Currently slated to be razed, the Dogpatch Neighborhood Association hopes to save the Bluepeter Building at 555 Illinois street in Mission Bay.
This two-story wooden building with a vaulted roof was built in 1940 for the CF Hendry company, a ship chandlery business. When built, it had direct access to the bay; access was later lost in one of the last bay filling operations. Around 1955 the rear of the building was notched out to preserve the building when the street now known as Terry Francoise Blvd. was constructed. The Bluepeter Company, by which name the building is now known, was an exhibit design company.
The move to preserve the building that’s been vacant for a decade isn’t an attempt to block infill or new condos, however, as the land on which the Bluepeter Building sits is actually slated to become “open space.”
Instead, the neighbors want the building to be used as an enclosed structure for recreation and community use, neither of which exist in the current plans. Okay, and to preserve a bit of neighborhood history and “soul.”
∙ Bluepeter Building: 555 Illinois Street | Inside | On The Map [pier70sf.org]
∙ Dogpatch residents join forces to save notable building [Examiner]
The inhabitants of all other metropolitan areas on this fair planet would welcome the razing of this decrepit neglected tagged structure.
If you want to save it, buy its “soul….”
I’m sorry, but LOL at a neighborhood that prides itself on anarchy having a neighborhood association.
Unless of course it seeks to preserve a quonset hut for recreation and community use. Said use detailed within future plans that do not exist.
Forget it. Business as usual. Remember the comic strip? “Dogpatch” baby!
Outside of California’s self-imposed Prop. 13 mess it might be possible for neighbors in the majority to pass an assessment to fund recreation or soul or whatever else. Here two thirds are required, and about the only thing that many people agree on is more housing.
Combine that with this neo-NIMBY slacktivism and the result is development gridlock that hurts everyone. The one positive point might be that future developers may have an unusually broad range of infill sites to work with once our culture heals itself.
You posters just don’t get quonset hut chic. Think of all the things you can do with such a beautiful historic structure. Haven’t you ever watched MASH reruns? Radar O’Reilly can hang out in there and get radio messages from space. I say paint it in camouflage and make everyone who enters wear Hawaiian shirts. Save the children! Save the PDR blight!
If only they would let me buy it to make my loft home…able to park my motorcyle in my living room…
Thanks for helping to keep SF real estate prices folks!
Quasimopdo…get real with your self. This building is a POS. I am all for saving truly historical buildings, but this is not one of them. The matter should be left to the owner of the property to make these chooses
When I first read the headline of the post I immediately thought that fighting for this building (over development) is taking things too far.
The fact the area is slated for open space AND this would be rehabbed for recreation use as part of that open space seems like a great idea to me.
to me it seems that there are 2 separate issues
1) whether or not this building should be “historic” or is worth saving.
2) the possible need for a community rec center or similar in this area
my own thoughts: the owner of the property should have the right to do what s/he wants with their property. if they are interested in converting it to a rec space for the community, or selling it to the community for such a reason, Hooray!
if they decide to raze it, then that’s fine too.
the rec center is a separate issue, and the local residents should go through the appropriate avenues to get a rec center, and not try to hijack a rec center through some historic preservation movement.
FWIW:
the linked article above states:
“This building has been determined ineligible for National Register or designation under local ordinances BUT should be given special consideration in local planning.”
seems like there is not much to argue here.
If the building is slated to become open space, then I think it is perfectly valid for community members to suggest that the building be preserved for open space related use.
It might not make sense at all…the building may be too far gone to easily retrofit, and a rec/community center may not be appropriate here. But it seems to me it is worth at least a cursory investigation,as this building is a reminder of what used to be in this neighborhood, and would seem to be adaptable to a variety of uses.
What’s unclear to me is what “slated to become open space” actually means. If it is simply something colored in on a zoning map, but with no commitment from the city to purchase any time soon, then I agree with ex-SFer that the current owner should do what they will with the property.
However, if acquisition by the City is imminent, I think it’s just a matter of encouraging the current property owner to secure the building rather than demo it until there’s been a thoughtful consideration of what to do.
As I play, have some cheese…
I have no doubt they could use a community center that is indoors (have you walked past Berry Street to get to the Mission Bay Branch Library before? hold on to your hat!), but I thought UCSF Mission Bay had a structure that offers that function … maybe I’m wrong.
I love this sort of story.
Being a cynic myself, I wonder whether there is asbestos or some other environmental hazard that would need to be cleaned up (maybe a trace of benzene in the ground?). Not to mention a reconditioning of the entire building in a historically “sensitive” manner. Could be a lot of $$ involved, certainly more than it would be to just bulldoze I’d imagine. I know some funny stories of situations like this back East. Follow the money.
Not so much asbestos as lead paint.
Nothing a pack of matches won’t fix …
Is it bad to burn lead paint? B/c I just burned up a ton of 85-year old painted siding the other day.
I’m sorry, wouldn’t any asbestos or lead paint problems have to be dealt with whether the building was kept or demolished? You can’t just push that stuff into the ground if the place is going to be used as a park, correct?
Open space = wino and crack whore recreation yard
If the land is already designated as open space, it is already part of the land Catellus had to commit to public use, as part of the Mission Bay plan.
I don’t know whether it makes any sense to try to preserve this building, but it makes sense that neighbors might want an enclosed neighborhood recreation center, as other neighborhoods have.
RE: the UCSF Mission Bay community center: The UCSF Mission Bay gym requires membership, and the conference center space is rented to the public for events. That is different than a community center for the general public, eg, for neighborhood youth recreation programs.
I was down at this building, known as the ‘Blue Peter’ building yesterday as part of Sunday Streets. I learned about this building for the first time as there were folks getting people to sign a petition to save the building. Everyone was polite and informative and not at all pushy or NIMBY, I got a history lesson and I appreciated it.
It seems that the building was to be part of a [park] and then recently disappeared from drawings that now show only open space. Weirdly this open space is now not going to be park but instead some kind of ‘run-off’ or water drainage space, it was claimed that this then would not be usable space for anyone as it was claimed that it would be fenced off.
For me if it can be worked into the Mission Bay plan and there is someone (group or individual) with deep enough pockets to make this building work then great.
At the moment this appears to be falling somewhere between the cracks of the Port, Mission Bay Development Plan and the neighbors, I would recommend everyone get in a room for an ‘all-nighter’ and not come out until they have resolved it, otherwise I suspect we’ll be talking about this one for a very long time.
“I was down at this building, known as the ‘Blue Peter’ building yesterday as part of Sunday Streets. I learned about this building for the first time as there were folks getting people to sign a petition to save the building. Everyone was polite and informative and not at all pushy or NIMBY, I got a history lesson and I appreciated it.”
———————————
One more day I find myself alive,
Tomorrow maybe go beneath the ground.
See here how everything led up to this day,
And it’s just like any other day that’s ever been.
Sun going up and then the sun going down.
Shine through my window and my friends they come around,
Come around, come around.
The people might know, but the people don’t care,
That a man can be as poor as me.
Take a look at poor Peter, he’s lying in pain,
Now let’s come run and see, run and see,
Run and see, run, run and see, and see.
http://tinyurl.com/WithApologiesGDLyrics
This Blue Peter looks like it desperately needs to be razed.
Someone call up Les Ferdinand.
It’s not a quonset hut, people.
I used to play in and around that building when I was a kid. My friend’s dad started Bluepeter. The family lived upstairs, in one-half of the loft. In the other half another company made nylon sails. Downstairs we used to make things in the shop with the weekend-idle tools and wood scraps. Then we’d wash our hands with Lava soap and go into the clean, mod office and pretend to be characters on Space 1999.
Outside, in the yard, the family built their amazing wooden sailboats — one of which was launched in China Basin (now renamed McCovey Cove), moored at the China Basin Building between the Third and Fourth Street bridges, and became the family’s primary residence.
It was an early SF example of live-work loft life, which I would think some Socketsite readers might be interested in.
I could live there. Very cool. Too bad so many people don’t appreicate what it is.
Does everything in town have to look like it was designed by Sternberg Benjamin Architects?
I love their designs, but I like the old stuff, too.
Pritchard — that does sound pretty cool actually (kids would love living in a workshop with all those neat tools and wooden stuff to play with).
But unfortunately, this is 2009 and children must have their time scheduled, be wired into the internet 24/7 and protected from the physical world and the city around them at all times by helicopter nannies.
Fine looking building really with some TLC. Gives a bit of flavor and a nod to the past for this rapidly changing area, as well as a relief from some of the “boxy” buildings going in down there. If this parcel is slated for open space, it seems to make sense to look at the option of a bit less open space and some recycled communal closed space (throw some big doors on that building and it becomes indoor/outdoor space!).
Oh jeez, not this crap again.
Astonishing! Another example of a city that thinks it is so special, that every single part of it must be “saved”, even buildings that in other cities would be looked at as old toenail clippings.
I guess the biggest question is who is going to pay for the restoration of the building into a community center? Won’t that be in the millions?? The City? As it’s laying off hundreds of rec and park staff and closing rec centers? Since the site is in the Mission Bay Plan, then the funds are there to build the park – it’s part of the deal with the master developer – they have to build it. Seems like a shame if the pipe dreams of a few people holds up constuction of a new park, in an area where there is not a lot open space. And isn’t the Port is restoring lots of old buildings on Pier 70 with lots public space? That’s just down the street..
And the histrionic preservationists wonder why they’re not taken seriously.