The revised plans for a seven-story building to rise up to 70 feet in height on the southeast corner of Pacific and Van Ness, as newly rendered by Ian Birchall and Associates below, were approved last month. And with its 30-day appeal period having expired on Monday, the project has just received its exemption from having to complete an additional Environmental Review.
That being said, permits to raze the Pacific Heights Auto Body shop at 1675 Pacific Avenue and the perennially cursed restaurant space at 2050 Van Ness Avenue, in order to make way for the development to rise, have yet to be requested.
And building permits for the approved development, which would yield 63 condos (a mix of 46 one-bedrooms, 11 twos and 6 threes) over 776 square feet of corner retail space and a basement garage for 24 stacked cars (and 64 bikes) have yet to be requested as well.
Some things never change: to quote from my post three years ago: ‘Unfortunately it seems to be a blind link as to why 1675 wasn’t listed, although it’s perhaps to be expected since it’s an “Historic” Buildings Survey, not an “Attractive Older Buildings That Ought To Be Preserved Anyway” Survey.”
We still don’t know.
And this is still pig slop.
Wretch. Repeat.
I really love the cool old auto body shops in this area, and the old auto showrooms down the street. This will add to the loss of these places but create more housing.
The Lombardi Sports site a block away seems like a better location for a development like this. They might even be able to squeeze in a ground floor grocery store.
I am not sure how suggesting an alternate location makes sense. The developer has rights to develop the location they have, they don’t have the rights to do anything on anyone else’s property.
Lombardi Sports is already becoming a grocery store, it is being leased to the regional grocery store franchise Mollie Stones. Since they only have 9 existing stores, they are not subject to San Francisco’s chainstore restrictions; therefore, additional city approvals are not required. So, while Whole Food 365 was able to be blocked by NIMBYs, they cannot do jack about the Mollie Stones opening at that location (haha, haha, haha!). So, that site is taken.
Also, as another poster pointed out, development sites are not interchangeable–they are all private properties, and someone cannot just decide to build on another location just because some people might think it is a “better location for a development like this.”
Maybe because the market has peaked, and its very tough to get condo equity financing, and investors don’t want to pay high permits fees yet. There’s a lot of condo supply, costs 1600 pssf all in to build wherever in sf, and don’t think those numbers (esp net of 10% cost of sales) pencil on van ness.
Wasn’t this Henry Africa’s back in the day? There was no curse then. Maybe the curse has more to do with a series of mediocre concepts since. And now a mediocre condo building. ;(
Here’s the lineup going back to 2002, and from the early 80s to 2002 as well.
Van Ness/Vallejo (or Broadway/Polk if you’re of longer tooth)
Henry Africa’s was at the SE corner of Vallejo. Now a bike shop i believe when I last looked.
Karl, search “1600 Jackson” to see the soap opera over Lombardi’s.
UPDATE: A demolition permit for the project was recently requested and building permits for the project are close to being secured.