Quote:
Originally Posted by wakamesalad
I think that the fact that a few people were able to gather tens of thousands of signatures to stop a project that was only proposed to be about 15 stories (8 Washington) scared the developer of this project and they are looking elsewhere.
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If Hines pulls out, it will likely have absolutely nothing to do with 8 Washington, and everything to do with lack of funding. You think Hines had no idea previously that there are some quite rabid NIMBYs in SF? There's no way you can be involved with development here and not know that (particularly when your proposed tower is 1,000+ feet), which means Hines would have to be pretty dumb if they were shocked and scared away by the problems 8 Washington has faced, particularly after they have already spent years and millions of dollars on this proposal. Yeah great idea, run away and waste all that money and opportunity, because some building in a different neighborhood got stalled for reasons that do not even apply in SOMA.
And you are aware that dozens of buildings FAR taller than 8 washington have been built in SF over the past decade, with a few more under construction at this very moment, right? NIMBY opposition to highrises is there, but it's quite a bit less strong than it was in the heyday of the "anti-manhattanization" movement, and is not as strong as you claim, at least not against new highrises in SOMA/most of downtown, which do not impact the views, parking arrangements, or tennis club fun time of the type of wealthy people who got 8 Washington stalled (and who basically lied to thousands of people around the city in order to get their support). If NIMBYs were planning to rally together to kill the transbay tower, I think that we
definitely would have heard a lot about it by now, seeing as this thing has been planned for over half a decade now, with less than a year now before it's "supposed" to break ground. Yet what kind of NIMBY opposition have we actually heard so far? The occasional person predictably comparing it to a giant dick? John King predictably whining about too much glass and height? Sue Hestor predictably whining about it (though not nearly as much as you might expect for such a tall/prominent tower) because it's not a 2 story faux-victorian cottage? That's all I can think of, and I'm not too worried about it. What I'm worried about is Hines securing the necessary funding to build it...or if the current proposal were to die and come back as something shorter (cheaper) and unremarkable.