According to J.K. Dineen, Anka Development (think Argenta) has completed its purchase of the empty lot at 55 Ninth Street (between Market and Mission) and received Planning Department approval to build 260 condos rather than a 268,000-square-foot office tower.
As proposed, the building would rise 17-stories (205 feet), include 3,000 square feet of ground level commercial, and provide a garage with up to 113 parking spaces (98 residential and 15 commercial).
And yes, we would have preferred “Apartments” (for the headline alliteration).
∙ Anka switches 55 Ninth office tower to condos [Business Times]
∙ Argenta (1 Polk): Ground Breaking [SocketSite]
Um, 98 parking spots for 260 condos?
Q: What’s missing here?
A: About 162 parking spaces.
I’m actually glad that these condos do not contain a parking space for every unit. Given the great public transportation of the area, it would be overkill for spaces in every condo. This is smart growth and good for the environment. If you absolutely must have a car, there are dozens of other new condo developments to choose from, that will fit your needs
Not having a dedicated parking space (at least one) is an absolute deal-killer for me for any type of living situation (buy or rent, but especially buying). Having parked on the streets of Cambridge MA for 5 years… I am through with fighting my neighbords for street parking, street cleaning etc. forever.
Once you get off-street parking, you never go back!
Only shut-ins with 200 cats would buy a condo without a parking space.
17 stories? Bummer for the owners of the building next door. With the shadows from their new neighbor, they are going to have to convert that pool at the 2 o’clock position in the photo into an ice skating rink.
Wow Jimmy, you just insulted the 70% of SoMA households which do not own cars. Nice to know that your perception of the city is impervious to reality.
For your further information, I went from off-street garage parking to on-street parking to not owning a car at all. I say, once you go car share you never go back.
The pool belongs to the Holiday Inn on 8th Street.
Jimmy,
Did it ever occur to you that all developments do not have to be built to your liking? Some people do not require parking – why should we build all developments around people who do? If they don’t sell well – great! Better deals for those who don’t need a car!
Well, that’s probably why I don’t live in SoMA then, isn’t it??
Over here in Russian Hill (aka “civilization”) people own cars, they’re usually big, they guzzle gas and we’re not sorry about it.
Wow, Jimmy, it’s people like you (aka “douchebags”) that make me consider leaving SF every now and then. Just who exactly appointed you to determine what type of living conditions people should live in?
Regarding cars, it’s great to see reduced parking in this development. I sold my Lexus almost 2 years ago and sorely regret not being car-free sooner — having a car in the city was such a burden and wasted so much of my time.
As an aside, the Market/Octavia plan is nearly done but the parking ratio issue hasn’t been settled. For those of you who live in that area and support the 2:1 parking ratio (rather than 1:1) please write the mayor and relevant supervisors. Car drivers: there will still be TONS of places to put your cars with a 2:1 unit:parking ratio for new developments. My parking spot, for example. ;^)
Jimmy,
I don’t think you’re evil for owning a car, I don’t care. Some developments should have 1:1 parking, some should have more, some should have less. Why the hate towards us that want choice? (why the calling of SOMA not “civilization”) You’re not buying units in every building in the city area you? Some other people may not need a parking spot (I know, I know, the proletariat throngs are so pitiful)
Hello Fischum,
I think you’d be much happier with me (“let’s turn SF in to Vancouver South and build 50 new condo towers WITH PARKING”) than your current board of supervisors (“let’s turn SF into a communist paradise”).
Unless you yourself are a commie.
You’re not a commie, are you, Fischum?
More housing and no place for people to work? Office buildings provide space for the “new” blue collar. It brings rents down and hopefully more jobs into the city.
If they are building condos — build a big parking lot so people can get to the office parks in Pleasenton, San Mateo and San Jose. Hopefully 2 spots per unit so typical couples can each get to their job.
Alternativly, build super high-end units to try and attract part-year residents.
Yes — public transporation in SF is fantstic, but increasinly, it goes nowhere. Where is Bart to Mountain View?
Mark – it’s a few blocks south of Market at 4th & King. It’s called the Caltrain Baby Bullet.
Jimmy – my earlier post was deleted, so I think you get the gist of what I was trying to say. Here’s hoping (for your sake) you don’t wind up sitting next to me in a bar spouting your BS.
[Editor’s Note: Your comment wasn’t “deleted.” For some strange reason our filters flagged your “elitist assh*le” and “go f*$k yourself” phrasing…]
You know what they say about Russian Hill- It’s the poor man’s Pac Heights.
I own in russian hill – and do not have a car. My deeding parking sits empty. I 100% support developers who are willing to build less parking. People who bid on units without parking will – surprise of surprises – not want parking. Nobody is forcing anyone to buy a unit with no parking.
More housing and no place for people to work? Office buildings provide space for the “new” blue collar. It brings rents down and hopefully more jobs into the city.
If they are building condos — build a big parking lot so people can get to the office parks in Pleasenton, San Mateo and San Jose. Hopefully 2 spots per unit so typical couples can each get to their job.
Alternativly, build super high-end units to try and attract part-year residents.
Yes — public transporation in SF is fantstic, but increasinly, it goes nowhere. Where is Bart to Mountain View?
If we really don’t have enough mid-income housing, raise the height; add mixed-income, cut parking further in half, add car-share & bicycle parking. If SUV owners are so attached, hello Sunnyvale. A $4/gallon, car-centric city is really really old. Now’s the time to re-invent our city — building by building. And there’s no better transit-easy location than 9th & Market.
It’s not 1975 any longer.
IMO.
Lots of new residential going in around Market/Van Ness. Anyone know what’s going on a block away with the site at the northeast corner of 10th/Mission where they demo’d the old donut shop and are now constructing something pretty big? And yeah, the parking ratio seems a bit light on this one – not everyone is going to have a car, but I bet if you’re dropping half a mil plus you do more often than not, so providing parking for less than half of the building might be tough. This will be interesting to see how their pricing and sales turn out.
this SF planning dept paper on parking
The second map has a pretty interesting map of car ownership
Lots of cars in the bayview
Stop the madness…
This has been pointed out before on SS, but in a free market everyone wins with a low parking cap. Some people want or need cars to varying degrees, and they will get parking spots from those that want the financial benefit gained by giving up their spot. The end result of having fewer cars on the road (which IS correlated to parking space supply) is faster transit for those with cars, faster public transit, less gridlock, cleaner air, quieter and more desirable neighborhoods and even higher growth for local businesses (see London’s “Impacts Monitoring – Fifth Annual Report” on the effects of congestion charging). The parking cap is also a good way to coax people into going car-free — as I said before, I wish I was prodded earlier on this.
And Mark, I work in the South Bay. CalTrain’s fantastic.
Dear Fischum (Communist Sympathizer) aka FCS for the sake of brevity:
I can take care of myself well enough, thanks. (And not just on the internet). Plus I doubt you hang out much in dive bars on Polk St. so we’ll probably never have the opportunity to have this conversation in person.
Which is really regrettable, in my opinion.
‘Over here in Russian Hill (aka “civilization”) people own cars, they’re usually big, they guzzle gas and we’re not sorry about it.’
Ah yes, I too feel sorry for people who live in the car-poor backwaters like Manhattan, London, Berlin, Tokyo, etc. One day those communities will grow up and embrace the wave of the future by replacing half of their city space with places to store their vehicles.
Houston, Phoenix, Stockton – now that’s civilization.
(actually now I feel bad for responding to such an obvious troll 🙂
Jimmy – you don’t regret a goddamn thing. Just go ahead and keep making snide remarks about other people’s lifestyle choices – it only illustrates to everyone else on this board what a jackhole you really are.
Gdog– The vastly underappreciated difference between London, Berlin, Paris, Washington, New York, Tokyo, and many other major cities and our little gem by the Bay is that those other cities have AWESOME underground (and above-ground) rail networks (particularly the Europeans) while we have a creaking, slow-as-molasses bus system, BART (which is a laughable excuse for a subway and is pitifully slow), and Caltrain which if you’re lucky runs once every hour to the place you actually want to go (don’t miss your train or else).
Just taking cars out of the picture without any viable public transit replacement does a great disservice to those people WHO ACTUALLY NEED TO GET AROUND in an efficient manner.
Dear FCS: you’re right, I don’t regret anything, but I did enjoy getting a rise out of you this afternoon.
That and a beer at lunch really made my day (so far).
Leaving aside the inflammatory rhetoric and declining to challenge *anyone* to a bar fight, I will say I agree with Jimmy on this–I use my car infrequently, but I absolutely would not by a condo without a parking space (absent a *severe* price reduction), the same way I wouldn’t buy one without a dishwasher.
No parking = no thanks.
Have some of you ever lived in true car free cities? Have you ever taken the Heathrow Express train to central London? Have you ever experienced what it is like to step out of your door in Chicago or NYC and get a cab immediatly without having to call and reserve one first? Have you ever stood in any of the central rail stations in Paris, New York, Chicago or London and been in awe at the integration of long distance rail, suburban rail and central city subway lines all in one place? San Francisco is DECADES away from being a car free urban choice.
The SF Planning Department paper that zig referred to appears to be this: Parking and Better Neighborhoods: Getting It Right
“… and Caltrain which if you’re lucky runs once every hour to the place you actually want to go (don’t miss your train or else)”
I guess I’m very lucky. There are several express trains every hour during the morning and evening rush. If I miss my train (and I do about 4 times a year), boarding the next one requires waiting a whole four minutes. The agony of waiting !
Sure, the entire city isn’t equipped with adequate transit but this location in SOMA certainly is in the sweet spot. Transitioning away from a car-centric city towards mass transit won’t happen without a little pain along the way. It is unreasonable to expect the city to build a gold plated metro system first, and then start changing zoning policies to reduce parking and steer commuters towards transit. The two will have to occur in tandem and expect transit availability to trail demand.
Fortunately 9th and Mission is already quite well served by transit. Adding excessive parking in this location is just silly and would only serve to increase street congestion.
Just a reminder to anontransitlover- taxis are automobiles.
The only reason SPUR and the developer community support 2:1 garage ratio is because the don’t build square feet- in SF they build cubic feet. They can make more money out of a lot with less parking. They can make more money with less bathrooms, so maybe we should go back to communal baths and outhouses?
Having a car is great. Especially when you can leave it in the garage and take public transit. As for street parking, I’d like to see less of it. If you own a car here, you should be able to provide off-street storage for it and not expect to park for free in the public right-of-way.
I’m with Foolio. I’m carless by choice, but I would absolutely not buy a condo without a parking spot in its garage.
this building should be 3x as high as is planned.
Spencer: I respectfully disagree. Until the parking situation is resolved to my personal satisfaction, I would like to start a campaign to designate this empty lot as a historical landmark. Perhaps we can squeeze it onto the June ballot.
“Have some of you ever lived in true car free cities?”
I’ve been to many car-free cities and I envy those robust transit networks. But the more cars we allow into SF the bigger the hole we dig for ourselves regarding improving MUNI. SF does have some car-free neighborhoods right now though — I’m in Hayes Valley and have only resorted to car sharing a handful of times per year. On bike I can get anywhere in 5-10 minutes, with MUNI maybe 3 times that.
“I’m carless by choice, but I would absolutely not buy a condo without a parking spot in its garage.”
That’s totally your choice no matter where you buy. Other people will buy a unit without a spot and choose from the variety of car share vehicles in the same garage when they need to drive, thus allowing you to own or lease your exclusive space. The market will figure out how much of a discount a parking-free condo will sell at relative to a similar unit with an assigned space. I’m much more inclined to take the latter.
Well, here’s my fundamental problem. If the market was truly dictating how many parking spaces were available per condo unit, then why does the SF BoS have to specify explicit regulations governing the issue?
Let the market decide, indeed!
Creating an artificial scarcity of parking through regulation forces the price of parking higher which penalizes those of us who do actually need a car.
And another thing: WHY does allowing more cars in the city “dig us a bigger hole regarding improving Muni”?
Muni will only be improved when the citizenry votes in favor of a bond issue which will be used to build things like, say, a real New York-style subway system that covers the entire city (that may be too much to hope for, but a guy can dream right?). Or a rapid, DIRECT transit link between SFO and downtown (like the Heathrow Express — the most awesome way to get to an airport ever, short of a helicopter).
Until something like that is even proposed on the ballot I’m going to continue to vote for more cars and more parking!!
“I’m in Hayes Valley and have only resorted to car sharing a handful of times per year. On bike I can get anywhere in 5-10 minutes, with MUNI maybe 3 times that.”
Huh? What about Palo Alto, or Mill Valley, or Oakland? How about the airports? In other places you can take local and EXPRESS trains, imagine that to places all over the urban region. I used to take the Purple Line between Chicago and Northwestern University in Evanson and would take the express train that would get me to work in less than 14 minutes. If I were to ride a shorter distance on Muni from the Financial District to San Francisco State (I feel horrible even making a comparison between Northwestern and S.F. State) it would take me over 45 minutes most days.
“Creating an artificial scarcity of parking through regulation forces the price of parking higher which penalizes those of us who do actually need a car.”
… as opposed to creating an artificial glut of parking through regulation ? We already know what that can do to the urban environment and it is not pretty.
You’re not being penalized for using a car. You’re simply being asked to pay the market rate. We’ve become so accustomed to receiving a free subsidy for driving in the form of free access to city maintained streets and free city supplied/mandated parking that now we feel entitled to this subsidy.
SF has decided that there are already too many cars in the downtown district and attracting more would exacerbate congestion.
If you’re lifestyle choice includes using a car daily (and it is a choice. very few people actually need a car) then you should live somewhere where land is cheap and parking is plentiful. Either that or pay the market rate to own a car in a congested, dense downtown area.
Another interesting perspective on congestion is that it is largely created by the distribution of jobs with respect to available housing. A scarcity of housing in the downtown could also be blamed for the vast numbers of office workers who find themselves commuting into the city from the suburbs, thereby creating massive congestion during rush hours.
Your “build parking and they will drive” theory could very easily be the exact inverse of what is actually happening, i.e. “don’t build housing near to jobs and they will be FORCED to drive.” Ever think of that?
The latter effect essentially paralyzes all of Silicon Valley every morning and evening.
“If the market was truly dictating how many parking spaces were available per condo unit, then why does the SF BoS have to specify explicit regulations governing the issue?”
Because then it’d be like letting a bunch of fat children decide on a candy plan. Sometimes the government is needed to step in to break a positive feedback loop with legislation. What if carbon emissions were totally unregulated forever — should we wait for the market to figure it out on its own? What if there was no limit to the amount of whales that could be hunted? Or if there were no trading limits in stock markets?
“Huh? What about Palo Alto, or Mill Valley, or Oakland? How about the airports?”
Cake, cake, cake and cake. I work in Menlo and it’s an hour door to door, but I get an hour of work done on the train per day so it’s effectively way more time efficient than driving. There’s 2 CarShare pods within 2 blocks of my house so I can choose anything from a Mini to a Tacoma to go to Mill Valley. It’s 20 minutes by BART to Oakland and I can leave my place at 9:30 to make a 10:00 show at Yoshi’s Oakland (or SF for that matter). It’s an 8 minute walk to BART and then 29 minutes to SFO’s international terminal — infinitely better than driving or taking a shuttle and no need to deal with parking.
““Creating an artificial scarcity of parking through regulation forces the price of parking higher which penalizes those of us who do actually need a car.”
This is totally off base — the costs incurred by car drivers getting *free* parking spaces everywhere they shop, clogging roads (and thereby reducing everyone’s productivity), polluting the air, reducing the speed of mass transit, burning subsidized gas etc. is all paid for in part by the non-car drivers.
If the market was truly dictating how many parking spaces were available per condo unit, then why does the SF BoS have to specify explicit regulations governing the issue?
Do you know for a fact that deregulation would produce a parking glut? I’m not so sure. Wouldn’t developers be inclined to build no parking if it meant they could build more units to sell? Just pawn the parking off to the city streets and wildcat parking space market.
Deregulated parking would likely result in luxury buildings being built with excess parking downtown and buildings being squeezed in neighborhoods with out parking
Not a good political situation for either IMO
In most cities (Vancouver for example), developers build ample parking UNDERGROUND thereby not displacing any residential (or commercial) above-ground space for cars.
Isn’t that a great solution? Put the cars underground where no one will see them, and still get to build as many condos as you want!
Furthermore, due to scarcity, parking spaces are now worth about $100k-$200k depending on location. Since a typical space is only 8′ x 22′ in size, the per-square-foot value is $600-$1200 psf. Not bad money considering there are no walls, plumbing or finishes that you need to apply to the space.
Jimmy,
Most cities (including Vancouver) have parking restrictions in downtown areas. Parking restrictions in most European and Asian countries are SIGNIFICANTLY stricter than they are here. Think one space per five units.
I guess my question is what is the goal of some of you in hoping to limit parking in San Francisco? If you want a pedestrian friendly city, I can think of many cities that allow freedom for builders to include parking in their residential buildings, that still have vibrant city centres with more people walking down the streets than riding in cars. Our firm works on many residential towers in Chicago and Canada, and they ALL include parking. How is Chicago able to have such a pedestrian friendly downtown and still accomodate all of the new residents and their cars? I believe the cars are used infrequently at best, but are a nice transportation option for people who choose to live in a centre city instead of a suburb. People spending 2 million on a condo are not going to ride MUNI. This thread is proof as to why Infinity is going to turn out to be the best investment of all the new towers because of the parking.
anon,
The question you should be asking is this – Is it the job of the planners in the City to try and build a pedestrian friendly city OR satisfy the desires of buyers of 2 million dollar condos. As I’ve said many times before on here, I have no problem with parking IF we do a few other things first. We aren’t getting a subway system any time soon, so we have to change some priorities on streets here. That means some transit-only streets, some ped-only streets, some lanes taken from private autos. If that were to happen, in addition to the market pricing of on and off street parking, I would be all for eliminating parking maximums (minimums should be eliminated too).
We aren’t NYC. We aren’t Chicago. We aren’t London. Demanding transit systems of equivalent speed and coverage without giving up something for private autos is a pipe dream at best.