Quote:
Originally Posted by Jerry of San Fran
Any thoughts on saving a façade & building a high rise inside?
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Hi Jerry,
There are examples of facadism all over downtown. The first that come to mind are 345 California and Citicorp (Sansome and Sutter), but there are plenty of others. 706 Mission probably qualifies too.
Then there are lots of smaller examples in the Tenderloin and South of Market, where the planning department has designated old auto garages or warehouses as historic (lotta people on Socketsite complain about that).
If you think I'm using too broad a definition, there's also 460 Montgomery.
Developer arguments against are usually that the building isn't worth preserving and, when the planning department requires a setback to preserve the prominence of the facade, it reduces the buildable envelope too much.
Preservationist arguments against are that, when only the facades are preserved and the interiors are gutted and all the old small shops are replaced with--usually--a large empty lobby, then you've tossed out what was interesting about the buildings and turned them into wallpaper.