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

[a very long weekend]

no, it was just the suggestion. anyway, let's not start with that nonsense again.

since it wasn't posted here (or anywhere aside from the chron), let me post a rendering of the other two projects accepted for the community garden parcels on octavia, announced along with the neat parcel t winner.

from the article: Build Inc.'s plans call for 24-foot-wide buildings with miniature retail spaces along the street and a combined 60 apartments above. Not all would be traditional units: One structure is billed as "group housing," 34 "private suites" with snug kitchens and bathrooms. All residents would have access to top-floor common spaces, a large kitchen on the south and an oversize living room on the north.

[simms3_redux]

Love all the designs. Really, I do.

[cv94117]

Originally Posted by simms3_redux

Love all the designs. Really, I do.

Anyone know why Parcel U was left out for now? Would have been nice to fill in all of the empty spaces from here down to Market before the economy tanks.

Am also very interested in seeing proposals for Parcels M and N. They are very inefficient sites - I don't know exactly, but they look about 15 feet wide or even less - which will present a significant design challenge, especially given what will probably be a very high land cost and affordable housing requirements. Building a structure that narrow is considerably more expensive on a psf basis.

Parcels K and L will also be exciting. I know there are those who want to keep them undeveloped for the biergarten and the Proxy projects, but a couple of nicely designed and executed projects on those lots could really enhance Patricia's Green as a notable civic space.

[mt_climber13]

Originally Posted by cv94117

he wasn't roasted for mentioning arson as a cause per se - he was roasted because he jumped to that specific conclusion without enumerating all of the other possible causes and without any information whatsoever other that that it looked like an awfully big fire from what he could see from his balcony at fox plaza a couple of miles away.

+1

[c33f]

6-22-2014, Group of 3, 16 km / 10 miles, 7 hours...

Transbay Area...

350 Mission Street


Salesforce Tower


181 Fremont Street


Transbay Terminal Pit


535 Mission Street & 524 Howard Street Site


222 Second Street/LinkedIn Tower


SFMOMA Expansion Tower


Onwards to SOMA/Civic Center Area...

The Hampton Inn


Trinity Place Phase 3/1190 Mission Street


AVA


The Panoramic/1321 Mission Street


1415 Mission Street


100 Van Ness Avenue, Argenta, Fox Plaza


NEMA North Tower


101 Polk Street


1400 Mission Street & NEMA North + South Towers


Onwards to Mission Bay...

Arden by Bosa & Sol @ Mission Bay


Sol @ Mission Bay


MB360 - site seems to be cleaned up


Kaiser Center


Mission Bay Crane Party from UCSF


Mission Bay Crane Party from Islais Creek


Onwards to Rincon Hill...

One Rincon Hill Complex & 399 Fremont Street Crane


Lumina (38 F) + Midrises


Lumina Midrise


Lumina (43 F) + Midrise


One Rincon Hill Complex & 45 Lansing Street


45 Lansing Street


Transbay Block 6/299 Fremont Street


325 Fremont Street & Lumina Crane Party


399 Fremont Street


340 Fremont Street & 45 Lansing Street

[mt_climber13]

Great pics!

535 Mish looks fantastic.

I am most excited about 524 Howard St. Other than Transbay Tower, that is my favorite new high rise in SF. I hope they starting winding that puppy up soon!

[jpdivola]

Great photo update of what's going on in SF. Looks great. SF should be exciting to watch over the next couple of years.

[fimiak]

What I call the new twitter alley. Massive doors going in, landscaping complete. Fitness SF signage up. I am just waiting on the new food market...

[tech12]

Originally Posted by wakamesalad

Great pics!

535 Mish looks fantastic.

Agreed, but holy hell, it's mission street and the mission district, not "mish" street or "the mish"

[JWS]

Originally Posted by cv94117

Parcels K and L will also be exciting. I know there are those who want to keep them undeveloped for the biergarten and the Proxy projects, but a couple of nicely designed and executed projects on those lots could really enhance Patricia's Green as a notable civic space.

Count me FIRMLY among the camp that would like to see those sites remain as open air commercial institutions. The wildly wildy wildly popular outdoor Biergarten and Smitten sites already do the bolded, quite successfully. I am far from an anti-development type and in fact am thrilled with the building boom, and am in favor for upzoning in most NE locations. I love all the other proposals for this area. But to be honest, much of the popularity and success of Patricia's Green has been the uses of these parcels, which are constantly in use, and offer a unique way to enjoy the extremely small amount of outdoor space in this area that is clearly enjoyed by hundreds (if not thousands) every weekend.

There are plenty of bars and sweet shops in Hayes Valley that do not draw lines at all, let alone the enormous lines these institutions do. They are clearly an integral and flourishing part of this neighborhood, and simply putting similar uses on the ground floor of a building will not replicate the success. The novelty is the outdoor usage, feeling like you're in the park, and the containers/open space.

[a very long weekend]

those lots need to be built out, but it would be cool to see a vast 20 foot "hall" space at the street level to maintain some of the exposed feel of current assortment of parking lot/pod. but it's ugly and blighted with the chainlink fencing and it's vastly underused and it's very valuable and we could fit another hundred residences there, so it definitely has to go. i wouldn't mind seeing the lanes surrounding patricia green pedestrianized either.

[simms3_redux]

Originally Posted by JWS

Count me FIRMLY among the camp that would like to see those sites remain as open air commercial institutions. The wildly wildy wildly popular outdoor Biergarten and Smitten sites already do the bolded, quite successfully. I am far from an anti-development type and in fact am thrilled with the building boom, and am in favor for upzoning in most NE locations. I love all the other proposals for this area. But to be honest, much of the popularity and success of Patricia's Green has been the uses of these parcels, which are constantly in use, and offer a unique way to enjoy the extremely small amount of outdoor space in this area that is clearly enjoyed by hundreds (if not thousands) every weekend.

There are plenty of bars and sweet shops in Hayes Valley that do not draw lines at all, let alone the enormous lines these institutions do. They are clearly an integral and flourishing part of this neighborhood, and simply putting similar uses on the ground floor of a building will not replicate the success. The novelty is the outdoor usage, feeling like you're in the park, and the containers/open space.

I AGREE, IN ALL CAPS. The Biergarten and Smitten Ice Cream and the coffee shop are institutions that cannot be replicated in indoor space (well perhaps the coffee shop and ice cream box can - but it's cool that you can just walk up to them). SF has the weather for these outdoor uses, and it draws people out onto the sidewalks and into Patricia's Green in a way that indoor uses cannot.

I am all for the current proposals on sites that are large enough to support multifamily, and I love the proposed designs as I think they are all unique and interesting, yet complimentary to current density and neighborhood scale. However, if there are some narrow lots left that are difficult to develop, let those be pop up outdoor uses that make use of these containers, or do something similar and cool.

[hruski]

Originally Posted by a very long weekend

those lots need to be built out, but it would be cool to see a vast 20 foot "hall" space at the street level to maintain some of the exposed feel of current assortment of parking lot/pod. but it's ugly and blighted with the chainlink fencing and it's vastly underused and it's very valuable and we could fit another hundred residences there, so it definitely has to go. i wouldn't mind seeing the lanes surrounding patricia green pedestrianized either.

Are you in favor of any neighborhood outdoor space? Should we cover Dolores Park with condo's?

[mt_climber13]

Perhaps some of you haven't been in SF long enough to remember, but those parcels used to be FREEWAYS until demolished about 10 years ago. They were always planned for development and housing, the outdoor spaces were always meant to be placeholders for this (which lasted longer than expected due to the 08 recession). They just happen to be successful placeholders. So there's no point arguing about it.

Octavia Green is a block away. There's your outdoor space. Now go frolic!

[JWS]

Originally Posted by a very long weekend

those lots need to be built out, but it would be cool to see a vast 20 foot "hall" space at the street level to maintain some of the exposed feel of current assortment of parking lot/pod. but it's ugly and blighted with the chainlink fencing and it's vastly underused and it's very valuable and we could fit another hundred residences there, so it definitely has to go. i wouldn't mind seeing the lanes surrounding patricia green pedestrianized either.

Look at the lines wrapped around the block for these venues and tell me they are underused. If we are talking about in a land value sense, then yes. However, Biergarten, Ritual, Smitten, and the Aether boxes have become synonymous with Patricia Green in most people's minds. I would go so far as to say that nobody would really give a hoot about Patricia's Green if it weren't for these spaces. They make the otherwise tiny and mundane park special, distinct, and are outrageously popular, and significantly add on to what in reality is a very minimal amount of open space.

There is already an indoor bar across from Patricia's Green...Brass Tacks. And while it is fine, the indoor aspect attracts nowhere near the absurd amount of people Biergarten does. You will not be able to replicate the success of those institutions by placing them indoors, and they add far more to the park then they take away.

Once again, I am firmly in the camp that we need development just about everywhere, but you have to have your head in the sand if you can't see that for most, the linkage to these sites is the primary reason for the popularity of Patricia's Green. This is one of the few cases where I will drink the "don't develop and save our open spaces" Kool-Aid.

[JWS]

Originally Posted by wakamesalad

Perhaps some of you haven't been in SF long enough to remember, but those parcels used to be FREEWAYS until demolished about 10 years ago. They were always planned for development and housing, the outdoor spaces were always meant to be placeholders for this. They just happened to be successful placeholders. So there's no point arguing about it.

Octavia Green is a block away. There's your outdoor space.

Where do you live again? Want to let the SF residents voice their concerns about the open space that they actually use? For some people, it's not a hypothetical.

[simms3_redux]

Another thing to keep in mind is the current political atmosphere. Lots of young people are on board with new development, but what has happened is these temporary uses now are very important to lots of young people. You might begin to piss off the city's only hope for continued future development if you start taking away what's fun and useful to the current generation in the name of putting up apts/condos on 25 ft wide lots.

If these were *large* lots that could yield a significant amount of residents, I'd say go for it. These are teeny tiny narrow lots that border the green. The current crop of proposals is fine (I guess the current crop are actually replacing the current temp uses, correct?)...but leave a few small lots for these temp uses to relocate to.

There's nothing that won't alienate the old farts and current crop of NIMBYs, but I would hate to go a tad too far and create some more out of the younger semipro-development generations.

[POLA]

Some food for thought on parcels K and L:
1) They are owned by the city and are to be affordable housing, it's going to be hard to block affordable housing in favor of boutique coffee.
2) All the proxy sites have written into their lease the option to have permanent location in the development that replaces them. So, we wouldn't lose them as neighborhood institutions.
3) Beer Garden (not part of proxy) has already been approached about relocating to another location (sorry, I don't know where).

[mt_climber13]

So the solution then is to have all vacant lots be fenced off barb wired decrepit eyesores until they are developed. That way, nobody knows what they are missing, and everybody is happy when they are built out. Because now, what seemed like a good idea, turning these lots into gardens and something cool UNTIL they are developed (these are vacant, undeveloped lots people!), is just turning out to be fuel for the complainers.

You had something cool for a while instead of a boarded up, dilapidated weed strewn lot. Be happy with what you had for the time being, realize that life is change, and move on.

And come to Sacramento, we have a sweet Beirgarten on 24th and K St.

(I'll actually be moving back soon for a job in the tech industry!)

[fflint]

There are a ton of really awesome beer gardens in Oakland. Grab your bike and hop on BART and they're yours.