2140 Market Street Site

The draft plans for a proposed five-story condo building to rise across the 2140 Market Street site, which currently houses the iconic Lucky 13 bar and its adjacent patio and parking lot, have been revised but are still moving forward at a rapid pace.

2140 Market Street Revised Design

The revised plans for the site, as newly rendered by Forum Design, now include 27 condos (down from 31 as originally proposed) over a 1,150-square-foot ground-floor retail space along Market and a storage room for 27 bikes (and still no parking for cars).

The existing one-story building on the site, a building with a storied past, which includes being the site of Harvey Milk’s election night celebration when it was a bar known as Alfie’s, would be razed in order to make way for the development, as we first reported earlier this year.

And the formal application for the development has been submitted to Planning and the project’s required environmental review is now underway.  We’ll keep you posted and plugged-in.

49 thoughts on “Plans To Raze Iconic Market Street Bar Move Forward”
  1. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve grown used to seeing these types of boxes but you know what? This ain’t that bad as far as they come. Good infill project with no parking as it sits at a the doorstep of Church St. Station and other MUNI lines. Interested to see what type of retail ends up taking shop there.

  2. Change is inevitable, and this is progress, and better use and all that… but still kinda sad to see a fun bar go.

  3. They should build over Alfie’s and do some facade touch-ups to the bar. I’m surprised they didn’t encounter issues with the planning department over razing this “historic” watering hole. Overall, condo complex looks great though.

    1. A simple plaque should suffice. Or photos in the lobby of the new building, maybe the Lucky 13 logo as artwork.

        1. Sure, whatever floats your boat, then no commemoration. Makes no difference to the soundness of this development. I take it you’re upset about the bar’s imminent closure? I enjoyed it too but this is a far better use.

    1. On the main street in this town, literally steps from the Church Street light rail station, as well as the F line which also head straight downtown. Also steps from at least 2 bus lines? Absolutely not, are you kidding?

      1. And there is a very good policy to discourage curb cuts on Market Street, which I believe is the only frontage. Absolutely don’t need parking here.

  4. boring architecture, no concept for a bottom floor patio entry bar, street-side? Or perhaps a roof-deck bar?
    extremely ordinary design, definitely agree with Sutro Tower, Lucky 13 should still have a front/center spot at that location…. heritage business?

  5. Grateful the project doesn’t cut the curb and squander street frontage with a garage. And why should it? Does anyone doubt that all these units will be occupied pretty much right after certificate of occupancy?

  6. Why not just raze Market Street in its entirety and just have all condos for the entire length of the street? This one-formerly-cool-establishment-at-a-time thing seems like a waste.

    1. Or just maybe, people moving into this project will do so on the basis of its proximity to their jobs and easy access to public transportation (subway stop and multiple MUNI lines literally next door, and yes shuttles), neighborhood serving retail (Safeway and Whole Foods also next door) and the like… Just maybe.

      1. One – most of the recently [vacated] ground floor retail space on that part of Market is going unoccupied while existing businesses go dark. And those that hang on don’t pay enough to live in the city.

        1. north beach car ownership rates are the lowest in the city. Is it “the poors” who live there? This is a perfect location to be car free, and people with money will jump at the chance. Even if they don’t choose to take public transit with “the poors”, Uber and Lyft will do them well.

          1. North Beach does not have the lowest car ownership rates in SF, not even close. As I have written at length on Socketsite before, car ownership rates in this part of SF are strongly correlated with income and there is a car per ~$180k income in the Castro and most every neighborhood you can see from Corona Heights. Here’s the data from the US Census (Bureau) as grouped by neighborhood by SFPlanning, Vehicles Per Capita:

            0.11 Chinatown
            0.12 Downtown/Civic Center (Tenderloin)
            0.22 FiDi
            0.32 Nob Hill
            0.35 Mission
            0.39 North Beach
            0.41 Bayview
            0.41 Visitation Valley
            0.41 SoMa
            0.41 Western Addition
            0.47 San Francisco
            0.56 Castro

            Most people with “money” own a car, even in SF, and certainly in the Castro. If they build 27 condos here that cost $1M, they will add 10-30 cars to the neighborhood, even if they don’t build any parking, and no matter how much anyone lectures about lifestyles.

          2. This location is near the center of a residential parking area with hundreds of unmetered spaces within 3 blocks. If they build this without off-street parking, then some of the residents of this new housing will get permits and park on the street.

            The tradeoff is either to use an existing curb cut (one of a half dozen on that block) and build 10-20 offstreet spaces at private expense, or add those cars to the onstreet load at public expense.

            AFAIK, there’s no study that has found any correlation between car ownership rates in SF and available off-street parking, though I’m sure most people expect there would be some influence. But no data is no data. We do have data that says there are ~275k onstreet spaces in SF. And IIRC, SF does not have a count of the privately owned offstreet parking that is not publicly available.

          3. The tradeoff is either to use an existing curb cut (one of a half dozen on that block) and build 10-20 offstreet spaces at private expense, or add those cars to the onstreet load at public expense.

            Or discuss market-pricing residential parking permits. Just saying.

  7. Damn! The only straight bar within a 1/2 mile of the big Rainbow Flag. To be replaced by yet more of those cookie cutter condos. When did SF become filled with people that embrace mediocrity and uniformity in their neighborhoods?

      1. ^^ This! Gone but not forgotten: Missouri Mule, Purple Pickle, Rear End, Naked Grape… Let’s not forget the Mind Shaft and Alfie’s that was at that site before anyone at Lucky 13 was of legal drinking age. Bottom line, neighborhoods evolve.

      2. Some of us grew up here honey. Mingling with the gays is peachy. But there hasn’t been a decent straight bar in the neighborhood for decades. Let that poor guy dream of having one straight bar in his neighborhood. Lord knows that every other neighborhood has at least one gay bar for its locals to enjoy.

        1. wow, that’s not remotely true. Very few neighborhoods have gay bars. In fact they’re becoming pretty archaic and are disappearing (maybe the only gay bar in the Mission…Truck…just closed a month or so ago for instance).

    1. Churchill and Blackbird are a few feet from Lucky 13. Both are straight bars, although brimming with douchebags at times.

      1. Exactly. Interesting that Blackbird is owned by gay guys and was definitely marketed to be “mixed” when it opened, but the reality is that it has mostly a straight vibe. Just the reality of demographic change in the Castro…

    2. Is Churchill straight or gay? How about blackbird and Orbit Room?

      I’m a straight guy and frequent these places with man friends. I see other groups of guys there. I’ve never asked them where they like to put their penises so I was unclear on the bars’ sexuality.

  8. this is a nice FU from Ed Lee and his developer pals, and Im sure the tech kids who moved here in 2011 and SF BARF are literally wet with pleasure at yet another crappy overpriced condo is built that won’t reduce rents but will appease the developers here lol!

    seriously. burn this whole city to the ground and then build your dreamland of overpriced condos and suck it. Or move to Arizona. Whatever.

  9. Curb cuts on Market Street should be avoided (including eliminating existing curb cuts when parking lots are developed). Cars have to cross a busy pedestrian sidewalk and a bike lane to get onto Market Street, which has limited capacity. New construction should only have parking if there is garage access on a secondary street. I’m not opposed to parking everywhere, but on Market St., pedestrians should be prioritized.

  10. How can subtracting something that adds character, flavor, and history to the city, and replacing it with ugly boxes for transient twitter bots be considered progress?

    If by “progress,” you mean raising the price of an already exorbitant asset class, than I guess this could be considered progress.

      1. I think you mean those *rich* people who want a place to live. Can the rest of us at least have a place to cry into our beer?

        1. Rich and poor both need places to live. Without these new units the rich just bid up the cost of existing units, leaving the poor without a place to live.

      2. I’m pro development but why are you calling this bar crappy? Can’t it be missed even if it is being replaced for a more profit making edifice?

        1. Sure, it can be missed. Not sure what makes you think that I think it shouldn’t be? I miss rotary phones in some ways, but I’m glad they’re not still around. Ditto this horrible scar in the pedestrian fabric of Market St.

  11. I live behind this establishment. Love the idea that something is going in. I think it’s too high. There a nice big trees in the back that cut the noise from market and make what is becoming a hardscape city much nicer to live in. Hate to see these die from lack of sunlight. Let’s support this, but bring down the monstrous size

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *