Hines is preparing to formally file their application to demolish the two-story Factory club at 525 Harrison Street and construct a 16-story residential building on the Rincon Hill parcel:
As we first reported in May, the preliminary design called for 184 units over 2,500 square feet of ground floor retail (which could possibly be configured as a leasing office for the wedge shaped building at the corner of Harrison and Essex) and up to 164 stacked parking spaces on the site.
Hines will present their plans to interested neighbors on-site tomorrow evening at six.
SF’s first 16 story traffic island
Very quirky site. Would be more suited for mixed use, with offices on first ~10 floors and residences above.
Glad to see this challenging spot developed into a better use though.
If I’m understanding the lower drawing correctly, the side facing the Bay Bridge will be windowless?! And a wall of windows facing the 80 on- and off-ramps? OK……
Invented, speak for yourself, but I had some wonderful times at the Factory. 😉 Big dance clubs are hard to site…I have no idea where they will find a replacement for this one.
Of course this has been in-line since the boom so not surprising. But there is something poetic about losing Club Universe to the dot com boom and losing the Factory to this one.
Jeff, the wall of windows would face south towards 80. The blank wall would face east towards 1RH.
The sound factory question is not a bad one. I moved to SF, in part, because I could see a concert on a random thursday without it being a major project and I could take a taxi home from the clubs on a weekend and not have to drive back to Sunnyvale. And I get the feeling that’s part of the draw to SF even for the white bus riders that get derided so much these days.
But now a lot of the truly cool clubs like SF Pound are gone and established venues like the Independent and places on 11th st in SoMa are having problems with the neighbors. I seem to remember reading that bottom of the hill had some problems as well. So where do we expect a lot of this stuff to move to?
Other cities like Austin and Dallas and even Singapore create nightlife districts where bar hopping is easy, transit is easy, and noise complaints are laughed at. Have we considered doing anything similar, now that SoMa is pretty much gentrified and Sno-Drift is now a giant hospital?
Also, curmudgeon, what an awesomely unlikely comment from someone with your name.
I vote for a Trader Joes on the ground floor. There’s a dire need for a grocery store in Rincon Hill based on this areas drastcially increasing density.
I know, I know there’s Whole Foods a couple blcoks away, BUT let’s get practical…enough of this overpriced “organic” stuff!
TJ’s normally wants parking. This seems like a bad place to encourage a lot of extra car traffic.
re grocery store in Rincon Hill, I think they’re supposed to have one in the new MTC building. Not sure which store though.
I was never a fan of Sound Factory’s haphazard layout and nightmare of a coat check, but I don’t like the idea of getting rid of night clubs.
ORH: how do you live there without being able to afford Whole Foods?
Seriously EH??!! Believe me, I can definitly afford Whole Food, as can I afford ORH; BUT why pay exorborant rate when you dont have. There prices are twice as high as Safeway! “Sensisbility right?”
I know this will cause a firestorm, but “Organic” is such a scam anyways!
This is a loss to the city if you ask me…a place with history, energy and soul will be gone and replaced with another generic formula condominium tower with a Whole Foods. It’s too bad but you can’t stop progress or blame the owners…
Yet another club bites the dust. When will Slim’s be converted to lofts?
I think SF needs a Sprouts, if only to keep WF in check.
How can someone afford to shop at whole foods and live at orh with the grammar of a 2nd grader?
That’s kinda ignorant. English may not be their first language. I know lots of international people with lots of money.
@ORH– I shop at WF and Rainbow Co-op because they pay their workers/members a liveable wage with benefits. It’s also the reason for shopping at Costco instead of Walmart.
I like to eat well– and WF answers those needs– but if you shop at Safeway, you’re probably not especially interested in food to begin with. So go for it. Trader Joe’s will not open in locations that do not meet their parking requirements.
I prefer Berkeley Bowl. They should open additional Oakland and SF locations.
@sf
I first heard this in Silicon Valley in the 70’s:
“All my life I wanted to be an engineer, and now I are one”. One of our clients held in-house grammar classes for engineers working on marketing literature. My dad heard the saying at Cal in the 40’s.
I like this discussion of grocery stores, a topic dear to my heart. I shop at Piazza’s Fine Foods and Draeger’s in San Mateo and Bianchini’s Market in San Carlos, entirely because they are good, with good service and are locally owned small businesses.
Rainbow’s workers could use a few lessons in customer service before I ever set foot in there again.
Whole Foods’ parking lot is such a mélee I can’t stand getting in and out of the place. And their prices are exorbitant.
this was a terrible club, with 80% of clientele from walnut creek. good riddance. as far living here, I hope it is heavily discounted. Traffic nightmare getting in and out
Agree it was a terrible club (physically), Moto mahem, or at least its odd trapezoidal layout didn’t have great club feng shui. But your comment about clientele is just stupid. The clientele of any large club depends on the night and the promoter, as there hasn’t been an every night (or even every Saturday night) large scale club in San Francisco in years, at least in the gay scene and I believe in the straight scene as well.