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  #1281  
Old Posted Feb 21, 2008, 10:23 PM
BTinSF BTinSF is offline
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Originally Posted by Jobohimself View Post
San Francisco is responsible for my newfound love of architecture and photography, Vietnamese food (Turtle Towers) and the neverending streams of attractive Asian women.
Then you should love those new "affordable" buildings--an awful lot of the families going into them are Vietnamese (or other Asians, but especially Vietnamese) and they have a lot of cute kids who will eventually become attractive girls and women.
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  #1282  
Old Posted Feb 21, 2008, 10:24 PM
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While we're on this subject, and for those who like to read...

From: Sage Journals Online
http://uar.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/30/4/483
Quote:
Gentrification and Grassroots Resistance in San Francisco's Tenderloin
Tony Robinson
University of Colorado at Denver

Since World War II, San Francisco has been transformed by the high-rise postindustrial restructuring of central cities and by corresponding gentrification pressures. In one low-income inner-city district, the Tenderloin, residents organized and fought successful battles against the gentrifying growth regime through the 1980s. Moving beyond being a reactionary antigrowth movement, Tenderloin activists have advanced a proactive, neighborhood-sensitive regime, with a social-production capacity of its own, represented by the neighborhood's nonprofit housing movement. Their example teaches about the neighborhood-responsive progressive forces that characterize San Francisco and about the potential of grassroots mobilization as a response to international economic restructuring.
From: http://www.hoteltravelcheck.com/sfo/...francisco.html
Quote:
"San Francisco's Tenderloin: The Last Frontier"
This area is perhaps the last frontier in SF's ever-expanding gentrification trend, and you can still stumble on unpolished gems in the form of incredible cooking, unpredictable bar scenes, independently owned stores and great live music.

The streets aren't the cleanest, and you will be approached frequently by strangers, so just stay alert and don't let it get to you. You have to hunt a little harder for your treasures in the 'Loin, but in a city increasingly headed toward high-end everything, it's a small price to pay.

Tenderloin
The Tenderloin is a historic place full of preserved hotels from the early 20th century, some of which have been renovated into boutique tourist hotels and others into supportive housing. Squalid conditions, homelessness, crime, drug sales, prostitution, liquor stores (over 60), and strip clubs give the area a seedy reputation. However, these conditions have also kept rents in this area more affordable to low-income and working-class families in a city that is among the priciest in the country. The Tenderloin has one of the city's highest concentrations of children.

With some of San Francisco's most prestigious real estate only a few blocks to the north, and the Financial District's high towers, a major retail area, and hotels just to the east, the Tenderloin often surprises tourists to the city. As with other lower-income neighborhoods such as the Mission and SOMA districts, many artists and writers make the Tenderloin their home.

While the streets close to Market Street are among San Francisco's most undesirable neighborhoods, a gradual but distinct rise in income levels occurs as one travels north, ascending to the Nob Hill sector. Relative to other areas, the Tenderloin is the only largely working-class neighborhood within the downtown area.
The Dot Com boom in the late 1990s brought a great deal of redevelopment and resident inhabitation to the SOMA district in particular, but some revitalization funds put into the Tenderloin made a prominent impact — evident today by a much broader section of new ethnic restaurants and bars, as well as a more long-term young working class.
From the San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...AG58GG9EN1.DTL
Quote:
SAN FRANCISCO
Tenderloin turning into new Latino neighborhood
Rent is cheap, but few social services for Spanish speakers
Tyche Hendricks, Chronicle Staff Writer

Monday, January 2, 2006

The changing face of San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood can be seen at St. Boniface Catholic Church, where 500 families typically flock to the Spanish-language Mass each Sunday morning.

While the parish in past years has had a majority of Vietnamese families, their numbers are being eclipsed by Latino parishioners, many of them new arrivals from Mexico and Central America, according to Sister Elisa Ruiz, a Franciscan nun who works at the church. The Latino presence in the parish is a reflection of the growing number of Latinos in the neighborhood, which is estimated at between 16 percent and 20 percent of Tenderloin residents, or close to 5,000 people, a jump of 80 percent from 1990 to 2000, according to census data.

On the nights leading up to Christmas, hundreds of Latin American immigrants tromped through the rain-slick Tenderloin streets enacting a traditional Mexican posada. The parishioners carried statues depicting Mary and Joseph on the road to Bethlehem and ritually knocked on doors, singing "In the name of God, I ask you for shelter. My wife is so tired, can we get a place to pass the night?"

After being repeatedly turned away and told "there's no room at the inn," the procession arrived at the Golden Gate Avenue church, where all were welcomed with hot drinks, tamales and a piñata for the children.

"They sing so loudly," Sister Ruiz said. "They really identify themselves with José and María, the idea of being immigrants in a land that's not your own."

"She was the mother of God, and she didn't have a place," just as many of these immigrants struggle to find shelter and a sense of belonging.

For more than a century, the gritty neighborhood has been a gateway for newly arrived immigrants in San Francisco. At the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, the Tenderloin's German immigrants built St. Boniface. Over the course of the 20th century, the neighborhood was an entry point for Greeks, Indians, Koreans, Filipinos and Italians.

In the 1960s, the area's studio apartments and residential hotels also became home to thousands of older single men, who had retired from jobs on the city's waterfront and were displaced when Third Street's skid row was bulldozed for redevelopment. And the Tenderloin has long been known as a crash pad for the homeless and for people with mental illness and drug abuse problems.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Southeast Asian refugees, especially from Vietnam, began moving into the neighborhood, with help from refugee resettlement agencies.

The newest arrivals, many of them Mayan Indians from the southern Mexican state of Yucatan, would previously have gravitated toward the Mission District, with its multitude of Latino markets and Spanish-speaking community organizations. But many have been priced out, as rents in the Mission have risen. In the Tenderloin, "you pay less than in the Mission, but you get less space, and the space is in worse condition," said Brad Paul, a senior program officer with the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, who advocated for many years to improve Tenderloin housing conditions.

In a neighborhood where 95 percent of the housing units are one-bedroom apartments or smaller, it's not uncommon for families to cram into studio apartments or residential hotel rooms.

Yucatecan immigrant Antonio Tuz and his wife are raising their three small children in a single room at a hotel on Jones Street. Bedbugs infest the building, the bathrooms down the hall are dirty and don't always work, the power often goes out, spoiling the food in their small refrigerator, and last week the couple's 7-year-old son got stuck in the elevator when it broke down.

"The manager just says, 'If you don't like it, then move,' " Tuz said.

But the rent is $600 a month, Tuz can walk to his job at a bar at a downtown hotel, and, he added, he feels safer there -- despite the winos outside his door -- than he did when he lived in the Mission District with its Latino gangs. Numerous nonprofit groups have developed affordable housing in clean and safe buildings in the Tenderloin, but many of the newest immigrants have entered the United States illegally and are not eligible for subsidized housing.

"When you get refugee status, you're entitled to certain benefits. When you're undocumented, you're not entitled to anything," said Yvette Robinson, director of tenant services at the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, which has had few Latino applicants for housing but many Latino children joining its after-school program in recent years.

Groups like the Southeast Asian Community Center provide legal aid, help with housing, citizenship information and small business development to Tenderloin residents who speak Vietnamese, Chinese, Cambodian and Lao.

But the neighborhood's new Spanish-speaking residents find few social service agencies equipped with the language skills and cultural familiarity to help them adjust to their new environment.

"I can't think of many groups specifically geared toward Hispanics," said Don Stannard-Friel, a sociologist at Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont who has studied the Tenderloin for four decades. "Once the families get here, where do they go? This is the poorest of the poor."

Last year, the Tenderloin Housing Clinic and the Central City SRO Collaborative began an effort, called La Voz Latina de la Ciudad Central (The Latino Voice of the Central City), to help Latino immigrant families speak up for better housing and a safer environment for their children.

The newest arrivals have many of the same concerns as previous immigrants.

"There's no place for kids to play in the Tenderloin," said organizer Alysabeth Alexander, who spends her days going door-to-door in run-down buildings and phoning city inspectors about bathrooms in disrepair and broken elevators. "They play in the hallways, and they come upon discarded needles and used condoms. It's awful."

For Latinos, as for many other immigrants, the Tenderloin is a stopover en route to a more stable community with better housing options.

"Once they get a better job, they move out," said the Rev. Jorge Hernandez, the new pastor at St. Boniface Church, who has seen a number of his Mexican parishioners move to Richmond and other cities in the East Bay, though they continue commuting to hotel and restaurant jobs in San Francisco.

It's hard to build a sense of community in such a transitory place, said Hernandez, who has also seen Vietnamese families leave the neighborhood. But the parish is an important first stop for many.

"If you come to this country and don't know anybody, the church is a good place to make contact," he said. "In this community, if you don't have a place to stay, people will reach out and at least give you a piece of their couch."

For others, like Jose Luis Navarrete, 44, the Mexican-born popover baker at Neiman Marcus, the Bay Area's sky-high housing costs mean the tiny Taylor Street studio apartment where he has lived for 15 years may be home for many more.

"There have been stabbings in the building and drug-related shootings," he said. "But my rent is $386. In spite of the dangers, that's why I'm still here."

E-mail Tyche Hendricks at thendricks@sfchronicle.com.
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  #1283  
Old Posted Feb 21, 2008, 11:46 PM
Echo Park Echo Park is offline
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The tenderloin has such a colorful history. I'd hate to see it get whitewashed by a wave of gentrification and redevelopment.
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  #1284  
Old Posted Feb 22, 2008, 12:11 AM
Jobohimself Jobohimself is offline
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Was "whitewash" a play on words?

Anyway, I don't want to see it completely modernized; a little grit is nice. But much of the TL is in dire need of development. Responsible gentrification is entirely possible, it's beginning to happen in the Mission district.
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  #1285  
Old Posted Feb 22, 2008, 5:37 PM
BTinSF BTinSF is offline
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555 Washington (next to the TransAmerica):

Not a render but a footprint (and a very interesting one) of a proposed 38-story residential tower with 250+ units:


Source: http://www.socketsite.com/
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  #1286  
Old Posted Feb 22, 2008, 6:53 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BTinSF View Post
555 Washington (next to the TransAmerica):

Not a render but a footprint (and a very interesting one) of a proposed 38-story residential tower with 250+ units:


Source: http://www.socketsite.com/
...Very interesting indeed. If I am not mistaken, I looks like starts out octogonal at the base, and twists and morphs into circle as the floors climb to the top. Thanks, BTinSF!
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  #1287  
Old Posted Feb 22, 2008, 7:49 PM
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Originally Posted by BTinSF View Post
I think you are confusing "affordable" housing with "public housing".
Are most of these affordable units rentals or for sale?
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  #1288  
Old Posted Feb 23, 2008, 12:28 AM
FourOneFive FourOneFive is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BTinSF View Post
555 Washington (next to the TransAmerica):

Not a render but a footprint (and a very interesting one) of a proposed 38-story residential tower with 250+ units:


Source: http://www.socketsite.com/
i wouldn't get too excited here. this tower IS being designed by heller manus. lol let's hope there's another firm involved in the project. where's arquitectonica when you need them?
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  #1289  
Old Posted Feb 23, 2008, 8:22 AM
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I'm not too excited that Heller Manus is designing, but I am excited about the shape the building might be in. At least it doesnt look like another box. Something in the polygon realm sounds nice, as it is laid out in the plan anyways. Cant wait to see 3D renderings.
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  #1290  
Old Posted Feb 23, 2008, 8:38 AM
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This also from Socketsite.com:

Quote:
It was nine months ago that the news broke about Meany Sullivan’s purchase of the 26-story Pacific Telephone Building at 140 New Montgomery with plans of converting it from an office building to “a five-star hotel and condominium tower, with a spa, restaurant and bar.” And according to a plugged-in tipster that lives nearby (and in the picture), the project's environmental review notice is making its rounds.

The proposed project is a seismic retrofit and a conversion of the approximately 377,000-square-foot, historic Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Co. Building from office to residential use. The proposed project would contain approximately 135 residential units on the 2nd floor to the 26th floor of the building for a total of about 368,000 square feet of residential space, and an approximately 8,500 square foot restaurant on the ground floor. The height of the building would remain unchanged. An existing below-grade parking garage, accessible from Natoma Street, would be used to accommodate up to 70 valet-parked cars. The proposed project would also include construction of a single-storey horizontal addition to the building on an existing parking lot on the south side of the building to support the residential use.

Also noted by our tipster: "There's no mention...if this is a watered down version of the 5-star-luxury hotel residence that was mentioned last year, but it's good to hear that the building will hopefully eventually move away from being derelict!"
This may be old news for some, but the concept of a 5-star hotel is always nice. A "plugged-in" tipster mentions "Waldorf Astoria-San Francisco".
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  #1291  
Old Posted Feb 23, 2008, 5:06 PM
BTinSF BTinSF is offline
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i wouldn't get too excited here. this tower IS being designed by heller manus. lol let's hope there's another firm involved in the project. where's arquitectonica when you need them?
Does H-M by themselves do spiral pinwheel forms??
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  #1292  
Old Posted Feb 23, 2008, 7:41 PM
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Are most of these affordable units rentals or for sale?
There are two types of affordable housing offered in any residential project. If the building is a condo, then the units are offered as Below Market Rate (BMR). You have to register with the city and are subject to various lotteries or similar attempts at random luck as fair and open public policy. If the building is being operated as a multi-unit rental (i.e. apartments), then interested tenants have to submit financials, etc. and, again, operate through the city via the developer or property manager. This is not vouchered (like Section 8 housing vouchers). And, as BT said, this is not public housing.
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  #1293  
Old Posted Feb 23, 2008, 9:05 PM
BTinSF BTinSF is offline
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Are most of these affordable units rentals or for sale?
I'd guess the majority are rentals. Certainly that's true of most of the large buildings going up in the Tenderloin, but 15-20% of new condo units must also be "affordable". Since that can be on-site or off-site, the developers of the poshest buildings are building affordable for-sale units at other sites to meet the requirement.

You might find this interesting: http://www.sfgov.org/site/moh_index.asp?id=38653 . If you dig through, you'll find the incomes that qualify and the rents they would pay.

As you can see, in rare cases even people with pretty high incomes (and large families) can qualify--and pay rents in excess of $2000 a month (but try to find a 5-bedroom rental for that at market rate). I can remember when Willie Brown lamented that SF needed to build housing for doctors because too many of them couldn't afford to live in the city (sad but true).
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  #1294  
Old Posted Feb 24, 2008, 4:14 AM
Jobohimself Jobohimself is offline
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Forgive my ignorance on the subject, but does anyone know the fate of the old (bulky/ugly) Federal Building?
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  #1295  
Old Posted Feb 24, 2008, 5:57 AM
BTinSF BTinSF is offline
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Which one? The 30's Beaux Arts Federal Building, which I would hardly call "ugly", may ultimately be converted into condos. The 60's Burton Federal Building, about which I would call "ugly" an inadequate adjective (I've always thought it the most obscene building in town), will continue in its role as a Federal Building. The Feds were renting office space around town and it's the agencies occupying that rental space that have moved into the new Federal Building.
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  #1296  
Old Posted Feb 24, 2008, 6:43 AM
Jobohimself Jobohimself is offline
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I did indeed mean the Burton atrocity at Polk and Golden Gate. Too bad we can't stick a highrise in its massive footprint.
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  #1297  
Old Posted Feb 24, 2008, 8:36 AM
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This is a lesser known project that has fallen off the radar. Behold 1301 Clement street (14th Ave & Clement) taken by me on 2/22:





A rendering at the construction site:





It's a strange bugger, isn't it?
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  #1298  
Old Posted Feb 24, 2008, 9:11 AM
Jobohimself Jobohimself is offline
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Looks like a big refuse bin!
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  #1299  
Old Posted Feb 24, 2008, 9:12 AM
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I like it!

We so often overlook projects in the Richmond and Sunset...
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  #1300  
Old Posted Feb 24, 2008, 9:22 AM
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Ahhh yeah, the water tank, as I used to call it

I actually passed by this on Clement on my way to Ocean Beach today (I dont know why I took Clement, I usually take Geary). It looked nice, although I didnt have my camera ready at the time I drove by.
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