Approved for development at the end of 2010, the mixed-use building with 82 residential units over a Whole Foods market that’s under construction at 2001 Market Street and Dolores is subject to $928,937 in Market-Octavia Area Plan Infrastructure Impact Fees.
Area Plan Impact Fees can either be paid directly to the City or developers may request to provide in-kind infrastructure improvements. The Prado Group, developer of 2001 Market Street, is now seeking approval for a proposed In-Kind Agreement to provide “streetscape, pedestrian safety, and public space improvements” along Dolores and Market Streets in return for a waiver of $510,000 of their Market-Octavia Fees.
The Prado Group’s proposed improvements include:
1. Sidewalk bulb-outs (widened sidewalks) at the intersection of Market and Dolores Streets on both the southeast and southwest sides, and on the North-West corner of Dolores and 14th Streets
2. A public plaza, including seating and landscaping on the southwest corner of Dolores and Market Streets adjacent to the future Whole Foods grocery store
3. An extension of the Dolores Street median to Market Street
4. Special paving materials in the crosswalk across Dolores at Market
5. A raised crosswalk and bulb-outs on Clinton Park alley where it intersects Dolores
In the words of San Francisco’s Planning Department which recommends the Planning Commission approve the agreement and plan:
The proposed improvements would help enhance pedestrian safety through calming traffic, shortening crossing distance, and increasing visibility of pedestrians crossing Dolores Street, through providing pedestrian amenities such as bulb-outs, a median extension, and reducing the number of travel lanes at the intersection of Dolores and Market Streets. Additionally, the proposed improvements would enhance the public life in this neighborhood by creating a public plaza with seating and landscaping for people to relax and mingle adjacent to the new development.
The proposed public plaza in front of the future development would introduce an urban open space to this neighborhood that would supplement traditional open spaces in the neighborhood such as Dolores Park or Duboce Park, and is consistent with other urban plazas in the Upper Market area, such as Jane Warner Plaza at Castro and Market Streets. The plaza and all other improvements proposed in this In-Kind Agreement would be publicly accessible and located on public rights-of-way.
Click the plan above to enlarge.
∙ 2001 Market Street Development (AKA Whole Foods Castro) Approved [SocketSite]
∙ 2001 Market Street: Let’s Get Ready To Rubble And Build! [SocketSite]
as a potential buyer in this building i consider the ‘public plaza’ to be a big negative. has anyone seen the public spaces (planter seating) across the street at Safeway? disgusting.
and the Jane Warner Plaza at Castro/Market has turned into a halfway house for Haight kids.
why do i want a vagrant magnet attached to my home?
no thanks.
What does the developer get out of this deal? I am assuming the proposed work would not cost them 500k but has an assessed value of such?
A public plaza would be a disaster. The proposed park area is right across the street from the recycling center next to Safeway at Buchanan and Market. This attracts a really unpleasant crowd who will just love a new place to actually stretch out and relax. Do these developers (or city planners) ever really take a look around before these great decisions are made?
Time to recycle some of the street trash. “Stretch out and relax?” More like “heckle, annoy, solicit and threaten.” Public space in the city ends up as a big litter box filled with human waste.
Looking forward to WF. Easier for me to access on my way home on the L train.
keep the nude, lewd, rude, weird bizarre idiots in the Tenderloin, Castro/17th and The Haight
no thanks to the “public spaces” – which in SF are always filled with….See above…..
NO
Narrowing Dolores to one lane at the corner sounds like a really stupid idea.
Isn’t Prado a local developer? They should know better. The public plaza sounds great ideally, but, in reality, the above commenters are probably, unfortunately correct.
Although, perhaps a Whole Foods type crowd would not make homeless and vagrants feel welcome. It’s not like every public space in San Francisco has degenerates filling them up.
But, this is San Francisco, home of bleeding heart softies. The homeless that populate this are will probably be given organic wet dog food for their new puppies.
“Impact fees” are basically a way to drive up the cost of housing. No thank you. Sometimes, I hate this city.
Does anyone know if these will be condos or rentals? There are conflicting postings on the web. Thanks.
As an architect, and a owner on Church St in the 200 block, I want to state.
1.) the corner of Market and Dolores is already spectacular.
2.) This is self-serving for the developer
3.) it would increase the homeless and food-scavegers in the area.
4.) Put the money into better services for the homeless and low income people.
5.) The street people are the drug users and dealers at Safeway and many of us do not feel safe in our neighborhood.
Thanks,
Tim, Architect
public plazas in SF… great in theory, absolutely horrific to live by in practice…
I really do not understand the City’s obsession with parklets lately. Whats wrong with just putting a sidewalk with some nice trees.
I live in the neighborhood and tend to agree that the Recycling Center is a menace. But I’m wondering – has closure of the HANC recycling center in Golden Gate Park made any difference in the immediate neighborhood? The Stanyan St. entrance to GG Park looks just as bad to me now as it’s always been.
Too many of the parklets are now being set up with tables, chairs and utensils from the adjacent restaurant, acting as if this is their own PRIVATE space, which it is not.
No more parklets: put in trees and sidewalk landscaping.
Appears to self-serving improvements for the most part. This is not what the fees were put in place to fund. Who is on the hook to maintain all this once it is in place?
Please confirm this information about this property, if you know the answer: I was told that due to noise complaints, the courts told the builder that he can’t work on the project all day, and must reduce his work hours to something like 10 am to 2pm. Due to this, the project will be delayed for 2 to 3 yrs.
I also live in the neighborhood and have to admit I’m a little saddened to see the kind of reaction this idea is gettiing. There’s a similar bulb-out public space across from Duboce park at the cafe there and it’s great. Do those of you who are so terrified of the homeless just stay in doors all day?
There’s a ton of new construction going on in this mid/upper-market/north-mission/whatever-you-call-it neighborhood and it’s going to take more public spaces to adequately service all of our new neighbors. I’d much rather have some open space put in this location where I know I can happily make use of it than have the funds flushed into a pit of city bureaucracy.
Homeless people need neither plazas nor bulb-outs to swarm a Whole Foods entrance. If anything, having the entrance on the other side of the building will lure them away from the plaza.
We should eliminate all sidewalks, parks, plazas, and just about anything that is nice looking in the city. That way there will be fewer places for the homeless to ruin.
I like the corner the way it is. I agree with the majority of opinion about these parklets that seem to become havens for the homeless, nudists and assorted “disadvantaged”.
Let’s keep it simple. Sidewalks and trees.
Well, I don’t like it the way it is. A 110-foot street crossing is not pleasant for pedestrians, especially when it’s totally unnecessary.
But I would like it if the space could be used on a daily basis by cafe tables or the like (‘course the city should collect some rent for that, too). There’s room enough for it. Some people seem to have the idea that this is an unacceptable private use of public space, but I find that baffling. Patrons of an adjacent cafe at sidewalk tables is a “private use”, but car storage for the same people is a “public use”!?
If anything, trees and landscaping are more likely to become a homeless camp than cafe tables are, simply because ordinary people don’t tend to hang around patches of grass.