SAN FRANCISCO | Projects: Under Construction, Approved, and Proposed

[BTinSF]

This just counts as a tidbit but infill is good:

32 Condos Coming "Soon" To The Corner Of Hayes And Franklin







Patrons of the arts (and Hayes Valley) take note, the surface area parking lot at the corner of Hayes and Franklin is no longer (nor is the little building next door) as they're finally preparing the site for the newest addition to the neighborhood.

The mixed-use development will consist of thirty-two (32) condos over ground floor retail with design by Sternberg Benjamin Architects and development by Village Properties/Hayes Franklin Builders Corp.

The site does indeed include the structure next to the parking lot (which is in the process of being razed); and while they're in the process of preparing the site, they haven't yet broken ground (but pilings have been delivered).

Source: http://www.socketsite.com/

Again, for those 40 STORY TOWERS see just above!

[CityKid]

These photos are from an old article back in July 2005 regarding a new home for the Institute on Aging:







Demolition took place quite a few months ago and i just noticed a sign notifying the public of issuance of a permit or something like that. BT, what does that mean? If this thing starts rising, i'll have to keep you guys updated.

[BTinSF]

What does what mean? The "40 story towers"?? Read the story that I posted on the previous page for that (nobody here ever looks at pages that have been "turned"). The Supes approved the Market-Octavia Plan which calls for 40-story towers at Market & Van Ness and which we have been waiting for for 8 long years.

PS: I'm pretty excited about the Institute on Aging too. Geary needs that sort of thing.

[CityKid]

^^ What is an "issuance of permit?" Also, according to the Institute on Aging website, construction is supposed to begin this month.

http://www.ioaging.org/about/new_building/

[CityKid]

^^^ RE: The Market/Octavia Plan. Exciting news! In my mind, I've always imagined high rise growth continuing through SoMA and along the Market corridor. SF is really going to look different in about 10 years.

[BTinSF]

Originally Posted by CityKid

^^ What is an "issuance of permit?" Also, according to the Institute on Aging website, construction is supposed to begin this month.

http://www.ioaging.org/about/new_building/

I'm not sure. Hopefully, it means they've issued a building permit which means construction could start soon. Separate permits are also required for demolition of any old structures remaining on the site and, I believe, foundation work including pile driving. So I'm not sure which permits are being referred to. Anyway, it does mean progress is happening.

If you have too much time on your hands, try the "search" function on the Building and Planning Department sites using the address of the project (3575 Geary). I found reference to "permits issued" last fall but it was an Excel file I couldn't open.

[c1tyguy]

Originally Posted by BTinSF

Exciting news!


Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...BAE81024TC.DTL

EXCITING!!!!

[BTinSF]

Might we now soon see this?


Source all: http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2008/0...levard.php?o=2

[viewguysf]

Originally Posted by peanut gallery

I'm a fan of this too, BT. Same with the new green building proposed for The Embarcadero and the new SPUR headquarters. They are all quite small, but all quite good.

Yes PG, they are. Although I love good major structures and highrises, I think that the height of the new PUC headquarters is appropriate for that site, as was the new addition to the state building.

[BTinSF]

More on the Market-Octavia Plan (as approved):



For the Van Ness/Market intersection (I believe this tower would actually go where the Honda dealer now sits):


Source all above images: http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2...n_moves_f.html

[BTinSF]

But just as exciting for me, living where I do, is that today's Socketsite tells me that this project, delayed for a decade (mostly by Chris Daly and friends) is actually under construction at Golden Gate & Larkin:

A 7-story/68-foot tall parking garage by Hastings College with 430 spaces (300 for the college, 130 for the public, and an increase of 170 over the previous surface area lot), two City CarShare Pods, secure bike storage and 9,000 square feet of ground floor retail intended to “encourage students to linger in the community."

Originally expected to be completed by the end of 2008, expect construction to continue for another 16-18 months.

As a plugged-in (and perhaps a little dazed) "torchrunner" notes, "The new Central YMCA will go in next door" on Golden Gate. (But that's not set in stone.)

Source: www.socketsite.com


Source: http://www.uchastings.edu/?pid=3845

Between this building and the PUC building, Golden Gate will go from a windy wasteland to a dense urban street. Now if they'd just demolish the building across the street from the new PUC structure and build on that and the adjacent vacant lots.

[peanut gallery]

Originally Posted by BTinSF

Might we now soon see this?

That's the question I had about the Market/Octavia plan. Was approval of the plan holding up those developments along Octavia and Fell? I can't remember what the delay was based on.

[BTinSF]

^^^According to Socketsite, yes it was.

[BTinSF]

Friday, April 11, 2008
Reinvention under way at Third and Folsom
TMG, REEF bring life to forbidding monolith
San Francisco Business Times - by J.K. Dineen



For four decades, the AT&T complex at Third and Folsom streets has been an imposing concrete fortress designed to keep the public at bay and business operations as secure and secretive as possible.

Now TMG Partners and RREEF are getting ready to bring air and light -- and the public -- into the two-building property with a $200 million renovation and expansion the developers hope will transform the property into one of the most desirable office buildings south of Market.

The redevelopment, designed by Skidmore Owings and Merrill, will replace the opaque exterior with a nearly clear glass curtain-wall skin. Two floors are being added to the 12-story structure and the floorplates will be expanded as well, pushing the edge of the building toward Folsom Street. The glass, steel and granite lobby will have 30-foot ceilings with floor-to-ceiling glass and a floating staircase.

All told, the rehab will increase the building from 400,000 square feet to 505,000 square feet, with 440,000 square feet of office and 10,000 square feet of retail at 680 Folsom St. (formerly called 666 Folsom) and 55,000 square feet of offices at the abutting 50 Hawthorne St.

The ground floor will have a restaurant and TMG is in early talks with the Museum of Performance & Design -- formerly the San Francisco Performing Arts Library & Museum -- which is interested in moving from the Veterans Building in the Civic Center.

"It's incredibly monolithic and dated -- the streetscape is really uninviting," said TMG Partners Managing Director Matt Field. "It was designed to keep the public out. We're going to take the bunker mentality down."

The building's views and size will surprise most of the city's brokers and tenants. Fully occupied by the phone company since it was completed in 1964, few people have been in the building outside of phone company employees. The building has been vacant since 2005 when the telecommunications giant -- then SBC -- started moving employees to San Ramon and San Antonio, Texas. At the same time it unloaded 680 Folsom, AT&T also sold off two other properties, 370 Third St. and the landmark 140 New Montgomery St.

"It was never toured -- people don't come into the utility buildings," said Field.

At 35,000 square feet, the building has some of the biggest floorplates in the city -- similar in size to the Bank of America building -- and will cater to large users. Field compared it to the Landmark at One Market, a TMG project similar in size to 680 Folsom that was completely leased to seven tenants. Asking rates for the building will likely be about $60 a square foot a month, slightly less than Wilson Meany Sullivan is seeking for the final Foundry Square building nearby.

While the renovation will make 680 Folsom essentially a new building, TMG and RREEF decided it was environmentally and economically better to hold onto the existing structure's steel and floors, rather than raze it and begin anew. The developer is applying for LEED gold certification, the second highest level in the the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program.

"We feel it's really important not to tear down, but to reinvent buildings," said Field.

TMG and RREEF are about to go out for a construction loan. The developers are putting in 35 percent equity, which should make it easier to get construction financing at a time when banks have tightened credit.

"It's a tough environment, but we'll get it done," he said.

Chris Roeder, a senior director at Jones Lang LaSalle, said the mid-2010 delivery date should time the market well, coming after Tishman Speyer's building at 555 Mission St. will likely be fully leased and other new construction won't be ready. Also, the fact that it's an existing building should allow TMG to have asking rates slightly cheaper than the new buildings it will compete with.

"It's coming in at the right time," he said.

jkdineen@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4971

Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci...ml?t=printable

The new version:


Source: http://www.socketsite.com/

[BTinSF]

More regarding Van Ness/Market highrises: Uh, maybe not yet:

Friday, April 11, 2008
Developers: S.F. fees will kill housing
Octavia rules add millions
San Francisco Business Times - by J.K. Dineen

The Board of Supervisors' long-awaited April 8 approval of the Market-Octavia plan was a bittersweet victory for housing developers, a decision that potentially allows for thousands of units in new development, but imposes stiff fees that may make some of the larger developments economically unfeasible.

The new Market-Octavia zoning, which covers both sides of Market Street from Ninth and Hayes streets to Noe Street and is expected to be signed into law by Mayor Gavin Newsom, doubles height limits on five parcels on the four corners of Market Street and Van Ness Avenue, lifting allowable heights to 400 feet from 200 feet. But it also places a $25-per-square-foot fee on anything constructed on the four corners, which some property owners say make highrise housing there more an urban planner's fantasy than a realistic prospect, at least in the current housing market.

The owners of one of the key parcels the plan was shaped around, the San Francisco Honda dealership at 10 South Van Ness Ave., said the additional fees could kill any chance of attracting interest from developers.

"It's fees upon fees upon fees," said John Boas, whose family has owned the Honda dealership for decades.

Boas stressed that the Boas family has been actively engaged in the planning effort and understands why the city would like to see the Honda property become transit-oriented highrise housing. They worked with architects and the planning department to come up with possible schematics. But given that they run a profitable business with over 100 employees, Boas said his family would focus on running the dealership.

He said that his family had been told "point blank by someone pretty wise in the real estate industry" that the proposed fees would kill prospects for highrise housing there. He also pointed to a July 24th, 2007 city-commissioned report from Seifel Consulting that said raising fees would "likely dissuade new development."

"The Market-Octavia plan would seem like a positive for the property value but it seems that it actually devalues it," said Boas.

But for developers with smaller projects in the pipeline, the passage of the plan is a boon. The first housing development poised to move ahead as a result of the new plan are four projects that have been approved for fenced-in dirt lots along Octavia Boulevard, four of 11 parcels that were freed up when the elevated freeway was demolished. The largest of the projects is planned for a full block at Oak and Fell streets and is a collaboration by Build Inc. and five different architects. The sale of the four properties will net the city $13 million and development on all 11 parcels calls for 900 units of housing.

"We're ready to move forward with those developers and enter into purchase and sale agreements," said Rich Hillis, deputy director of the Mayor's Office of Economic and Workforce Development. "The vision was the new boulevard and housing along the boulevard and this puts the zoning in place to do that."

For builder Brian Spiers, who has two pending projects impacted by the plan, the new zoning will give some additional height on the ground-floor retail level while adding $4 to the current $10 per square foot fee. Spiers said the passage of Market-Octavia gives him the green light to seek approvals for a 110-unit project at Buchanan and Market streets, the design for which is being done by Bernardo Fort-Brescia of Arquitectonica, as well as a smaller project development being designed by Stanley Saitowitz.

Spiers said the additional fees "squeeze developers pretty hard" and would cost him about $1.5 million on the Buchanan and Market site. But all and all he is relieved to have the plan, which he said would "create an opportunity to build more units to catch up with the need for more housing stock."

"It's exciting for the city to finally move forward," he said. "If they are not going to put housing on a corridor like Market Street, where are they going to do it? "

Land use attorney Jim Haas, who has been a proponent of redevelopment in the Mid-Market and Civic Center areas, said the zoning will trigger a number of smaller projects along the old central freeway, but not the major sites that would create the most housing and generate revenues for the city.

"That area has to heat up a lot more before people are going to pay those kind of fees," he said.

jkdineen@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4971

Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci...ml?t=printable

Well, if nobody else is going to do anything to prop up the value of housing, I'm glad SF is . More fees means the next generation of condos will be even pricier which indirectly raises the value of existing units.

[AndrewK]

glad to see that all of this is moving forward. i previously knew about the thin lot at market and octavia being developed, but its nice to know that some of the other thin strips along octavia will be used for new projects as well. it seemed odd to me when they redid octavia that these strips had been left empty instead of used for a wider median with the sidewalks on the east side going all the way to the existing buildings, but this way we will get retail along there, which i think will nicely link the hayes vally commercial center to market (and help to improve its quality in doing so).

im also really happy to see that build inc is putting in a large project at oak between laguna & octavia, as i walk by that lot on a regular basis and think what a huge waste of space it currently is. also thankful that the sketches show it as being in the style of several smaller buildings along the street, as opposed to one large monolithic development, to better reflect the style of the neighborhood and adjacent buildings. though i noticed that there are no plans yet for the northwest corner of that block, i guess that will have to wait til later. between these two lot developments and the disabled housing on the southwest corner, oak and octavia will be quite a different (and much improved) intersection.

[BTinSF]

^^^All of this has been designed for a long time and waiting for the Board of Stupidvisors to approve the new zoning.

[peanut gallery]

I'm ecstatic about those existing Octavia proposals that now can begin. I'm actually not that concerned about the taller corner lots at Van Ness and Market. By the time a proposal comes along and gets through the approval process, the housing and loan situations will likely be very different and the fees might not be the deal-killer they're being made out to be at the moment.

[peanut gallery]

One Kearny update from today. I noticed awhile ago that this looked like it would transition from concrete to steel. But I didn't think about how that would mean this thing would suddenly rise very quickly, which it has done.

[BTinSF]

^^^That tooth gap is getting filled almost as quickly as mine recently did courtesy of a $3000 gold bridge.