“TMG is one of a handful of San Francisco and national firms taking a serious look at Pier 70, a 64-acre waterfront redevelopment site, with 40 historic structures, that could accommodate 2.5 million square feet of new construction. Other developers taking a run at it include Catellus, Wilson Meany Sullivan, Build Inc. and Pacific Waterfront Partners.”
“The property, owned by the Port of San Francisco, has long enticed developers with its potential, but has always proved too costly and risky to take on. Current cost estimates come in at $600 million just to complete basic core and shell renovation of the 17 most significant historic structures, do the environmental clean-up and build the open space and infrastructure improvements that would be required of any developer….”
“The port is proposing that $400 million of the funding come from a combination of tax increment financing and historic preservation tax credits. Roughly $76 million could come from Proposition D, a measure on this November’s ballot that would allow a percentage of the new taxes generated in the Pier 70 area to pay off bonds; $10 million could come from a recent parks bond; and $45 million could come from the sale of Lot 337, another prime property the port is attempting to develop.”
∙ Developers line up to take on Pier 70 [San Francisco Business Times]
∙ Port of San Francisco: Pier 70 [sfport.com]
∙ Pier 70, San Francisco [pier70sf.org]
∙ Joint Giants/Kenwood Proposal For SWL 337 Into Extra Innings [SocketSite]
Tear it down. It has no use if SF has no shipping containers.
Historic? Seriously? This place is a blighted industrial relic. Go down to the Ramp, have drink, and take a gander at the derelict sheet-metal and crumbling brick buildings. Do they really deserve special consideration? It’s not like these things are gothic beauties that have fallen into disrepair…
Could be an interesting place for the Fisher Art Collection. (But that would require imagination and exploring alternate uses for parts of town that need it vs. destroying a national landmark.)
Historic or not, the time is now.
Fisher is going to shove his art collection where it feels right, so kick back and enjoy it.
I think the whole area shoulded be razed. Historic buildings are only of value if they are a) beautiful b) salvageable.
nothing in this area appears to be either to me.
What are you talking about? Look at the light. The windows. These are beautiful buildings, great examples of their era. Reusing the buildings would also be “greener” than simply carting off the concrete to the dump. And, these industrial buildings are far better than any poured stucco panel and glass module system buildings that would be built by modern developers.
I think some of these buildings should be preserved and reused too. Its not just about beautiful buildings its also about history thought I am not sure about 17 of them
Somehow its not surprising, the lack of value stated in the above comments regarding these industrial relics — because they don’t fit the classic beauty mold that the tarted-up Victorians and Edwardians here do. In Europe they’d imaginatively re-use these and mix in world-class architecture by any number of great designers (or look at the amazing reuse of similar buildings in Toronto even). Here we’ll likely get run-of-the-mill development with avaerage-at-best design, as usual. In fact it was in SF that one of the earliest large urban adaptive re-use projects in the country happened — Ghiradelli Square, but it was not known so much for its design as its approach.
Citicritter is right. Can you imagine what a European City would do with a space like this? Why does everthing in San Francisco have to be extremes? It is either “don’t touch a thing”, or tear it all down and put up stucco and press-on-brick condos. I know in Hamburg they have taken huge dockland areas and are turning them into a mixture of housing, shops, cultural space, all while saving some of the old structures at the same time while inviting top designers to build new creative structures. I will never understand why San Francisco has the most spectacular setting with some of the worst architecture in the country. If you don’t believe me, imagine this city flat, without a bay, and you would have a skyline and boulevards no different than Indianapolis or St. Louis (execpt with less trees than those two urban areas).
if sf is so bad to you then why are you concerned with it’s developments? Trees or no trees Ill leave it like Indianapolis thank you! (somebody is having a come down from the love parade candy)
Thanks for turning a conversation about the need for more open minded planning, growth and developement into some bizarre rant about “love parade candy”.
Let’s hope Catellus gets it right this time. With Mission Bay, and Playa Vista down in L.A., they sold neighbors and community groups with snazzy images and plans of communities that were both not built. Instead, money was cut, projects pulled out, and we are left with what we have now.
The original Mission Bay plans were something beyond anything one usually even sees in Europe.
The retail corridors and transit infrastructure that was originally proposed would have made Mission Bay the showcase new-town neighborhood of the country, but this was all thrown away.
To think that this area needs “preservation” shows how far this city has fallen from imaginative projects ongoing in the rest of the world. Save us the posts with stupid “love it or leave it” comments, and instead, try to become part of the solution, to fix this city, and turn areas like this into the areas you are already so obviously in love with. This may come as a shock to you “SF”, but the city is not YET ready to be put under glass.
I am part of the solution. That’s why I say tear it down, and quit looking to the past.
Well, folks from out of town kinda relate to the European look and feel SF has. ‘Course they’re not referring to Mission Bay which could have just as easily been built in Kansas City or St. Louis. What a waste of valuable land. Pier 70 will go in the same direction I imagine. A nameless, faceless, maze of buildings that people flee from at the end of the day.