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

[BTinSF]

Socketsite gives us more about CityPlace at http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2009/..._cityplace_details_to_augment_the_d.html . The most interesting bit of info in their piece is the following paragraph:

Details To Augment Designs For "CityPlace" (935-965 Market Street)

. . . . The project would require a Conditional Use authorization for parking in excess of permitted accessory parking and for demolition of a prior theater use; variances for oversized floor heights and for the width of the loading and parking access on Stevenson Street, and review and consideration by the Planning Commission of an exception to freight loading requirements under Planning Code Section 309. In addition, the proposed project would require permit and plan review by BART due to the project site’s proximity to the BART right-of-way under Market Street.

I knew that parking was going to be an issue (and I bet they are prepared to sacrifice it).

[peanut gallery]

All those caveats and variances make Spring sound like a pipe dream -- unless we're talking Spring 2011.

[BTinSF]

I think the Planning Commission can deal with all the conditional use requirements in one hearing if they want to. The BART review is, of course, a separate process. The real question is whether any of the usual suspects will use all these issues to try to block it. I'd like to think any rational person could understand why this project would be a huge improvement over what's there, but SF has plenty of non-rational people.

[Gordo]

Originally Posted by BTinSF

If they actually do sign up some "lower end" stores of the sort that San Francisco has very few of, yes--I not only think the market can absorb it but I think the place could be crowded because there's so little of that already in SF. I'm thinking places like Steinmart, maybe a "dollar store" (Family Dollar, Dollar General), TJ Maxx, Shoe Pavillion (which recently closed down the street), BevMo, possibly even Kohl's and/or Target (if they don't do to the Metreon). Or . . . {{{{drumroll}}}} W_l-M__t ( http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/411869ca-bc03-11de-9426-00144feab49a.html ). Don't say that name out loud PLEASE.

Yeah, there are a lot of potential "lower end" stores that I'm sure would love to be in SF for the right price and with a large floor plate like this will offer.

Shoe Pavilion won't be one though - they went bankrupt and liquidated last year, that's the reason for the closure up the street. Not sure about another TJX store there, since Marshalls is right next door and they just opened a TJMaxx on Harrison and will be opening a Marshalls/HomeGoods store at Geary/Masonic, but who knows. Another store that I think could be a possibility is JCPenney - they recently opened their first Manhattan store, and it's doing quite well.

By the way, while I'm thinking of controversy, 2 floors of underground parking on SF's main transit route? As contrarian as I am when it comes to SF's hate of the private motor vehicle, even my eyebrows raised at that one. Anybody here think they can get away with really building it with that garage in there? Don't get me wrong--I'm hoping they can because I want the place to be a success and revitalize Mid-Market (even without billboards)--but what I want is rarely the way things go in SF.

But think of it: Chain stores AND parking. Wow.

The amount of parking doesn't seem too out of line (though I would tend towards preferring less, and certainly adding more bike parking). My worry is about where the entrance to this parking is going to be - there isn't really a good spot for it. It would have to be on the alley behind, but that's going to be quite a bit of traffic streaming back there. I think it would be nice for the "mall" to band together and offer delivery services for all of the stores (for a fee, of course), and for parking try to coordinate a validation deal with Fifth/Mission.

[AndrewK]

Originally Posted by Gordo

I think it would be nice for the "mall" to band together and offer delivery services for all of the stores (for a fee, of course), and for parking try to coordinate a validation deal with Fifth/Mission.

this seems like a very good idea to me. most people who drive to shop in this area park at 5th and mission garage currently, i dont see why shoppers at this mall would need to do it any differently.

[BTinSF]

Socketsite ( http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2009/11/2255_third_street_moving_dirt_and_a_detailed_recap.html ) carries a photo of dirt being turned at 2255 Third St.:



for "approximately 242,185 square feet of floor area, including approximately 179 residential units, 5,262 square feet of restaurant uses, 11,434 square feet of retail space fronting Third Street, 2,393 square feet of day-care services, a belowgrade parking garage accessed from Illinois Street with approximately 157 parking spaces, 50 bicycle spaces, and two offstreet loading spaces."

It will look like this along Third (showing 2 renovated historic buildings that are part of the project):



and like this along Illinois:



Here's the overall site plan:

[BTinSF]

Originally Posted by Gordo

Another store that I think could be a possibility is JCPenney - they recently opened their first Manhattan store, and it's doing quite well.

Penney used to have a store in SF once upon a time (or so I've read) but abandoned us. Maybe they'll consider coming back.

The amount of parking doesn't seem too out of line (though I would tend towards preferring less, and certainly adding more bike parking). My worry is about where the entrance to this parking is going to be - there isn't really a good spot for it. It would have to be on the alley behind, but that's going to be quite a bit of traffic streaming back there. I think it would be nice for the "mall" to band together and offer delivery services for all of the stores (for a fee, of course), and for parking try to coordinate a validation deal with Fifth/Mission.

Consider San Francisco Centre which has NO parking. In that case, it was a specific planning decision to push customers to use transit or the garage across Mission St. But Cityplace will have almost the same transit options (minus access to a BART/Muni station in the basement). My question is whether planner will recognize the absence of a "garage across Mission" and let them include their own parking. I rather hope so, but I don't run the SF Planning Dept. (tragically ).

[peanut gallery]

I was checking out 3355 3rd earlier. It's a great piece of infill and the reuse of the historic structures is a nice touch. One is planned to be a restaurant below residential, the other an 8600 sq. ft. grocery store.

[peanut gallery]

Hey Gordo! Welcome back! I hope you enjoyed a relaxing honeymoon. Are you planning a photo thread of any of the cities you visited?

[Gordo]

Originally Posted by peanut gallery

Hey Gordo! Welcome back! I hope you enjoyed a relaxing honeymoon. Are you planning a photo thread of any of the cities you visited?

Thanks pg, it was a blast. I'm still trying to get caught up with everything work-wise (mostly unsuccessfully). I've got more than 2000 pictures, and I plan to start going through them this weekend, so perhaps sometime next week I'll put up a photo thread or three I've been meaning to put some photos that I have of past trips to other places, so I might pull some of those out too.

[Gordo]

Originally Posted by BTinSF

Consider San Francisco Centre which has NO parking. In that case, it was a specific planning decision to push customers to use transit or the garage across Mission St. But Cityplace will have almost the same transit options (minus access to a BART/Muni station in the basement). My question is whether planner will recognize the absence of a "garage across Mission" and let them include their own parking. I rather hope so, but I don't run the SF Planning Dept. (tragically ).

The no parking thing can be used an example for all of the major stores in Union Square, including most that normally have parking in other locations (like Ross, Marshalls, Macy's, Old Navy, Container Store, the other department stores, Crate and Barrel, etc, etc) and are not really close or connected to the Market St Subway.

I don't particularly have a problem with the amount of parking here, I'm just concerned about the entrance/exit and how that will affect traffic flow as well as the pedestrian environment on 5th (a major concern) and 6th (potentially a concern if 6th is to be cleaned up).

[peanut gallery]

CurbedSF ran a list of their choices for ten best new buildings of the decade. Agree? Disagree? What do you feel they left out or shouldn't have included?

The Best New Buildings of the Decade
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
by Andy J. Wang

It's been quite the ride, these last 10 years, but the '00s have just about come to an end. That's Curbed SF's cue to look back at what the past decade has brought us, in an end-of-decade series called Top of the Aughts. First, and most obviously: the best buildings! To get some help in naming them, we went knocking on the doors of architects, architecture writers, and urbanists to stir up some nominations, and we got a few to talk about some of our choices. Note, first, that the first decade of the 21st century hasn't exactly been pretty. The city of proud Victorians has had to dig in for some funky designs that, to this day, are still love-or-hate. And may remain so forever. Still, the buildings that made our Top 10 have all made waves, turned heads, and have often totally energized their neighborhoods — and in some cases, the city.

With the new article posting guidelines, I can't put the whole thing. But it's worth reading the comments on each building (some of them come from other architects). Plus there are pretty pictures! Here is the list, but do check the link. I think it's worth it.

1. de Young
2. California Academy of Sciences
3. Ferry Building
4. Federal Building
5. Yerba Buena Lofts
6. 355 11th St.
7. La Cocina
8. Curran House
9. The Infinity
10. JP Morgan Chase

[BTinSF]

TAR-JAY!

Target might be considering Metreon location
Robert Selna, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 18, 2009



Big box retail did not factor into the original plans for the Metreon in 1999 when Sony built the mall in San Francisco as a technology and entertainment center near the heart of one the city's major arts districts.

But Sony sold the building, and now Target, one of the nation's favorite retailers, is said to be interested in the four-story structure, raising questions about how the middlebrow merchandiser would be received in a city known for its opposition to chain stores and whether its mass appeal could revive the moribund mall.

The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, which owns the Fourth and Mission street property where the Metreon sits - just west of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts - has had preliminary discussions with Metreon owner Westfield about the possibility of a Target on the building's second floor . . . .

The location of the Metreon, which still draws patrons to its theaters and restaurants, is different, however. Unlike the neighborhoods at the center of previous chain store battles, it is situated in a commercial area and on San Francisco Redevelopment Agency land.

That means that it is not subject to review by the Planning Commission . . . .

. . . chain stores do not sit well with many in San Francisco.

John Perry lives in Bernal Heights and is one of the founders of the Compact, a group that has more than 10,000 members who have vowed not to buy anything new except food, medicine and underwear.

"I'm not sure it's wise for San Francisco to place a generic shopping store in one of its showcase areas," said Perry, who works at a Silicon Valley technology company. "Is there anything special about coming to San Francisco and shopping at Target? I don't think so."

One Target shopper who lives in the city was enthused by the idea of having one downtown.

"Oh my god, if I worked downtown I'd be there every day," said Helen Wu, a stay-at-home mom who lives in the Outer Sunset District. "A lot of people love Target because it has a little bit of everything along with all your household needs. ... It appeals to all types of people."

E-mail Robert Selna at [email protected].

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/18/MN8P1AIRGD.DTL

OMG! I'd be there like every day too!

[Jerry of San Fran]

Peanut Gallery - thanks for the CurbedSF picks. Woops! #6 should read as 355 11th Street.

I suggest a visit to Google Earth and do a "drive by" (amazing stuff) and see the building from the front address and the dead end alley street behind, a place most people have never seen. I find the old brick building at the end of the alley to be of interest.

I have walked by this building many times and have never understood what it was till now. It is quite far off of 11th Street with a large empty space in front. It always catches my eye when I walk by, but would not consider it one of the top 10 list.

[BTinSF]

Friday, November 20, 2009
CityPlace makes $100M retail bet
Urban Realty pitches ‘value’ on Market St.
San Francisco Business Times - by J.K. Dineen

Now Urban Realty is set to go through what should prove to be a very public approval process. The developer is gearing up for a Dec. 10 Planning Commission hearing, likely the first of many, on CityPlace, a 250,000-square-foot value-oriented retail development on the 900 block of Market Street. A vote on the project is likely to happen in 2010 . . . .

The strategy for CityPlace had its roots in the acquisition of the properties. By working in 2004 and 2005, Urban Realty was able to acquire the properties before the market took off. That created a low cost-basis, which in turn means that the developer should be able to offer not only larger floor plates but lower rents than other buildings in the city’s downtown retail core. While the neighborhood is replete with deluxe retailers from Bloomingdale’s to Barney’s to Saks, CityPlace is looking to attract mass-market retailers like Target or TJ Maxx . . . .

Urban Realty argues that the type of proposed retail tenants — cost-sensitive value-based chains — specialize in the sort of bulky household items most San Franciscans now drive to the suburbs to buy. And the amount of parking it is proposing, less than one spot per 1,000 square feet of retail space, is 20 to 25 percent of what most suburban retail malls offer. While Target and similar chains have opened stores without parking in New York, San Francisco is not as dense as Manhattan, and it’s unclear whether they would be willing to take a chance on what is a blighted block of San Francisco unless the building has parking . . . .

Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable Cities and a BART board member, said CityPlace should be held to the same standard as the $460 million Westfield San Francisco Centre, which was built without new parking.

“We all supported the San Francisco Centre going in with no parking, and that was the right response,” said Radulovich. “We have spent billions of dollars bringing fantastic transit right to the front door of this development and we are looking for development that takes advantage of that” . . . .

Diamond of the Market Street Association said she doubts the project can go forward without parking . . . .

Tenderloin Housing Clinic Executive Director Randy Shaw, a longtime neighborhood activist who supports CityPlace, pointed to the recent defeat of another proposition which would have brought new investment to the area. Proposition D . . . .

“The various people who defeated Prop. D are going to be hard-pressed to say they want to kill CityPlace, too, because of the parking,” said Shaw. “If you oppose this, too, that means you don’t want anything to happen to Market Street” . . . .

[email protected] / (415) 288-4971

Source: http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/11/23/story4.html

[peanut gallery]

Originally Posted by Jerry of San Fran

Peanut Gallery - thanks for the CurbedSF picks. Woops! #6 should read as 355 11th Street.

I suggest a visit to Google Earth and do a "drive by" (amazing stuff) and see the building from the front address and the dead end alley street behind, a place most people have never seen. I find the old brick building at the end of the alley to be of interest.

I have walked by this building many times and have never understood what it was till now. It is quite far off of 11th Street with a large empty space in front. It always catches my eye when I walk by, but would not consider it one of the top 10 list.

Thanks, Jerry, I fixed the typo. I like that brick building. It's definitely a spot I've never seen before. Thanks for pointing it out.

[tommaso]

Development on Van Ness

[viewguysf]

Originally Posted by BTinSF

Penney used to have a store in SF once upon a time (or so I've read) but abandoned us. Maybe they'll consider coming back.

JC Penney occupied the beautiful building on the SW corner of Fifth and Market; on the back alley side of the building you can still see where the sky bridges were that connected to its warehouse buildings behind it. If Penney decided to come back into CityPlace, they would be back in the same end of the block where they once were.

[fflint]

^Yep, 901 Market. It's an office building today with a Marshalls down below. I worked at an architecture firm there in the early 2000s.

[BTinSF]

Our own "Big Dig" (or at least tunnel) in Balboa Park:

Balboa Park Station Area Plan



Recently the Balboa Park Station Area Plan has come back into the news as the plan slowly comes to fruition. As with all things political, the frustrating pace is necessary to make sure that it’s done correctly. Especially in this case, when so much of the work is meant to correct for the horrendous design visited upon this area in the past 50 years.

This formerly residential neighborhood is blessed with some of the best transit connectivity in San Francisco. It’s BART’s busiest station outside of Downtown SF, and it is a transfer station for many Muni lightrail and bus lines. It also was cut in half by I-280, which made a gouge through the namesake park and the affordable housing nearby. With the main campus of City College in it’s midst, this neighborhood, for good or ill, is based on transit.

The new plan makes several admirably ambitious steps forward. I’ll try to summarize as best as I can (organized roughly West to East), but there’s no substitute for reading it yourself.

The newsmaker recently has been the relocation of the “Phelan Bus Loop”. This would take what is effectively a parking lot and convert it to multi-family affordable housing, combined with the nearby vacant Kragen store. Then a new Bus Loop would be constructed around the existing Firehouse, complete with bathrooms and a rest area for the drivers. This new configuration would provide great connectivity to the CCSF campus, and create a more interesting street face along Ocean Ave, while providing much needed housing.

Adjacent to the Bus Loop sits two enormous vacant properties owned by the City of San Francisco. Two unbuilt reservoirs hold only cars and dirt. The Plan would use the eastern half of each parcel to construct additional housing, and create open space on the western half. This would effectively reserve area if the reservoirs are needed in the future, while allowing for construction of homes in a very desirable location. The Campus could have a much better entrance, and Phelan has much more capacity than is used right now.

Along with rebuilding Phelan, Ocean and Geneva are in dire need of a face lift. The basic idea is to construct them in terms with SF’s Better Streets Plan, doing their best to create a more pedestrian and family friendly streetscape. There is also a plan to encourage more mixed use zoning to get more people on the street. This would also help re-link the two sides of the freeway.

The gem of the plan is the SPUI and freeway deck above 280. Single Point Urban Interchanges funnel traffic entering and exiting the highway through one chokepoint, helping to control car’s speed, while also creating an easier to navigate crosswalk. The interstate area between Ocean and Geneva would have a deck above it, creating a pedestrian and transit plaza. MUNI’s existing turnarounds would be transferred to the deck, putting it closer to both sides of the neighborhood, and also the CCSF campus. Of course BART would get a facelift also, trying to lighten up the trench-like station. The deck might also host additional housing and stores, as part of the overall plan to announce the Station as a destination rather than a view from a culvert.


Proposed Freeway Deck and SPUI, via SF Planning


Section through SPUI and Freeway Deck, via SF Planning

Lastly, San Jose would also receive the same treatment as Ocean and Geneva. There would be an effort to reclaim some land from MUNI to create more housing and shops, again all trying to create walkable neighborhoods.

Naturally this is a plan that will take decades to enact. And many millions of dollars. But this is an area that is absolutely ripe for more development. Where else can you find schools and houses so close to BART for such affordable prices? As I’ve written before, why not take advantage of what we have? The question is, how can we best work to enact the needed changes? We needed this project 25 years ago.

Source: http://sftod.com/2009/11/20/balboa-park/