When San Francisco’s 300-acre Mission Bay neighborhood is fully developed, it will include 6,400 units of housing. That’s 1,100 more than today, with 500 of those units under construction and planning for the remaining 600, all of which are slated to be offered at below market rates, underway.

In addition to the 1.9 million square feet of clinical, biotech and office space that has already been built, another 2 million square feet is under construction, including Uber’s future worldwide HQ, and planning for an additional 500,000 square feet of space is underway. All told, there will be enough work space for 30,000 people to do their jobs.

Another 70,000 square feet of retail will be added to the 350,000 square feet that’s already been built, much of which has yet to be occupied along Fourth Street, which was envisioned to become the hub of the neighborhood.

The Golden State Warriors arena (aka Chase Center) is slated to be finished in the fall of 2019, as is the adjacent Bayfront Park.

And once again, none of the numbers above include the Giants’ massive Mission Rock project which is slated to rise on the Port’s Seawall Lot 337 (aka the Giants Parking Lot A), a development which sits outside the official boundaries and tallies of Mission Bay.

31 thoughts on “The Latest Accounting for Mission Bay”
    1. Rich people don’t like walking around with the plebs and buying oranges at an exposed corner market. Insta-cart, baby!

  1. The obvious problem with this now cooked in the books plan is the huge jobs/housing imbalance. 30K jobs and just 6.4K housing units?! Even if all the workers could afford to live here, which most won’t be able to, there is no place to put them. But for the freeways, BART and Muni. The Giant’s development, not included in these numbers, has a similar egregious jobs/housing imbalance. 1.4 million feet of office space comes out to 7K or so jobs (the figure is something like one worker per 200 Sq. Ft.) but only 1.5K housing units are being built.

    Chase Stadium will just compound what could be a transportation nightmare – long hours of gridlock on weekdays throughout MB and Dogpatch – and likely fanning out beyond those neighborhoods

    1. yeah, for an extension of the SF CBD, that is way way too much housing, in proportion. Probably risks having the next BART tube com ashore north of McCovey Cove.

      For those worried about the commute to work congestion, there are yuge residential neighborhoods withing two miles of MB. A distinct commute time thickening of traffic in between is expected. And the widened 280/Mariposa ramp can deliver ~10k commuters per rushing hours. Not that anyone living in San Mateo County would work in MB and not commute via Caltrain or unicycle.

      1. I have noticed, since I sometimes commute to Oakland via 280, that traffic is really starting to back up on the Mariposa off ramps to the 25th on-ramp in the AM. And that is before all this new stuff comes on line. It’s going to get nasty.

      2. Let’s see. Residential neighborhoods – as in the emerging Central SOMA with its huge jobs/housing imbalance. Then there is HP Lennar with 20K or so jobs and 10K housing units – should be interesting as it’s across the ephemeral Brisbane/SF line where Brisbane is building a huge office complex with thousands and thousands of jobs and virtually no housing.

        As to another BART tube – none of us are likely to live to see it happen but, if it ever does, I’d posit that a terminus closer to the SF/SSF line makes more sense.

      3. @curmudgeon, yup, 280 may go the no go way bad as 101 and for nearly as many hours/day. What it is now like for a Giants game will be more like everyday. The gridlock levels in SoMa east of 7th will spread west to join with the growing congestion in the Mission east of 17th and clog all the way to Potrero Hill, just like a mission creek overflood. All that should happen just from the long planned and much hoped for growth in Showplace, MB, central SoMa, eastern Mission, and Dogpatch/Pier 70. Maybe you can start biking to Oakland.

        Dave, Central SoMa isn’t a “residential neighborhood” like where you live on Mounted Daveison. At least it isn’t so much since the great clearing of the poors to yuerba the buena and mosconi the center.

        About half of all the jobs in SF are done by people that live in other counties and commute in. Building out a chunk of the SF CBD with anything close to enough housing for half the workers to walk to work is a huge improvement. Almost takes us back to the pre-car future, when neighborhoods like DogPatch and Bayview housed the workers for the factories and shipyards that are now being remade into Uberlicous offices. Besides, you always have the nearly all housing rebuild of Parkmerced to count in the SF balance. Though many of those folks will drive to work in San Mateo County.

      4. I usually like your posts, Jake, but – c’mon – Caltrain’s already SRO during rush hour; and those “yuge” residential neighborhoods are already priced out of most people’s pockets.

        It’d be one thing if there were 30K jobs in Mission Bay and only 6.4K housing units, *if* in parallel the city had also planned out additional residential elsewhere. But in the absence of that, there’s no denying that the MB building is simply exacerbating existing commute *and* residential cost issues.

        1. There are many people who could take transit, but drive because it’s faster. However, it might take only 10 more mins of traffic delays before transit becomes a better deal. There’s no denying that car drivers will suffer more, but many will find other ways that will become more efficient. Also, you gotta admit that I280 is a pretty quick way to get into SF. Fi-Di doesn’t have such luxury of quick access via Bay Bridge due to bridge congestion and distance from ramps.

          The area is very transit rich with Caltrain walking distance away and upcoming Central Subway making connection to BART faster. The T-Third Loop in dogpatch will mean increased frequency of T line, and Muni is getting new trains, so expect more 2-car trains through Mission Bay. Also, given that T will no longer need to take turns merging with N at 4th & King, both N and T will suffer less delays. There’s also a Ferry terminal planned at 16th & Terry Francois that might siphon another 1000 commuters a day.

          And many of these jobs will pay enough to afford Mission Bay either through high salaries, parents helping with down payment, or two individuals tying the knot and splitting a place 50/50.

        2. Sierrajeff, according to the Giants brand new drafty EIR, Caltrain inbound AM peak is only at 73% utilization, and they project that their project will boost that all the way to 75%. Of course they use a baseline from SF Planning studies that are years out-of-date and don’t reflect the reality of rapid growth in Caltrain ridership since. But hey, why should planning and project approvals be based on current accurate info when the old-timey demonstrably stale stuff is more agreeable.

          Besides, lots of new housing becoming the new BVHP and the backslides of Potrero; and of course in time, when the PDR of bayshore finally joins the former-PDR of SoMa on the Jersey side of the Bay.

          And sure, MB should have been an urbane park, a la crissy field, marina green, mclaren, and golden gate, but I got out vetoed.

    2. Of course, if you complain that we’re building too much office space, you can’t logically complain about the Google shuttles

  2. Oh the horror, too many jobs, too much traffic, why can’t I drive my HumV down a major city street in piece without having to wait for anything ever. I say we blow it all up and put back the driving range! Maybe at the same time we can put back the apple farms in SV.

    Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. …

  3. I disagree that traffic will be insurmountable. You’ve got:

    * Caltrain 5-10 walk away
    * T-Third which will be a faster way to BART than N or current routing.
    * N is not too far
    * Mission Bay has lots of free shuttles to BART and Transbay
    * New Ferry Dock at 16th & Terry Francois to East Bay.

    In the longer term, pretty sure any 2nd BART tube will make Chase Center the first stop.

    1. Yes – also don’t forget I-280 will be torn down and brought to a surface street south of the caltrain station, so 280 traffic is now one less thing to worry about!

  4. Too bad those 30k jobs won’t be able to solve the huge unsold condo overhang we’re experiencing. Wait…

  5. RE: Harambe. Several years ago the Planning Department project report on a new mixed use/condo project condemned the (brilliant) design by saying “It looked like a building in Denmark.” Sure enough, the design got completely dumbed down.

  6. 2nd BART tube would serve Mission Bay? That seems really optimistic in anybody’s lifetime. Given that large parts of Alameda and Contra Costa counties have been paying taxes for 40+ years and still not received promised service – it seems unlikely the BART board will vote to advance that project from being a study to a priority.

  7. This seems so wasteful. To frantically fill in this available land with four story buildings? Why? Why not eight to ten stories or more, and just take time to fill it in.

    1. buildings in MB range from 5-6 stories to 17 stories, averaging probably pretty close to your eight, maybe not ten.

  8. Are the 6,400 units all south of Mission Channel? Or does this include Mission Bay North and Mission Bay South. If both are included how many units are projected/built in each of them?

  9. I’m really curious what kinds of planning/projections have been done for transit here. It’s already a bottleneck getting across China Basin on Third. With the arena and everything else built out, it will be impossible to get in and out. Seems like undergrounding the T line at least to 16th St. would be one of the few solutions that might work…

    1. When T continues straight to Central Subway, it will no longer be delayed at 4th & King when merging with N. N will suffer less delays too. Also, Ferry terminal at 16th and Terry Francois. Muni buying new trains, so more 2-car T trains. Also, the dogpatch T loop will mean more frequent service in that area. Mission bay also runs extensive free shuttles to BART and Transbay, so these easily can be expanded.

  10. You know, it’s great when you can buy a place [next] to your job and walk – that is until you change jobs four years later and the next one is half a world away and you can’t move because your Prop 13 has locked in favorable taxes. Fortunately traffic access in this neighborhood will be improved once 280 is ripped down at 16th St.

    Someday housing will come with the job and we’ll live in a proper Workers Paradise. Until then, Giddyup Dobbin.

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