks, and here I did note they were laying at least meter-wide concrete pipe the other day.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3557/3561425667_b5090f8f74_b.jpg

above ground, 1500 Owens has pretty much wrapped up all external construction, and it seems the internal is coming right along as well, with lights on! this was taken earlier this month:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3320/3562256264_c8d5417ccc_b.jpg

this is the south entrance, taken yesterday:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3333/3562227808_7960716813_b.jpg

the only other above-ground construction currently are the two parking garages. this is the one behind the Gladstone building next to the freeway:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3586/3561423385_bbc0eb7a21_b.jpg

and this is the big one across Third from UCSF. you can see that it is getting some of its external panels on its north side:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2475/3561591139_43bb6ae6c2_b.jpg

here is detail on the panels, taken from the 'back' (east) side. the panels remind me of the copper exterior of the deYoung, with patterns that evoke leafy shadows:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3585/3562248020_12810a1d54_b.jpg

it's not a super clear pic, but this one, taken a couple weeks ago, shows the effect at night:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3605/3562253524_efc1f3db98_b.jpg

near the garage, a couple signs of minor infrastructure developments: foundation for a new street (with sidewalk and trees already on the north side next to the garage)...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3569/3561591143_4aa107be5f_b.jpg

... and framework for a section of new sidewalk on the east side of Third (looking north; 'back' of Pfizer in the background):

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3327/3561591135_aae4361566_b.jpg

last but not least, a few days ago I noticed what I thought from a distance was a new piledriver on the lot to the west of Rock Hall, UCSF. I finally got closer yesterday, and saw that they've done a lot of grading, but I'm not sure what it is they're putting in the ground there. can anyone tell?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3330/3561418849_e34d1fc588_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3304/3561421111_30cbfa2f8f_b.jpg

[KVNBKLYN]

Thanks for the very comprehensive update!

How many parking garages does this neighborhood need? What ever happened to transit oriented development?

[timbad]

great pics timbad,

being a resident, do you like the way the neighborhood is coming together?

sorry for the long delay in responding!

this is still a tough question to answer. north of the creek, Berry St, as I think WildCowboy and probably others have noted, is pretty dead, almost an alley. and as we know, the architecture so far is mostly blah. BUT, is there a ton of pedestrian traffic along the north side of King between 2nd and 4th? do I see people enjoying the sports courts underneath the freeway ramps? are the promenade and park along the banks of the creek heavily used? do I see people of all ages in these public places? do I see people meeting each other and interacting? yes to all of that.

I think a lot will depend on how Fourth St south of the creek turns out. has the potential to be where the neighborhood finds its soul (which it certainly does not have yet), with good retail and hangouts, but of course it looks like we won't see a verdict there for many years.

and I do like the little streetscape touches - the benches, lampposts, cobbles under the street trees, and the other street furniture forms. I think it will help when everything goes up around them.

[WildCowboy]

Awesome...thanks for the great shots, timbad! Great to see all the progress that's happened since I moved away.

That's not a piledriver you see near Rock Hall...it's a drill for installing wicks for surcharging the soil to compress it and draw out subsurface water. They have been surcharging the portion of Block 19 directly to the west of Rock Hall for the past year or so, and that is now complete.

So now they're looking to move that dirt elsewhere on the campus to surcharge those areas (Blocks 15 and 18, and surrounding 5th and 6th Streets and the block of Nelson Rising Lane between them), and the wicks have to go in first. Then they'll be able to transfer the current dirt piles, which will allow them to start construction on the neurosciences building on Block 19A directly next to Rock Hall.

I agree that Pfizer building looks cheap. Hopefully it will look better once it's complete.

The two parking garages are coming along nicely, and they should be interesting projects. The one near Pfizer and Old Navy looks awfully gloomy under cloudy skies so far, but much better when lighted. Here's hoping the finished product ends up a bit brighter. Can't tell much on the Gladstone garage yet, but it's slated to have a significant amount of planting on the façade. Hopefully they're planning to seed with a good amount of green upfront so we don't have wait ten years for it to look good.

The cancer building should be done...official opening is next week, so I assume they're moving people in now.

How are the new section of Fourth Street and the cross streets connecting Third and Fourth coming? I assume they've had to open some of it with the opening of Strata (555 Mission Rock), but it looks like Fourth is still closed south of there. Any sign of the rest of it opening any time soon?

I'd really like to see more of The Commons coming along. Certainly looks like a major project going on under there, so hopefully once they wrap that up they'll start working on the block between Third and Fourth. The north edge of UCSF's campus is really coming along there, so they need The Commons to move along with them.

[peanut gallery]

Thanks for the comprehensive update. timbad. Mission Bay is so massive, it's hard to tell just how much progress is being made when looking from a distance. I love 1500 Owens. In fact, it's probably my favorite south of the channel. Pfizer looks very much like another building I can't place at the moment. Probably because it looks like your basic generic Silicon Valley office building. I've seen something like it dozens of times, no doubt.

[KVNBKLYN]

Just to remind myself of what this should all look like when done, I wanted to post the renderings for the buildings currently under construction. I think these were posted a while ago.

This view...
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2475/3561432195_37fdb2e5f5_b.jpg


...should look something like this when done...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3402/3576903008_35cf4f0286_o.jpg


And this view...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3327/3561591135_aae4361566_b.jpg


...should look something like this...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3332/3576098783_07fd3229e1_o.jpg


Both renderings from http://www.labspace.com/cluster/mb/index.php

Both construction photos from timbad.

[AndrewK]

i was hoping something was going to go into the lot when i saw that pic. it seems like theres lots of setbacks and wide streets from the pics ive seen, which doesnt really seem like wise planning for building a neighborhood. i have to admit though that i havent really been down there recently or kept close tabs on these projects, just perceptions from looking at photos posted here.