Posted Jan 30, 2019, 6:42 PM
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Join Date: Dec 2016
Location: San Francisco
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A cluster of towers at Market and Van Ness? Two are rising, and more are on the way
John King Jan. 30, 2019 Updated: Jan. 30, 2019 4 a.m.
The tower proposed for Market Street and South Van Ness Avenue hasn’t even been approved, but it’s already raised the bar for how developers and architects pitch big buildings in the San Francisco of 2019.
The 590-foot residential tower would include sky gardens to “integrate nature with urban context,” its developers say. They also promise the city’s “first carbon-neutral high rise,” and only 246 parking spaces would accompany the 984 apartments. Add maker spaces and $13 million for affordable housing, and what’s not to like?
Or, to take with a grain of salt. Because as the next batch of proposals comes in for the area that city planners are calling “the Hub,” the simple truth is that it will take more than big buildings to improve the quality of life in this busy but problematic civic crossroads . . . .
. . . a 39-story apartment tower is under construction on the northeast corner of Mission and South Van Ness, while across the way at 30 Otis St. the site has been cleared for a 26-story apartment building. And city planners want to go further — the area is being studied for a rezoning that would allow three towers in the 600-foot range at the vast intersection of Market, Van Ness and South Van Ness.
The idea behind the extra development is to bring a number of other improvements, such as landscaped sidewalks and plazas, while generating fees that would help fund road, transit and bicycle improvements. Of the 1,700 or so additional housing units within the proposed changes, one-third would be required to be priced at affordable levels . . . .
But you don’t have to be an anti-growth zealot to be wary of the notion that quantity and quality are synonymous.
At the most basic level — the base — the presentation included images of an enclosed through-block arcade, lined with fashionable cafes and shops. The architect suggested it could play a role similar to the Ferry Building. A better comparison might be Crocker Galleria, which opened in the 1980s in the midst of the Financial District’s towers. It languished when downtown retail was buoyant and is even bleaker now.
As for the promises of a “thriving mixed-use residential project for people to live, shop and play,” Crescent Heights’ local track record is mixed at best.
Most storefronts in the developer’s NEMA tower at 10th and Market streets are vacant, despite having 754 apartments above them. Crescent Heights received approvals in 2016 for a 48-story tower on Howard Street alongside the new Transbay Transit Center, but nothing has happened.
Nor is there any sign of action at the corner of Market and Van Ness, where the Hub’s first tower proposal, the 40-story One Oak, proposed by Build Inc., was approved in 2017 . . . .
As for 30 Otis St., . . . . by including City Ballet as the main tenant, developer Align Real Estate holds onto an institution that occupied a smaller space on the site. The adjacent theater would widen the net of cultural spaces that now reach beyond Civic Center to the west and south . . . .
This is a far cry from 12th Street’s current state, with a blank wall on one side and a homeless Navigation Center on the other. Nearby side streets and alleyways are no more enticing . . . .
The mammoth intersection of Mission, Otis and South Van Ness needs to be tightened so that people on bicycles or on foot aren’t afraid to cross it. There needs to be an ongoing effort to improving the area’s grim social conditions. Officials can’t just assume that new development will make everything OK.
Proposals like 10 South Van Ness will be packaged as magic bullets to cure all ills, but they must be seen as part of a larger puzzle. Otherwise, we’ll be left with visions that look great in renderings but never come to pass — or turn out to be the architectural equivalent of a bait-and-switch . . . .
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https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/...o-13571823.php
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