THE BAY AREA | Projects: Under Construction, Approved, and Proposed

[a very long weekend]

uc berkeley is to begin construction this summer on a replacement for tolman hall downtown, a building rising 120 feet on the corner of shattuck and berkeley way/hearst. an open house happened tonight but i can't find anything on that. more big news for berkeley!

http://www.berkeleyside.com/2015/01/...gh-rise-plans/

[sofresh808]

Nice to see campus buildings better incorporated into the town. I always thought the southfacing buildings could had been better incorporated with Bancroft ave.

[minesweeper]

Lots of projects are in the pipeline for Oakland's Broadway Auto Row:

​Developers drive into Oakland's Auto Row with ideas for mixed-use projects

Oakland officials have been pushing a plan to redevelop a 1-mile stretch of Broadway between Grand Avenue and Highway 580, known as "Auto Row," and the planning is starting to pay off.

The area — called the Broadway-Valdez corridor — is attracting big interest in the way of mixed-use projects. Applications have been pouring in since the city finalized its specific plan for the transit-rich area last July after a six-year process.

Many of the area's car dealerships have shut down, leaving large blocks of space that city leaders envisioned could be transformed into a shopping and residential district.

In December, a mixed-use project at 3093 Broadway was the first to receive entitlements under the new plan. The project will include 435 apartments and 20,000 square feet of retail. Construction on the $150 million project is expected to begin later this year.

[AndrewK]

I drove down that stretch of Broadway earlier this week and saw excavation work being done on one site already, as well as another structure being rehabbed. That stretch has tons of potential.

[minesweeper]

They've been doing internal demo for a couple of months now, but scaffolding just started going up this week:



What it will eventually look like:

Originally Posted by minesweeper

A preliminary rendering of Uptown Station, formerly the Sears building. The rendering's production is by Steelblue LLC and Gensler is the architect.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci...the-sears.html

[simms3_redux]

There is something very unique and interesting about the old facade that I will miss. I feel that the new facade is very "bla" and looks like only about 1,000,000 other buildings of the past couple decades. Ugh

[DIESELPOLO]

Originally Posted by simms3_redux

There is something very unique and interesting about the old facade that I will miss. I feel that the new facade is very "bla" and looks like only about 1,000,000 other buildings of the past couple decades. Ugh

The current facade is not original and imo far from endearing.

Excited to see Oakland become more interesting in this heavily traversed area. Did I move from Uptown West (What I called just west of the 580) too soon?

[a very long weekend]

the sfmart of downtown oakland?

[peanut gallery]

I was in San Jose last weekend and checked out a few new highrises going up.

This one is called Centerra. It's a 21-story apartment building with 347 units:





While its tower feels too wide for its height, I like it at street level:





This is One South Market, a 23-story apartment building with 312 units:



Trying to show some of the streetscape:










I think this is a new courthouse as referenced in this article, although I count 9 or 10 stories while the story says 8. Couldn't find a rendering of what it's supposed to look like but you can see some of its street-level skin in the second shot:





And this quote from that article doesn't give a promising description of its future appearance:

The new eight-story concrete and glass courthouse won't be particularly striking from the outside when it opens in 2016, but it's expected to be light and airy inside, with tall ceilings, lots of windows, a grand staircase and places for children to play.

But the massing looks interesting so far.

[peanut gallery]

And while I was looking up the names of those, I found this article about a potential new neighbor for all of them:

An affiliate of the AFL-CIO Building Investment Trust (BIT), a major union pension fund, just paid about $81 million for 160 W. Santa Clara St., according to property records. The parcel is dominated by a 226,000-square-foot office building, but more importantly for downtown development watchers is the roughly half-acre adjacent parking lot envisioned for a 21-story housing high-rise.

There's a rendering at the link, but I can't grab the right URL from the Business Journal to display it here.

[viewguysf]

Originally Posted by DIESELPOLO

The current facade is not original and imo far from endearing.

The current facade had traces of the original, more interesting one. I think this one was installed to repair damage after the Loma Prieta earthquake. I too think the newest redo looks bland and rather common, although it will certainly be good for Oakland. I'm also surprised it's not referred to as the Capwell or Emporium Capwell building since Sears really wasn't there that long. The prior Sears, further north, was also reused.

[viewguysf]

Originally Posted by peanut gallery

I was in San Jose last weekend and checked out a few new highrises going up.

I too was in downtown San Jose last weekend looking at these new buildings, after not having been there for about a year and a half. During the summer of 2013, I attended a colleague's open house in his impressive new 18th floor condo; he later gave me an extensive driving and walking tour of downtown.

This time, it was rather shocking to see how many empty ground floor spaces (as well as upper floors) there are for lease everywhere. It also seemed to me to have noticeably deteriorated in a number of areas. There's a lot of good architecture there--mixed in with some bad period examples--but not much life. I hope it can be turned around again.

[peanut gallery]

^That's sad to hear. I didn't notice that so much, but was in a bit of a hurry and only really scrutinized the construction projects (and was only in the area north of Santa Clara St.). I did notice quite a few folks around the newish San Pedro Square Market though. Maybe all these new units will be the tipping point to more lively street life and thus more retail.

[minesweeper]

Originally Posted by viewguysf

I too was in downtown San Jose last weekend looking at these new buildings, after not having been there for about a year and a half. During the summer of 2013, I attended a colleague's open house in his impressive new 18th floor condo; he later gave me an extensive driving and walking tour of downtown.

This time, it was rather shocking to see how many empty ground floor spaces (as well as upper floors) there are for lease everywhere. It also seemed to me to have noticeably deteriorated in a number of areas. There's a lot of good architecture there--mixed in with some bad period examples--but not much life. I hope it can be turned around again.

Speaking of which, from this weekend's Merc:

Rotten at the core: Downtown San Jose may finally be ready to be resurrected from the dead

It was at a similar moment more than three decades ago -- with a new mayor just settling into City Hall -- that a grand plan was devised for reanimating the decaying corpse of the city's once bustling downtown. A river of redevelopment money that would swell to nearly $2 billion flooded into projects that would be pillars of a glittering new downtown.

The missing teeth of empty downtown storefronts, the rotting flesh of porn and prostitution, the curdled smile of drug dealers: All of those would be swept away by the San Jose Arena, a massive convention center and the upscale Fairmont Hotel -- plus an encircling "transit mall" to bring residents flocking back from the 'burbs to inhabit the city center's billion-dollar bones.

So the planners planned, and the builders built. But the people have mostly stayed away, leaving a corpse with elegant bone structure.

Now, with Sam Liccardo taking office, and huge cranes raising the roof on a high-rise housing boom, downtown San Jose once again appears poised for renewal.

[yakumoto]

I know I haven't posted in a few years, to which I only have to say, its sad in this day and age that someone can be locked up just for expressing their love in a manner outside the narrow band that our puritanical leaders condone. That being said...

DID YOU KNOW THE DOWNTOWN SAN JOSE PROJECTS YOU'VE COME TO KNOW AND LOVE



ARE ONLY THE TIP OF THE CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION ICEBERG?

DONNER LOFTS!





AC HOTEL!!





Some kind of off campus SJSU HOUSING!!!





SILVERY TOWERS





Which, despite the apparent lack of activity GROUND HAS BEEN BROKEN!!!!

[fflint]

Is that SJSU off-campus housing going up where there used to be a multi-story parking garage for that art deco apartment building? I remember a garage in that spot many, many years ago.

[yakumoto]

Originally Posted by fflint

Is that SJSU off-campus housing going up where there used to be a multi-story parking garage for that art deco apartment building? I remember a garage in that spot many, many years ago.

Yeah, it looks like a pretty significant garage that's currently being worked on, so I would guess that its for both buildings.

[kdeff]

Originally Posted by a very long weekend

uc berkeley is to begin construction this summer on a replacement for tolman hall downtown, a building rising 120 feet on the corner of shattuck and berkeley way/hearst. an open house happened tonight but i can't find anything on that. more big news for berkeley!

http://www.berkeleyside.com/2015/01/...gh-rise-plans/

Etchaverry is the hall in the most dire need of a rebuild...

Originally Posted by peanut gallery

I was in San Jose last weekend and checked out a few new highrises going up.

It always bugs me how pedestrian unfriendly San Jose is, especially how construction sites are allowed to usurp an entire sidewalk...With their suburban sized blocks it can easily add 10 minutes to your walking time if the streets too busy to jaywalk on.

[peanut gallery]

A modest Oakland proposal that could spark quite a bit more, from today's SF Business Times:

Here's a link to the rendering. I can't make images from the Business Journal show up here. I've tried everything I can think of. Anyone know what's up with their images?

Strada Investment Group is set to strike a development agreement by April to build their mixed-use project on city-owned land in Oakland. The deal would jumpstart development of a 14-story, 250-unit residential building on Clay and 11th Streets. Phase two of the project would also include another residential, office or hotel building next door, but that part of the project is likely years away.

The developer's new plans for the first residential building reveal a vision to create an arts-driven open space similar to what's evolved in the popular Uptown neighborhood and Lake Merritt.

----

Strada, which already owns two office buildings in City Center, enlisted internationally renowned Arquitectronica to help distinguish the budding residential building from some of the office towers that will surround it. The building's base uses "warmer materials and smaller scale to create a more residential experience," according to recent plans filed with the city.

While the building will also have a 4,800-square-foot private roof deck for residents, Strada elected to build out the rest of its required open space in the form for a public plaza. The project will include a 13,000-square-foot plaza that would hold art installations, performance space, a grassy seating area and Hayes Valley-esque shipping containers with food vendors. (The public plaza would get significantly smaller once a second building is added.)

[Folks3000]

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci....html?page=all

Will be the tallest building in San Mateo County upon completion. Combined with a few other cool projects going on near the South City Caltrain station this area could really start to get in on the action.