SAN FRANCISCO | 610-698 Brannan Street (SF Flower Mart) | 242 FT | 17 FLOORS

[Pedestrian]

New Renderings Revealed For 610-698 Brannan Street, SoMa, San Francisco
BY: ANDREW NELSON 5:30 AM ON SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

The San Francisco planning commission is scheduled to vote tomorrow on office floor space authorization for the Flower Mart redevelopment plan at 610-698 Brannan Street in SoMa. The full-block project is expected to completely reshape the property with over two million square feet of new floor area with offices, retail, and POPOS. Kilroy Realty is the owner and project developer.

. . . Kilroy is looking to approve 676,800 square feet of office space as required by the 1986-era Proposition. The floor area in question is split relatively evenly between Market Hall and the Gateway.

RIOS Clementi Hale Studios is the design architect, James Corner Field Operations is the landscape architect, and Adamson Architect is the executive architect. While design programs will vary across the three structures, the facade material will include curtain walls, precast concrete, granite, and basalt cladding. BKF Engineers will be the civil engineer . . . .

The Wholesale Flower Market, once expected to span over a hundred thousand square feet of ground level, is no longer included in the development as the San Francisco Flower Mart Tenants Association opted to move to a new location at 901 16th Street on the border of Potrero Hill and SoMa . . . .

The multi-structure development at 610-698 Brannan Street will produce a total of roughly 2.2 million square feet across 6.6 acres, with 2,025,520 square feet for office use, 30,930 square feet for publicly accessible retail, and 22,690 square feet for child care. The below-grade parking garage will have a capacity for 506 vehicles and 575 bicycles across less than half a million square feet.

The largest building to be built is The Blocks, spanning roughly 1.32 million square feet with a 242-foot tall peak 17 floors high, slightly taller than previously massed. Market Hall will rise 148 feet with 382,120 square feet, and the Gateway Building will top off at 216 feet above street level with 352,880 square feet inside. Proposed office amenities include public events and conference facilities, shared workspace, and exhibition rooms across the project.

The three-structure layout proposed for 610-698 Brannan Street is centered around the Market Alley, a mid-block pedestrian path from 5th street to the Brannan Plaza. The alleyway creates a privately owned public area lined with seating, landscaped parks, and retail between the three structures. There will be 123,240 square feet of usable open space on-site, including 41,230 square feet of POPOS. Records show 71 trees will be added to the site.

James Corner Field will incorporate various native plants and flowers in bright, coordinated displays of color. The flower displays will be integrated into entryway gardens and origami-shaped furniture installations. Each planter will integrate plans that meet certain criteria for the site, including wind resistance, shade tolerance, sun preferences, and watering needs.

Construction is expected to last four and a half years from ground-breaking to completion at a cost of $400 million. The construction job price estimate is not inclusive of the full development cost.

The Planning Commission is scheduled to review plans tomorrow, September 23, at 1 PM. For more information, see the meeting agenda here. The department is expected to approve the office floorspace authorization of 676,800 square feet with conditions based on the staff recommendation.

https://sfyimby.com/2021/09/new-rend...francisco.html

[homebucket]

S.F. neighborhood was supposed to become an extension of downtown. Instead, it’s in a ‘deep freeze’
By Laura Waxmann, J.K. Dineen
July 15, 2024

The area’s decline is likely to accelerate late this summer when one of Central SoMa’s last remaining active hubs, the San Francisco Flower Mart, relocates to the foot of Potrero Hill. Spread across warehouses at 640 Brannan St. for 68 years, the Flower Mart buzzes with life early in the morning as trucks pull up with Ecuadorian roses or dahlias from Figone’s nursery in Half Moon Bay.

...

The flower market’s move caps a long saga about the future of the historic institution and how it would fit into the new Central SoMa. As city planners worked on rezoning the neighborhood, real estate investment trust Kilroy Realty bought the land for roughly $70 million and pitched plans to redevelop it into what would become the pillar of the Central SoMa plan: a more than 2 million square foot office campus, spread across three new buildings ranging between eight and 18 stories in height.

The deal — which includes spaces set aside for artisan and small-scale manufacturers — was the culmination of years of negotiations with the city, flower vendors and historic preservationists who fought to save the flower mart. Meanwhile, for Kilroy, the price tag kept going up: the developer agreed to pay $166 million in community fees, including $54 million for affordable housing, committed to building a new home for the Flower Mart and to help fund its operations post-relocation. In 2019, Kilroy paid another $99 million for a 1-acre industrial site at the base of Potrero Hill to make good on the latter promise.

In total, Kilroy has spent a total of $579 million on assembling the sites at Central SoMa and Potrero Hill, and delivering a new facility for the vendors — without putting a shovel in the dirt in Central SoMa.

Meanwhile, Kilroy is trying to figure out what to do with the property once the flower mart leaves. The group has brought in brokers to assess its value, but does not plan on selling it, according to Kilroy vice president of development Mike Grisso.

Grisso did confirm that Kilroy is “actively looking for tenants” to lease out the Brannan Street warehouses on a “temporary basis” once the Flower Mart relocates this year. He added that the developer remains “enthusiastic” about the Flower Mart site’s long-term prospects.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/artic...n-19522607.php