A detailed proposal and plans to transform the deteriorating and fire-bombed former Police Station at 2300 Third Street into a new Dogpatch Hub and community center have been drafted. And UCSF is in line to provide a $4.2 million “gift” to get the projected 36-month project started.

Deemed a surplus site by the City, the property is technically required to be prioritized for the development of affordable housing. But local residents and Friends of The Dogpatch Hub (FoDH) have enlisted the support of their Supervisor, City Attorney Dennis Herrera and the Police Department, and are pushing for the “Hub” instead.

And keep in mind that UCSF’s gift is dependent upon its proposed projects in Dogpatch, including the 550-unit building at 600 Minnesota, the new Psych Center at 2130 Third and the future redevelopment of 777 Mariposa Street (the plans for which are “TBD”), “proceeding unencumbered with…no CEQA litigation.”

37 thoughts on “Plans and Funding for a New Dogpatch Hub, with a Catch (or Two)”
  1. Seems like a good use of this building. But I’m curious how such a gift could require “unconditional support” for UCSF from the neighborhood, and what the basis is for that statement. I don’t know much about the Minnesota building but the new psychiatry building has had a discussion process with neighbors and incorporated feedback on design, etc.

      1. No CEQA litigation by who? It’s a free country, and community organizations or residents can’t prevent anyone (including new organizations) from submitting a lawsuit. What BS.

        1. And that has already crossed some neighbors’ minds who feel that UC is not fully addressing impacts or providing an adequate level of “cushioning”.

          [Editor’s Note: Hold that thought.]

    1. No, it’s just a large gift with strings attached – you could call it bribery I suppose. If you don’t like the conditions just look for the $4.2 somewhere else.

      On a different note, where does UCSF get $4.2 million to give away? Tax payer funds?

      1. It is slimy, but that’s the system we have. If they’re smart, developers always ‘support’ (bribe) neighborhood groups to buy them off.

          1. Agree

            But the point is that his is how things are done around here. This is the system we have created.

        1. Have no problem with your posited “system” so long as City government provides appropriate oversight of the interested parties’ proposals.

  2. They really should make Jerry Brown the UC system czar when he terms out as gov. They need someone aggressive, wonky, no BS in there to set things straight and return the system to serving California students.

    1. Except, of course, that Brown – by reason of his office – is a Regent, and so presided over both the hiring of the current President, and continued decline of the System; the latter, of course, being heavily due to continued funding cutbacks…which he has presided over as Governor.

      Maybe it should be offered to the Alumni Assoc…people with money and connections who have an (emotional at least ) interest in it.

  3. This always happens in rich neighborhoods: the requirement to consider affordable housing is ignored, and a park or community center is built instead. Happened a few years ago in District 2 with Farrell’s help as well. Shame on the Dogpatch neighbors who are thinking only of themselves in a housing crisis.

    1. There isn’t a housing crisis for those who can afford to live here. Most housing going up is market rate which does absolutely nothing to help the middle class whatsoever. The few affordable crumbs that are tossed about have income caps which exclude the middle class. Don’t blame Dogpatch residents. It’s not their fault.

      1. Oh Mark, it’s almost as if you’ve forgotten what “market rate” means in a healthy functioning economy. Middle class people should be able to purchase a market rate unit/home. The only way to do that is by building much more market rate housing. It’s not very hard to figure out. Also, all residents that standing the way of housing are to blame, including those in the Dogpatch.

          1. Unlike Ferraris, though, older luxury (Ferrari) housing generally does turn less expensive (Hyundai) housing as it ages. And new buildings do push down costs in the older buildings. You can see that quite clearly in Mission Bay/SOMA right now.

            So it does help to build more, even if luxury.

          2. That would be true if excess Ferraris were being built. But can anyone with a straight face say that the current crop of condos are all “luxury”. Yes, the developers describe them as such, but the reality is they are just new, not luxury, except for a small slice of the developments.

            OTOH, the price is high for all new developments. Perhaps because we are not building enough at any level and the would be Ferrari buyer is forced to pay $$$ for a top end Elantra.

          3. Luxury today means being located in San Francisco. There’s little difference between $200 seats at the ballpark and $25 seats besides the location. There’s plenty of middle class housing, it’s just not located in the very most desirable 7×7 square miles. In Solano County for example, around 50% of households can afford the median priced home. My parents commuted an hour to work each day and we never felt entitled to prime real estate.

        1. Studies have been done, the amount of market rate housing that needs to be built in SF until it is affordable to the middle class exceeds the entire supply of magical unicorn fairy dust in the earth’s crust ten times over.

          1. And, frankly, there is no place to put all this market rate housing which would supposedly reduce SF home/condo prices. Or the infrastructure to support such.

            In terms of affordability to the broad middle class, that ship has sailed. SF will be more and more a city of the wealthy and the subsidized poor. All one can do is hope that other cities don’t make the mistakes that SF and the Bay Area have made.

          2. We all know that ship has sailed. My point is that many people think that every site should be turned into “affordable” housing whenever possible and all will be good in the 7×7. The market doesn’t work that way.

        2. Wrong. I don’t know what calculator you’re using to determine affordability for the middle class, but a couple earning a combined 150k salary cannot afford to buy a Sunset home going for $1.3M. Even assuming they put down 300k, that’s still a 5k/month mortgage before taxes. Toss in student loan debt, cost of raising kids, etc.

      2. Market rate has nothing to do with this situation. The policy is to prioritize subsidized affordable housing, specifically, on surplus city-owned sites. It is a policy that is generally ignored, as we see here.

  4. 3rd st from Mission Bay to Bay view can be an excellent corridor for housing, hotels, restaurants, and other activity served by the T-Line.

    1. Need to rezone first. There is about a one mile stretch, from 23rd to Jerrold, zoned only for PDR and industrial. No housing, hotels or restaurants allowed, despite the T line.

  5. SocketSite, where is the link to the “detailed proposal”? All I can find is [this] but it doesn’t answer my first question, which is, what the heck is a hub? Their own blog doesn’t even describe what the building’s purpose and example uses would be.

    1. As envisioned, it’s a community/cultural center, with meeting/activity rooms and most likely a commercial component to help subsidize the development/operating costs.

  6. I live in Dogpatch. I’ve seen the fire department visit this building at least a few times. I’m highly pessimistic that this will become a community center or a building containing affordable housing. At least not until the thing burns down.

    1. Yep, sadly vacant public buildings are just as vulnerable to fires as any other, maybe more so, since the incentive to avoid being sited for a blighted condition is (presumably) non existent.

    2. Yeah, with all the fires the building is pretty dilapidated and bombed out at at this point. The rendering makes it look nice – but the reality is the windows are gone, all the ornamental copper has been stripped by bums, and the roof is starting to collapse. All that is left is 4 walls. Not everything is worse saving. It seems like a bigger building belongs on the site.

  7. This property has been marked and identified as surplus. As such, how can some self appointed neighborhood group slide tjeirselves in and say they get it “because good community things blah blah blah” if they want to develop that blighted and burned out not very beautiful to begin with carcass of a couple buildings they should be forced to wait patiently for the sealed bid surplus auction to occur and bid enough to win, as the law dictates. There will be plenty of exciting community space at Pier 70, it’s time to let this lot go so it can be redeveloped into a nice mixed use project of some sort that will do more for the neighborhood than some albatross of a community center. At least whoever did the bullet points for why they want it to be restrained themselves from talking about all the “At risk” this and that they are supposedly gojng to white knight if only the building happens, but they got pretty close with the hippy drippy progressive rhetoric.

    Might be a good time to file a couple of discretionary review and CEQA study requests on those UCSF projects, maybe that halts this nonsense right here and now.

  8. I had family that lived in the Dogpatch neighborhood [and a family store]. I like the learning and hang out center, but it would have made a great police station “museum”: police eat lunch and breakfast in the store behind this tiny station so often that they know who [are] the worst criminals ever in San Francisco…

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