Plans for a nearly 200-unit building to rise up to 130 feet in height on the Hayes Valley site known as 600 McAllister Street, which consists of two adjacent parking lot parcels on the northwest corner of McAllister and Franklin, including the former Central Freeway Parcel D, have been drafted.

While the corner site is principally zoned for development up to 85 feet in height and a density of around 150 units, the approval of a state Density Bonus could yield up to 197 units, 20 percent of which would be offered at below market rates, rising up to 130 feet in height as roughly massed by David Baker Architects:

And as envisioned, the 197 units – a mix of 80 studios averaging 370 square feet apiece, 34 one-bedrooms (615 square feet), 82 twos (750 square feet), and a 1,200-square-foot three-bedroom – would rise over a basement garage for a total of 44 cars and secured parking for 197 bikes.

We’ll keep you posted and plugged-in as the plans progress.

29 thoughts on “Bonus Plans for Building up in Hayes Valley”
  1. Good to see no retail at all. That is not a dynamic pedestrian area. I hope future developments are just as critical about retail’s likely success before blindly allocating it.

    1. That’s not exactly how commercial space inclusion works. There’s not a person who pines for ground floor retail just because they think it’d be cool or whatever. I do, however, concede that this isn’t exactly an optimal location for retail based on the current conditions of the intersection.

      1. Sure, I just think mistakes have been made in the last five years or so in where retail can succeed. Of course, retail has crashed in general at a pace that took people by surprise. Locations like 8 Octavia simply aren’t getting enough foot traffic. I’m curious to see how retail at 400 Divis (Oak and Divis) will fare. On one hand, Divis a popular corridor. On the other, it’s nestled between fast-moving Divis, Fell and Oak and gas stations – not ideal.

        1. I think that ground floor retail is reflexively included because the planning office wants it. The Urbanism mantra says that ground floor real estate is an unalloyed good because it “activates” the street. But it doesn’t always work that way, for a variety of reasons.

          1. Care to share? I bet the planning “office” would love to read the research that says putting storefronts, doorways, and creating a sense of place doesn’t effectively activate the street and pedestrian realm.

    2. Is that a ground floor apartment on the corner? Highly questionable.

      It would be great as a small retail space. Close to nightlife, close to a park, and with the replacement of a surface parking lot with 200 residences, foot traffic will skyrocket.

      1. Agreed. Lots of worker bees within a couple blocks of this site (including me). Would be a good AM/afternoon location for retail.

  2. Good to see at last. It is embarrassing how long it has taken to get these parcels filled. In almost any other city they would have been developed 20 years ago.

    1. It’s unbelievable too that Parcels “R,” “S,” and “T” on the east side of Octavia Blvd. are also still.

      1. Agreed. One of the best architects in the city, especially with consideration to the types of projects they work on (affordable and smaller scale projects).

  3. 370 sq feet of a studio is a dumping ground for not having enough guts to make livable spaces for people. Venerable Hayes Valley studios run an avg of 425-450 sq ft and sometimes larger.

    1. and that is just the “average”. what’s more notable i think is the two-bedrooms are only 750 sq ft.

    2. I don’t think 370 square feet is unlivable. You need different housing prices for different budgets. A bed area for a queen is ~100 square feet, 50 for a bathroom, and you still have a 22×10 area for a kitchen/couch/small dining room table. That’s plenty for a single person who is out most of the time.

      1. And if you have any friends over for a dinner or house party are you relegated to going out , cooking on a half stove or just not. What if you are a creative w/o a “third room” work space , where your quartet wants to practice or is designing and starting out in fashion or painting. No space for any of that. Make the whole building as high as the top floor and enlarge the spaces or sentence David Baker to make a living and life in these overpriced cubicles, and not out of his sprawling 2nd Street spaces.

        1. If you like hosting large dinner parties, or need a third room for creative work space, don’t move there. It’s pretty simple. A variety of spaces should exist for different needs and price points.

          1. Well if pow wowing a start up fresh outa college or someone in the arts wanting to break into the scene without living in the exurbs you will either be living in a dining room divided by a curtain in nopa or this might just be the only place for an initial toehold.

            Isn’t it interesting that todaysnewsbring the fact that rent control opponents have flooded 10 X the amount of money that proponents have.

            Meanwhile the Saitowitz penthouse on Octavia Blvd and a HayesStreet unit purchased just months ago are already being flipped. This is not a neighborhood made of.

          2. Exactly. Go to big cities all over the world and older cities domestically (including lots of charming older ones in sf) and you’ll find great small studios. With so many people desperate for any kind of housing you’d think making smaller units would be applauded.

        2. Needless to say efficiency apartments are not the best spaces for entertaining. The building will probably include common areas that are better sized for parties.

    1. Just speculating, but I think the lot behind it is used as combined playground / parking for the school, so likely it will stay that way. The one across the street seems like a prime candidate for affordable teacher housing but none of the proposed teacher housing projects I’ve read about mentioned that space. I’m also curious about plans for the lots one block up on Golden Gate and Gough. In fact, in the four blocks between Franklin and Gough, Eddy and Fulton, about a third of the space is essentially surface parking, but this is the first news I’ve heard on new construction in a while. Hope more is on the way in these other places, more residents would help support retail and add vibrancy to this corner of the Western Addition.

  4. Common spaces are reserved from all the other units, have alcohol prohibition often and if it’s booked on your besties birthday ya SOL. And most common areas don’t pay security to stay open past 10 anyway. Could 6 people, 3 couples, be too much in a space of this studio? Probably.

    And it’s a damn shame Parcel R on the E side of Octavia and at Lily had a self made verdant garden that provided included a gathering walkable respite from non stop traffic and was self run by giving neighbors, got kicked to the curbed and destroyed over 5 years ago by DPW in the name of eminent building, that never happened. Think of the 2000 days you might have volunteered been a part of reaped the fruit of or just had some beautiful solice had this unnecessary lockout and dismantling left an empty blighted cyclones fenced in nothing space, one of the first things visitors and drivers are witness to in this once great soft City of fog (not Karl). Reminds one of Western Afdition “urban renewal” which we are all still paying the price for and rightfully first filling BMR rentals being built.

    1. Then it’s likely that people who are not interested in entertaining all the time will probably not get a studio apartment here. You seem to be conflating your lifestyle preferences with everybody else’s. Not to mention that my generation doesn’t “entertain” at home like that. We go out. If it’s your “besties” birthday you damn sure are not entertaining at your home if you live in Hayes Valley, it’s drinks at The Riddler followed by a group dinner at A Mano with a nightcap at Brass Tacks if you’re still feeling it. Then stumble back to your studio (or, more accurately, converted living room in a 2-bed flat with three people living in it because we haven’t built any housing for decades). I think you’ll find most 25-35 somethings would kill for a sub-400 square foot studio especially in a new Hayes Valley building compared to what they actually have.

      Paris, Tokyo, and NYC are bursting at the gills with studios just as small as this and people seem to make it work.

  5. Has there been a SS post on the success/lack thereof of street level retail in these buildings? I’m fascinated by all the vacant ones in SF (as well as how tiny they are in the new builds), or even the huge ones that have been vacant for a decade like the Bell Market spot in the Sutterfield (Post/Gough). I know SF isn’t NY, but it seems odd how much vacancy there is.

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