Susie’s Café has closed. Ed’s Auto Service was boarded up. And as proposed and permitted, a 40-foot building with 5 little commercial spaces is slated to be built on the southeast corner of 7th and Brannan.
Designed by Levy Design Partners, the 603 7th Street project will yield 4,125 square feet of space, with roll-up doors along the street and plans for a new café on the corner.
Right next to a train station?
Check.
Two story building?
Check.
Gimpifying San Francisco for generations to come?
Check.
Will the second floor be used for storage for each unit?
What ever happened to the huge half block development across the street — 801 Brannan / Showplace, etc.?
“Construction is slated to start later this year.“
Just pointing out the obvious here, but Showplace Square is a few blocks away.
Seriously, 2 stories?! It’s bad civic and financial planning. The developer is throwing away millions of dollars in lost condo revenue. Insane.
I guess that this development wasn’t done by a “greedy developer” like all the others.
I like the shadow on the street of the power line coming from the light post which isn’t a power line.
Great catch! That is pretty magical.
I have to agree this lot is not maximizing density. I suspect the property owner was hamstrung for multiple reasons. In talking to Susie Cafe operators years ago, landlord gave notice to them a while back of their intent to build, but because of unknown delays, the owner extended the cafe’s lease multiple times. I wouldn’t be surprise the project was stuck in the city entitlement process and it was not worth further delays to increase density. There is a billboard above the proposed building. I wonder if the billboard air rights dictated the height?
No law says an owner is required to maximize density. It’s perfectly acceptable to have smaller/lower buildings scattered thruout a neighborhood. Height variations make for a far more interesting city, architecturally.
This is a nice project.
Agree!
Which is exactly why we should be raising allowable height limits.
It sort of looks like a credit union to me, but that is OK. It is very interesting about the height and no condos. Maybe this owner is sensing something about the overbuilding of the high end market in that area, or the billboard air rights seems to be a logical point. Maybe there is something going on with the building to the west. I agree with the comments about not maximizing density. Still very interesting.
I have no problems with the project…it’s kinda cute. I like Levy’s work. But if a critical factor is fracking billboard air rights…THAT is a major shame.
This is an old post, but…this corner lot was cleared out down to the dirt, but it’s since been fenced off with no construction activity. Anyone have insight to what happened to this development?
Chuck, who ran Ed’s Auto (which was a great no frills garage) told me that no one would buy the lot because it used to be a gas station, and it would be too costly to remove the old tanks.
Well some greedy developer put two longtime businesses out of business. Tore them down, then came across the old tanks and HAZMAT in the soil. Decided it was too costly to undertake the hazmat abatement, Put up a fence and walked away.
Apparently they didn’t want to do the soil drilling before the put Ed and Susie out of business. So sad.