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

[spyguy]

The Marlow - 1800 Van Ness


Pine and Franklin towers

[minesweeper]

Sunday's Chronicle has an article about the current building boom:

Around the city, thousands of workers are busily erecting more than 140 building projects, big and small, that will yield about 4,000 new housing units. The vast majority are multiunit buildings - predominantly apartments with a smattering of condo complexes - along with some new office high-rises and office-building renovations. Then there are some massive public projects: the Transbay Transit Center complex, the long-planned Central Subway, and new hospital buildings at San Francisco General and UCSF Mission Bay.

"We're having the biggest residential construction boom that we've had in many decades," said Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of SPUR, an urban policy nonprofit.

And they have a giant graphic of all the projects underway or nearly so.

One that I hadn't heard of before is 2655 Bush, a project of about 80 units at the corner with Divisadero. It's good to see that coming out of mothballs, since the current buildings are an eyesore.

[fflint]

The Chronicle's massive graphic:

[fflint]

A little more from the the Sunday Chronicle's article by Carolyn Said:

SF's Building Boom Brings Change to City

....

And this is just the beginning: Even-larger projects on the horizon will add thousands more housing units at Parkmerced, Pier 70, Mission Rock (the Giants' parking lot), Hunters Point/Candlestick and Treasure Island (though the latter two just lost significant Chinese financing). The Planning Department is feverishly adding staff to keep up. Developers have applied to construct another 40,000 housing units over coming years, although admittedly not all will get built.


NeMa and AvalonBay apartment projects can be seen along Market Street. Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle

What spurred this frenzied burst of activity in a notoriously antidevelopment city?

Much of the current flurry is catch-up after a long dormancy. New construction almost ground to a halt during the economic downturn - in 2011, a scant 269 housing units were built. Many of the current projects went through the city's Byzantine approval process several years ago, then stalled when financing was difficult to obtain.

Last year, as the tech-fueled local economy rebounded and the national picture brightened, the money spigot turned back on. "Shovel ready" projects broke ground virtually overnight.

And San Francisco's housing fundamentals - surging demand along with soaring rents and home prices - are stronger than ever.

"What we see in San Francisco's skyline today is the culmination of more than two decades of smart planning that has now been kick-started by a recovering economy and a renewed sense of investor confidence in our city," said Mayor Ed Lee.

City planners say the clustering of high-occupancy developments was deliberate.

"Over many years of planning, we've aimed to direct dense growth where it makes the most sense: near transit, along Market and main corridors that can be revitalized with neighborhood eateries and retail," said John Rahaim, San Francisco planning director.
....
Some 4,000 new housing units opening soon translate into thousands of new residents. A jump in population means a surge in the need for everything from sewer lines to parks to buses to parking spaces. Developers pay a range of impact fees for Muni, schools, open space, libraries and other city services. The city then uses those funds to expand infrastructure accordingly.

But some facilities aren't elastic: streets and parking, for instance. Could the building boom cause gridlock downtown?

Planners say that having dense developments in transit-rich areas - and not providing a full parking space for every unit - will avert traffic-related problems.

"There's been a sea change with parking requirements," Baker said. "Planners realized that building a lot of parking garages doesn't make the city better, it makes it more congested."

Toward that end, "all downtown developments have very aggressive parking controls," Rich said. "It varies from 0.5 to 0.75 spaces per unit. In that part of the city, it is realistic to live without a car and many people are happy to do so. We have to work on getting transit to be more reliable and have more capacity."

Muni has long-range expansions in the works such as the Bus Rapid Transit systems on Van Ness and Geary Street, as well as the Central Subway that extends from the Fourth Street Caltrain station to Chinatown, with stops in SoMa and Union Square.
....

[TWAK]

How do you like the Treasure Island plan? I wish it would turn out a bit more like how mission bay and preserve more facilities/roads from the island.

[tech12]

Originally Posted by TWAK

How do you like the Treasure Island plan? I wish it would turn out a bit more like how mission bay and preserve more facilities/roads from the island.

I kind of feel the same way, when it comes to preserving some of the existing stuff. For example, SF always needs more housing, and there already is a decent amount of housing on treasure island, with over 2,000 residents living in it (many of whom are lower income too, a group that doesn't need to be pushed out even more from SF) but the plan calls for demolishing all of the existing housing as far as I can tell, much of which would get replaced with parkland rather than higher density housing in the same place. It seems like they could keep most of the existing housing (which is mostly on the northwestern end of the island), and still add all or most of the planned midrises and highrises, which are mostly farther south on the island in areas with little to no housing currently, and they would also be able to keep a large park as part of the plan too (just not quite as large as originally proposed, as the northern section would be where much of the existing housing is). I feel this would create a better community and less "sterile" experience than demolishing almost everything that already exists, and replacing it with another 100% master-planned area like mission bay (edit: i guess mission bay isn't 100% master planned/built from scratch, but it still is a bit much for my liking when combined with the giant lots given to single developers). Though I guess the more housing there is, the more problems there are going to be accessing it through only the two existing off ramps and the future ferry terminal. Imagine if the market street subway got extended to treasure island and ended there instead at the embarcadero, then there would be no problems with access...one can dream.

But that said, isn't the entire treasure island project as we know it (and hunters point project) not a certainty anymore, now that the financing fell through?

[fflint]

Treasure Island isn't a very compelling proposal in my view. For starters, rising sea levels make the investment in such low-lying infill a pretty bad idea. For another, the carrying capacity of the bridge--which is how most people will continue to enter and exit the island--is reached twice daily, at least, and the proposed ferry service doesn't seem likely to help those heading to/from destinations outside than SF's Financial District. Plus the design seems really lame, tower-in-the-park crap. Not a fan.

[raheelbs]

One Rincon Hill I and II looks so great it's really amazing..!

[minesweeper]

Originally Posted by fflint

The Chronicle's massive graphic:

For such a comprehensive graphic, it looks like they missed two big projects that will probably break ground this year, 181 Fremont and 399 Fremont.

[cv94117]

Originally Posted by minesweeper

For such a comprehensive graphic, it looks like they missed two big projects that will probably break ground this year, 181 Fremont and 399 Fremont.

No way 181 Fremont will break ground this year. Nowhere near ready.

[Jerry of San Fran]

Fox Channel 2 has a short story & video of the 100 Van Ness remodel. Anyone in the neighborhood can hear the jack hammers coming from the structure. Here is the link: http://www.ktvu.com/news/entertainme...ancisco/nXcy9/

[fflint]

^Good catch!

Here are some renderings:






And some views soon to be enjoyed from some of the condos:

[Jerry of San Fran]

fflint - great photos from 100 El Camino Real.

A nice view of the Fox Plaza where I live. We used to have access to the roof top but that was stopped about 12 years ago.

[fimiak]

Great pictures of the Market Street Place demolition on sf.curbed.com


Direct Link

[simms3_redux]

45 Lansing (45 floors, 450 ft) doing heavy site prep now:

May 3...construction crews were hard work.

[viewguysf]

NEMA is now taller than neighboring 1455 Market, where renovations already seem to have begun for Square's new headquarters. The cluster of buildings in this neighborhood is looking better and better!


IMG_5949 - Version 2 by viewguysf, on Flickr

Nearby 100 Van Ness is almost ready to be stripped of its concrete facade panels.

100 Van Ness by viewguysf, on Flickr

[Jerry of San Fran]

viewguysf - Nice pictures of 100 Van Ness Avenue.

My attention was brought to the building today - some hefty steel beams were being put in place on the Fell Street side of the building.

Holes are being drilled into the concrete skin of the structure. Lots of noise during the day from the drilling. My neighbor, who worked in construction all of his life, thinks they will be used to remove the concrete panels from the building.

[1977]

New rendering and some updated info about the new arena. I really like the "knot-hole" idea. It goes over super well down the street at AT&T Park.

More views, more glass and less parking are some of the changes the Golden State Warriors have included in their newly refined design for a San Francisco waterfront arena.

The revisions for the 18,000-seat arena at Piers 30-32 appear to be aimed at making the $1 billion-plus project more waterfront-friendly — and in the process help win approval from local, regional and state regulators.

“We are very happy with the idea that over 50 percent of the pier space is open and accessible at different times of the day for people who want to enjoy the waterfront,’’ said Craig Dykers, the lead arena designer for architectural firm Snøhetta, a Norwegian outfit with U.S. headquarters in New York.

Unlike many arenas that “are complicated-looking structures — strange shapes,’’ the proposed Warriors arena has a “very simple, very contemporary design that doesn’t have lot of visual chaos,’’ Dykers said.

In other words, the architects hope to minimize the arena’s impact on waterfront views — and give the public new vistas to enjoy as well.

Toward that end, Snøhetta and its project partners from the design firms AECOM and BAR are proposing to reduce the arena’s height by 10 feet, to 125 feet — roughly the size of a 12-story building.

They also plan to reduce on-site parking from 630 spaces to 500, move the arena back from the water’s edge to make room for a park that would encircle the structure, and wrap the arena with a spiraling, exterior pedestrian walkway that would allow for views of both the city skyline and the bay. It would be open to the public both during and outside game times.

Also — taking a cue from the knot-hole fences at AT&T Park that let fans watch games for free from the outfield — the arena architects have yanked out 750 seats to add a 25-foot-wide glass curtain on the walkway that would allow people to peer inside during games, albeit probably with a limited view of the floor.

The plan also calls for retail buildings along the Embarcadero and acres of terraced plazas — as well as both a 150-foot-high hotel and a slightly taller residential tower across the Embarcadero.

Article and Source: http://blog.sfgate.com/matierandross...warriors-item/

*pizzaguy posted a interior rendering over in 'Genreal Development'

[viewguysf]

Originally Posted by Jerry of San Fran

viewguysf - Nice pictures of 100 Van Ness Avenue.

My attention was brought to the building today - some hefty steel beams were being put in place on the Fell Street side of the building.

Holes are being drilled into the concrete skin of the structure. Lots of noise during the day from the drilling. My neighbor, who worked in construction all of his life, thinks they will be used to remove the concrete panels from the building.

Jerry, this is the crane I discussed in March--http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=4428

I've really been anxious to see it go up!

[Jerry of San Fran]

viewguysf - thanks for the reminder - the crane will be a unique addition to the neighborhood soon! My friend in the Fox will be quite interested. We are seeing the result of the remodel - lots of white dust in our apartments :>}