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

[mt_climber13]

Originally Posted by viewguysf

No--someone had previously said that after the project was first announced. Maybe you're a '70s retro guy! I personally won't miss it at all and will be happy when its re cladding is finished; as you can see, it is very prominent in the downtown portion of my view.

You're right- I would have loved to live in 70s SF. Before AIDS of course.

I found out that there was actually a sitcom from the 70s called "100 Van Ness" staring this building. I was born in the 80s so I have never heard of it before.. has anybody seen it?? What was it about?

[tech12]

I'm going to miss the old skin too. It is kind of ugly, but I still like it. The white concrete seems to fit in well in SF, plus it seems like every new highrise and highrise re-cladding is resulting in similar glass-covered buildings. I like variety, and have always kind of had a thing for more utilitarian looking towers, as long as they're not too fat and domineering on the skyline. I'm probably just a bit nostalgic too. But I also like how the new design looks.

And speaking of glass and recladding, 3rd and Folsom is looking good! I sort of miss the ugly concrete skin on that one too, but not much. It looks way better now.

[fflint]

I don't know if I'm going to like the reclad skin on 100 Van Ness--you know how it is with renderings v. reality--but I won't miss the current skin.

If you like 100 VN right now and will miss that particular style, may I suggest falling in love with 650 California? It's a real stunner:


victorcuervo at flickr

[cv94117]

Originally Posted by fflint

I don't know if I'm going to like the reclad skin on 100 Van Ness--you know how it is with renderings v. reality--but I won't miss the current skin.

If you like 100 VN right now and will miss that particular style, may I suggest falling in love with 650 California? It's a real stunner:


victorcuervo at flickr

Except that 650 California is much better executed than 100 V/N. Don't know who the architects were, but I'd guess that would tell a lot. 100 V/N is more of a cheap knock-off of the style. I'd miss 650 California much more.

[horatio_the_hermit]

650 Cal was designed by SOM as a build to suit for Hartford Financial. Not quite 70's though - 1964.

[fimiak]

Interesting that 650 California has been brought up in this discussion. I recently walked by and noticed that the base is being remodeled and essentially turned into glass. The rendering outside looks sharp.

[minesweeper]

Ground has been broken on an eventual 182 homes at 800 Brotherhood Way:

Comstock Homes and San Francisco-based Maracor Development are banging out a slice of suburbia smack in the middle of San Francisco’s Sunset District.

More than a decade in the making, the developers have broken ground on Summit 800 on Brotherhood Way, a 182-home development nestled between the San Francisco Golf Club and Parkmerced. This summer and fall will be spent on vertical construction — dry and wet utilities, curbs, gutters, sidewalks, streetlights. Once that is complete, construction will start on the first six to eight single family homes, which will be built in about six months. New phases will be put up as fast as the developers are able to sell the previous homes.

And a story from Bloomberg about office leasing slowing in Q1:

Leasing by San Francisco-area technology firms is slowing just as developers are poised to add 6.5 million square feet of office space to the city and Silicon Valley, the most construction in a dozen years.

Twenty-six projects are under way, from glass towers in downtown San Francisco to suburban office parks in Sunnyvale and Santa Clara, California, according to brokerage CBRE Group Inc. About 3.4 million square feet (316,000 square meters) of the new development, or more than half, is speculative, meaning landlords broke ground without signing tenants, CBRE data show.

[NOPA]

I walked to work today and snapped some photos of Octavia Gateway, NEMA, and 55 Ninth (and survived the 8th-6th stretch of Market Street).


Untitled by jeffmcrandall, on Flickr


Untitled by jeffmcrandall, on Flickr


Untitled by jeffmcrandall, on Flickr


Untitled by jeffmcrandall, on Flickr


Untitled by jeffmcrandall, on Flickr

Also, a photo of 680/690 Folsom from a few weekends ago I forgot to post (I was at the AMC Metreon, one of my favorite city views).


Yuerba Buena by jeffmcrandall, on Flickr

Finally, I am really glad to see 100 Van Ness get reclad. As mentioned 650 California is a better example of that style. I would love to see more older commercial spaces converted into residential (assuming there is a business case). I especially think the office space in historic buildings around Union Square could make fantastic condos (the same has been done in New York's downtown and SOHO and Tribeca districts).

[mt_climber13]

I'm so glad the fluorescent glass trend is over

[hruski]

Thanks for the photos, NOPA.

I have to partially disagree with you about commercial converting to residential. The city certainly needs more housing, but I'd rather the central core of the city be filled with jobs. I don't want SF to become even more of a a bedroom community and for Silicon Valley to become "Downtown Bay Area" (where people work and spend their afternoons)

[easy as pie]

yeah, i just don't see another commercial building of any size that could be converted and i wouldn't want to see us lose commercial space in sf, despite the fact that we're approaching a full-on housing crisis; 100 van ness was sort of unique. that said, there are a few empty lots, extreme lowrise and parking garages in the fidi where a nice residential tower would do a huge amount to animate the streets after dark. you couldn't build towers, but there's also the washington street wasteland east of the transamerica pyramid, there's north jackson square and the horrid broadway corridor where quality infill could add hundreds of residents. soma is shaping up, and the transbay area will be mixed commercial/residential. you know, if the fidi could add just 1000-1200 residents, it would probably be enough to extend most kearny street resto operations by 1-2h. imagine adding 3-4k from broadway to market street, it would be a full-on residential neighborhood, which would be awesome.

[theskythelimit]

Originally Posted by minesweeper

Ground has been broken on an eventual [URL="http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/05/182-suburban-style-homes-coming-to.html"]182 homes at 800

I drove by this area the other day and saw them grading the area. I did not realize they plan on building single family homes. Not sure if I would like to live there as Brotherhood Lane is quite busy.

On a side note, what happened to the statue sculpted Peace, a 38-foot-tall stainless steel and black granite projectile that for years greeted visitors to the San Francisco International Airport and moved to the area now being developed?

[Jerry of San Fran]

theskythelimit - the Bufano Statue of Peace now resides at 700 Brotherhood Way. You can see it on Google Earth in the street view.

[Jerry of San Fran]

Notice that he has a safety line attached to him. The building is near it's highest floor.


NEMA - 10th & Market Street by Apollo's Light, on Flickr

[tech12]

Originally Posted by hruski

Thanks for the photos, NOPA.

I have to partially disagree with you about commercial converting to residential. The city certainly needs more housing, but I'd rather the central core of the city be filled with jobs. I don't want SF to become even more of a a bedroom community and for Silicon Valley to become "Downtown Bay Area" (where people work and spend their afternoons)

San Francisco's not a bedroom community though, and will most likely never be one. It would need to lose tons of office space and other jobs in order for that to happen...like the entire financial district and half the city's retail or something. Most SF residents work in SF too, and SF gains around 200,000 people every weekday due to commuters and other visitors. By contrast, San Jose loses 50,000 people every week day, so if you want to claim that a large Bay Area city is a bedroom community, SJ is a better candidate than SF. Unless SF gets hit by an asteroid, converts all office space to residential, or San Jose moves its airport, improves public transit, and somehow gets a crazy nonstop shanghai/dubai/manhattan-style highrise development orgy going on, then there's no way SF is losing its status as the Bay Area's primary downtown.

[fimiak]

I cannot believe somebody would call San Francisco a bedroom community when its gaining over 5,000 people per year (6,400 if you go by my signature, which are SF city planning numbers, others suggest over 1,100,000 residents by 2050) and has 30+ commercial, residential, infrastructure, and public projects in the works. The only two other regions that can compete for massive growth this decade are NYC and Texas.

[hruski]

Originally Posted by fimiak

I cannot believe somebody would call San Francisco a bedroom community when its gaining over 5,000 people per year (6,400 if you go by my signature, which are SF city planning numbers, others suggest over 1,100,000 residents by 2050) and has 30+ commercial, residential, infrastructure, and public projects in the works. The only two other regions that can compete for massive growth this decade are NYC and Texas.

What does gaining population have to do with not being a bedroom community? If 4,000 of those people are working jobs in Mountain View and Palo Alto, then SF is a bedroom community.

[tech12]

Originally Posted by hruski

What does gaining population have to do with not being a bedroom community? If 4,000 of those people are working jobs in Mountain View and Palo Alto, then SF is a bedroom community.

Wrong. Far more SF residents work within SF than work outside of it, and far more people commute into SF than commute out of it. Your definition of "bedroom community" seems to be "a place where some residents commute outside city limits", which means that you could consider every single city and town in america to be a bedroom community.

definition of a bedroom community, from various sources:

An urban community that is primarily residential, from which most of the workforce commutes out to earn their livelihood; often a suburb of a nearby metropolis that workers travel to daily.

A residential area, typically a suburb of a major urban center, which includes a large number of commuters among the home-owning population. The name "bedroom community" refers to the fact that commuters perform most professional and personal activities in another location, maintaining their residence solely as a place to sleep.

a suburban area or town where many commuters live, often quite a distance from the place of employment; also called bedroom suburb,

Does that sound like SF to you?

[fflint]

According to the Census Bureau, 265,000 commuters flood into San Francisco from surrounding counties every workday. Meanwhile, 78.1% of employed San Franciscans work in San Francisco. San Francisco is not a 'bedroom community' by any rational definition of the term.

[LMich]

Originally Posted by tech12

Wrong.

Just to be clear, while he he completely and utterly wrong about San Francisco even beginning to approximate a bedroom community, bringing up population growth is irrelevant on its own as to whether it is or isn't, and it was kind of strange to see that brought up as evidence that the city is not a bedroom community