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

[tech12]

Originally Posted by minesweeper

Crescent Heights bought the site last year, which was already entitled for 59 units and 200 feet. Instead of building as entitled, Crescent Heights has been working on redesigning and entitling it up to the full 250' height limit and 119 units.

John King's blog has this rendering from Handel Architects that I haven't seen anywhere else before:


Credit: Handel Architects

And here's what the old 200-foot design looked like.

Much better than the old design. And taller too! I like it. I think we need more of these skinny 200-300 foot towers for the areas that have height limits in that range, rather than the giant slabs we often get.

also, it's on socketsite too now: http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2013/07/the_designs_for_325_fremont_on_rincon_hill.html

[fimiak]

That's great height for a mid-block residential, I am happy CH is adding 50' and more units. Rincon Hill is going to be crazy dense in a couple years.

[hruski]

I just got back from a weekend in Vancouver, and that city's Yaletown neighborhood is kind of how I imagine South Beach and Rincon Hill looking in 10-15 years. The thing is, I'm not so sure I like it that much. It feels a bit "soulless" to me. All the buildings are new and nice, but they all look pretty similar in design and size. It beats the current state of Rincon Hill for sure, but it's not an area I'd particularly like to live in.

Here's a photo of Yaletown:

[SFTransplant]

I totally agree about Yaletown. I lived in Vancouver for 3 years and the architecture is stunningly boring and redundant especially in Yaletown and Coal Habour. The variety in Rincon Hill is going to create a beautifully dense and diverse neighbourhood.

[hruski]

Originally Posted by SFTransplant

I totally agree about Yaletown. I lived in Vancouver for 3 years and the architecture is stunningly boring and redundant especially in Yaletown and Coal Habour. The variety in Rincon Hill is going to create a beautifully dense and diverse neighbourhood.

It's really too bad. Vancouver is in such a beautiful location and is a pretty well-planned city as well (infrastructure, transportation, neighborhoods, etc), but the architecture really is zzzzZZZZzzzzzZZ.

Cool town nonetheless

[minesweeper]

ABC7 News has a story on all the construction going on and the city's changing skyline.

Also, it looks like the new CVS at 7th/Market could open within a few weeks. The exterior looks done, and it looked like they were starting to stock the shelves. Here's a photo of the exterior.

[mt_climber13]

I wonder if the recent news that the Transbay Terminal being in the hole financially with no forecast as to where the money will come from to finish it, and possibly delaying indefinitely the high speed rail and Caltrain station, would effect the value of the nearby land and thus stall or kill any of this future development?

[Onn]

Originally Posted by wakamesalad

I wonder if the recent news that the Transbay Terminal being in the hole financially with no forecast as to where the money will come from to finish it, and possibly delaying indefinitely the high speed rail and Caltrain station, would effect the value of the nearby land and thus stall or kill any of this future development?

Considering San Francisco's property market is the strongest in the country right now, the success partly spilling over from an equally hot Silicon Valley, I highly doubt any delay in the Transbay Terminal would have an effect on the major projects nearby it. Many of these project are already under construction or about to begin, and are scheduled to be finished before the terminal is. Regardless of the transportation issue, San Francisco needs the space (both office and residential).

[fimiak]

Originally Posted by wakamesalad

I wonder if the recent news that the Transbay Terminal being in the hole financially with no forecast as to where the money will come from to finish it, and possibly delaying indefinitely the high speed rail and Caltrain station, would effect the value of the nearby land and thus stall or kill any of this future development?

The 300 Million cost overrun is manageable and everybody involved knows that pretty much every one-of-a-kind mega engineering project in the US runs over in costs, so this entire fiasco is almost moot, especially considering they are now thinking of making the new developments nearby contribute to the cost of running the park. If you see some ridiculous amount like $5 billion cost overrun in high speed rail then you should be more worried about whether the the thing will be completed.

[biggerhigherfaster]

Originally Posted by fimiak

The 300 Million cost overrun is manageable and everybody involved knows that pretty much every one-of-a-kind mega engineering project in the US runs over in costs, so this entire fiasco is almost moot, especially considering they are now thinking of making the new developments nearby contribute to the cost of running the park. If you see some ridiculous amount like $5 billion cost overrun in high speed rail then you should be more worried about whether the the thing will be completed.

The worst part of the Transbay terminal project isn't even the cost overrun. Quite frankly, if $300M is as bad as it gets, that's fine.

The worst part is that the terminal just won't have much of a use for its first 10+ years. Caltrain won't reach the terminal street until 2025 at the earliest. High Speed rail won't be done until 2030 at the earliest, if ever. Bart and Muni's main lines run under Market Street, about 3-5 blocks away. The Central Subway is going to run under 4th Street. So other than some buses, the terminal is just going to be a fancy building with a park. It would have been better if that land was used for 50+ story skyscraper offices/condos

[fimiak]

Originally Posted by biggerhigherfaster

The worst part of the Transbay terminal project isn't even the cost overrun. Quite frankly, if $300M is as bad as it gets, that's fine.

The worst part is that the terminal just won't have much of a use for its first 10+ years. Caltrain won't reach the terminal street until 2025 at the earliest. High Speed rail won't be done until 2030 at the earliest, if ever. Bart and Muni's main lines run under Market Street, about 3-5 blocks away. The Central Subway is going to run under 4th Street. So other than some buses, the terminal is just going to be a fancy building with a park. It would have been better if that land was used for 50+ story skyscraper offices/condos

I think the Downtown Rail Extension project is still planned for a 2019 completion, along with electrification of Caltrain. Still two years after the terminal is finished, though.

[coyotetrickster]

Originally Posted by biggerhigherfaster

The worst part of the Transbay terminal project isn't even the cost overrun. Quite frankly, if $300M is as bad as it gets, that's fine.

The worst part is that the terminal just won't have much of a use for its first 10+ years. Caltrain won't reach the terminal street until 2025 at the earliest. High Speed rail won't be done until 2030 at the earliest, if ever. Bart and Muni's main lines run under Market Street, about 3-5 blocks away. The Central Subway is going to run under 4th Street. So other than some buses, the terminal is just going to be a fancy building with a park. It would have been better if that land was used for 50+ story skyscraper offices/condos

Very shortsighted perspective. You don't build infrastructure for immediate needs. The entire structure to accommodate these changes is underway now, as the CalTrain electrification comes on line and eventually the high speed rail, this will be a goldmine for the long-term investors. Property is built and owned as long-term investments. As the building cost is amortized it turns into almost pure cashflow for the investors.

There will be plenty of 50+ stories around the terminal.

[easy as pie]

^ plus there'll be a big mall and park anchoring a dense highrise neighborhood/commercial district.

as for vancouver, i lived there for 3 or so years as well, and i can't stand that yaletown neighborhood, calling it soulless and generic is spot on. and there's definitely a similar look shared by king st here and pacific st there. the things i hate the most though are things that sf has no intention of doing, like dead streets with walk-up townhouses and little years, rather than retail or institutional (or lobby entrances). plus the market in sf will push the architecture in ways that are difficult in vancouver, where the planning department has much more of role in shaping the built form. honestly, i'm less worried about sf building out rincon hill as a yaletown and more worried that it'll build out as a brickell or a downtown los angeles, with auto primacy and high rise bedroom community-esque run. enforcing small-format commercial at grade is almost as important as limiting parking ingresses and narrowing those absurdly wide streets.

[Urbannizer]

Not sure if you all have seen this before, but this was another design proposed for 350 Mission Street by Pickard Chilton.

[biggerhigherfaster]

Originally Posted by coyotetrickster

Very shortsighted perspective. You don't build infrastructure for immediate needs. The entire structure to accommodate these changes is underway now, as the CalTrain electrification comes on line and eventually the high speed rail, this will be a goldmine for the long-term investors. Property is built and owned as long-term investments. As the building cost is amortized it turns into almost pure cashflow for the investors.

There will be plenty of 50+ stories around the terminal.

If all the future train projects had more certainty of happening, then I'd agree. But Caltrain's extension is tenuous and HSR is even more of a pipe-dream, not to mention a boondoggle that Californians will quickly realize can't be afforded. BART and Muni currently go through Market St.--there's slim chance that they'll be rerouted through the new terminal. Also, at some point you do have to care about the time horizon. If new infrastructure doesn't materialize for 30+ years, then the transbay center was underutilized for 30+ years, which represents a major financial loss. By the time that infrastructure does materialize, the center will need to be significantly renovated, repaired, and largely rebuilt, etc. to accommodate new infrastructure

that area of transbay (and the area around it), given its location, would have been highly valuable no matter what use it was put towards--transport or just more buildings. In fact, my precise argument is that its value would have been higher both in the short and long term if it wasn't put towards this transportation terminal that will probably just house some buses for the next 20+ years.

your argument suggests that all infrastructure and development is good without a proper cost-benefit analysis considering the time frame and certainty of the actual benefits. I'm fairly pro-development, but I'm not in favor of building ghost towns or empty transit centers that are common across places like Europe and China today. There has to be some certainty that the developments will have economic pay off, and more economic pay off than alternative projects

[fflint]

Yeah, because nobody ever bothered with a cost-benefit analysis for the Transbay project. As for the baseless conjecture about an 'empty terminal for 30+ years'--even if that were to come true, and there's no good reason to think so, there's more to the 'benefit' side of equation than projected train ridership.

If the only thing gained from the new seismically-safe Terminal is several thousand daily bus riders, the dramatic upzoning of surrounding parcels, and thousands of new jobs and homes contained within tax revenue-generating skyscrapers that couldn't have ever made it through Planning without the new transportation infra--then we're better off as a city.

We have no idea how many passengers will use the new Terminal in coming decades, but the capacity must be there. Some of you kids seem to think the Planning Commission and the Supervisors will or would sign off on zoning for and construction of 50, 60 and 80 story towers without massive transportation upgrades. That is not how the world works. The alternative to the current Transbay District would not be more Millennium Towers, it would be just more of that 11-story Foundry Square crap.

[fimiak]

You may be pro-development but you are a huge pessimist at the same time! You have to realize that the terminal itself is more than just a transit center, but a catalyst for the boom of the tallest neighborhood in SF. Its presence creates a cohesion in this new area that would have otherwise just been standard city blocks. Cost is a difficult thing to be discussed on these forums though, because its simply a matter that is A) always upsetting to someone, b) never truly accurate without official data, and c) flexible and often politically tangled in ways that are not evident.

However, I must say that I can easily shrug off the transit center as less important to the city than the central subway and not important to me personally, so my feelings are a bit mixed as well on the subject.


Anyway, I cant wait for HSR so we can become day trippers to LA and vice versa, something Europeans take for granted.

[fimiak]

You may be pro-development but you are a huge pessimist at the same time! You have to realize that the terminal itself is more than just a transit center, but a catalyst for the boom of the tallest neighborhood in SF. Its presence creates a cohesion in this new area that would have otherwise just been standard city blocks. Cost is a difficult thing to be discussed on these forums though, because its simply a matter that is A) always upsetting to someone, b) never truly accurate without official data, and c) flexible and often politically tangled in ways that are not evident.

However, I must say that I can easily shrug off the transit center as less important to the city than the central subway and not important to me personally, so my feelings are a bit mixed as well on the subject. I probably wont use it much until CAHSR.


Anyway, I cant wait for HSR so we can become day trippers to LA and vice versa, something Europeans take for granted and that Americans have to embrace.

[chris08876]

Are those solar panels on top of 350 Mission Street in the rendering?

[simms3_redux]

Just wanted to be the one to report that there appears to be a 75+% chance that they are installing the crane right now:



I will head over in a few hours to snap a pic with my iPhone as it looks like the fence along 1st is down (allowing view access).