Mission Bay Block 7 West Rendered With A Bi-Rite In Mind
January 10, 2012
Perhaps it’s simply wishful thinking, but as a plugged-in reader notes, the designs for the affordable mixed-use rental building to rise on Mission Bay Block 7 along Fourth Street between China Basin and Mission Bay Boulevard North were rendered with a Bi-Rite in mind.
The development brings 200 residences and 10,000 sf of neighborhood-serving retail to the developing area. The retail arcade wraps around the corner at Mission Bay Boulevard North, creating a lively interaction with the adjacent UCSF campus.
The large building steps down from four stories at the west side of the block to three stories toward the east. The massing is broken into discrete volumes to create a varied, interesting, and accessible street edge.
The building wraps around a large communal open space for gathering and relaxing. At the west side, a second-level podium courtyard tops the embedded garage; at the east a ground-level courtyard features a community pavilion with space and amenities for residents to gather, cook, or do laundry. The courtyard, while secure and protected, is visually open, providing glimpses of green to to passersby through the entryway.
Along China Basin, a landscaped pedestrian corridor provides access to the exterior units, which connect to the mews via raised porches.
A joint development between the Related Companies of California and the Chinatown Community Development Center, the project is currently slated to yield 72 one-bedrooms and 128 two-bedrooms with parking for 100 cars and twice as many bikes.
Comments from Plugged-In Readers
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A Bi-rite or Whole Foods would be fantastic, but I would settle for a Trader Joe’s. Are there any other grocery stores planned for south Mission Bay?
Another Big Box project trying to hide behind a “modulated” skin. FAIL! All of Mission Bay is an embarrassment to San Francisco, and not because it doesn’t have bay windows– because it’s such a dumbing down of design and architecture. This project is right in there with the worst of them.
Love it! Materials look interesting, pretty detailing, great ground floor retail – and it’s for low-income residents. The reality of doing new development anywhere in the City, not just Mission Bay (LD), mean projects have to reach a certain size to be profitable (see 401 Grove below!). Developers throughout the City are not generous enough to loose units for the sake of better massing. But what David Baker has proposed here seems like an elegant solution.
Low-income housing with a Bi-Rite? That seems odd.
james…not at all. Trader Joes is housed in a low income housing complex in North Beach. It’s all about the demographics of the larger community.
Safeway is located just across the Channel, so it’s not as if there aren’t nearby shopping alternatives.
TJ and Bi-Rite have somehow overlapping demographics but whenever their products do overlap BR is 50%+ more expensive. TJ can be even cheaper than Safeway for a number of products.
First thing that popped into my head was, “I thought the city wasn’t going to do any more public housing projects”? Oh, must be BMR.
The challenge, o BMR architect, is to design BMR that isn’t instantly recognizable as such.
Aw, sh!t, the drab, boring, boxy design of this makes it look like the projects. 🙁
All I said was that it reeked of David Baker…whats so bad about that?
[Censor’s Note: Nothing. In fact, your comment still stands, right where you posted it, on a different thread.]
…so did you happen to see former mayor Art Agnos walking by in the second renderings…guess David will give him a place of his own there.
“…so did you happen to see former mayor Art Agnos walking by in the second renderings…”
By the way: It looks like Deepak Chopra to me!
@lol: It’s true. Birite is more expensive. There’s also only one of them (soon to be a second on Divisidero) as compared to hundreds of Trader Joe’s. Their sites do not require parking. They have a much higher ratio of employees to square footage. So many differences. Plus their ice cream is better.
Curious, what overlaps between BiRite and T-J’s?
I’d rather have a Ranch 99. Safeway is just down the street, and WF is just a few more blocks away.
^ cheese, wine, euro-style breads, organic versions of snacks & staples, gourmet/”natural” packaged foods…
Curious, what overlaps between BiRite and T-J’s?
Some vegan foods and as James said some packaged and refrigerated goods. The overlap is mostly on non-local stuff. I’ll try and pay more attention next time I go and give you a few specific examples.
We need more Bi-Rites in town, because I see more and more double-parking there on WEs which defeats the purpose of shopping local. I love the location 3 blocks away from my place. It was a minor reason for me to purchase close-by. BR redefined that stretch of 18th.
Really? Man, you gotta be nuts to double park there. It’s not only a busy street but it’s on a bus line. Guess I haven’t ever gone to TJ’s and BR in close succession, so that’s why I asked. Wine, really? Cheese and breads I can see.
Yup. Sometimes it’s drivers dropping off their better half to start the shopping, other times it’s people waiting for the limited loading space to free up.
People want a responsible shopping experience but sometimes have a hard time understanding that it means less driving. Just look at the parking control at WF on 24th 😉
From the architect: Unfortunately the Bi-Rite logo was only an “artist’s conception”. Every neighborhood deserves a Bi-Rite, the best grocery store in the world (my opinion).
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at the smart-a$$ “looks like the projects” comments, but really? So the Strata project next door is better? And all the new Hayes Valley stuff looks like the projects?
You could say, rightly, that it could be a better design, but to say it looks like “the projects” or “BMRs” (um, which ones, where?) is unfair and an overstatement. I’d argue that it’s better design than almost any of the recent Mission market-rate buildings, and that the design would be praised in most cities in the country.
Guess what. Putting fictitious desirable tenant into the rendering is the latest fad in selling your plan. This is the equivalent of staging in architecture.
And don’t try Starbucks. It will get your plan rejected.
^ it’s worse than staging. Including a business or person in such a rendering implies their endorsement of the project, at least to the general public.