[1977]

Millionaires vs. millionaires.

Neighbors unhappy with high-rise condos at Mexican Museum

Residents of a tower full of multi-million-dollar condominiums complained loudly to the Planning Commission Thursday about plans for a 47-story tower that’s likely to be home to more multi-million-dollar condominiums. Oh, and the long-awaited Mexican Museum is also part of the debate, although you would barely have known it from the hearing.

The dispute is about plans for the new building at 706 Mission St., right at Third Street. Since 1993, the site has been tagged as the new home for the Mexican Museum, now in temporary housing at Fort Mason Center. Plans currently call for the museum to take up the first four floors of the new building and two floors of the adjoining — and ultimately connected — Aronson Building, with the 191 residential units on the next 43 floors of the tower.

But at the hearing on the draft environmental impact report on the new building, people from the pricey condominiums atop the Four Season Hotel at 765 Market St., joined by their attorney and transportation consultant, complained bitterly that the new building would bring more people and traffic into the area, making their lives — and those of people walking or driving in the area — miserable.

The new construction is “ill-conceived” and “unthinkable, one of the Four Seasons residents said. Just as a bit of information, the cheapest condominium now on sale at that building goes for better than $2 million, with one unit last year selling for $7.2 million.

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