Once again, a 10-story building with 351 housing units, 32,000 square feet of retail and a 56,000-square-foot basement parking garage has been proposed to rise above the 16th Street Bart Station on the northeast corner of Mission Street, the preliminary design and massing for which is illustrated above and below.
The basement garage would contain 161 parking spaces, 39 spaces for the ground floor retailers and 122 spaces for the residential units, 88 of which would be stacked, with its entrance on Capp Street. The garage would also include space for 193 bikes.
Looks blocky and massive; less footprint & taller. Same number of units. (At least the Mission bldg.) Taller would be far more elegant and breathable.
Putting 351 units at this location, next to transit makes so much more sense than putting 320 units at 1601 Mariposa where there are limited transit options. Just saying.
So far so good –
I’d say go taller
Let’s start by using a firehose on that corner
what a disaster
Putting 351 units at this location, next to transit makes so much more sense than putting 320 units at 1601 Mariposa where there are limited transit options. Just saying.
I think the 320 at 1601 Mariposa makes perfect sense. No idea why we’re contemplating ONLY 351 units at this location though. Should be 1000+
I believe it would be nice to include a green roof. In my opinion San Francisco lacks green roofs on buildings. I would also agree that its pretty blocky but so far so good.
Ten stories? With the housing crisis, this needs to be at minimum 25 stories….come on!
Those $80,000 BART salaries pensions healthcare overtime daycare expenses tuition retirement funds workers compensation aren’t going to pay themselves.. taller taller taller!
Over $2 billion in property taxes and counting!!!
sf it is not BART property, so BART won’t be making a dime from the implementation of the project. Perhaps you are simply counting future BART patrons, or perhaps you’re just blowing hot air.
@curmudgeon
don’t taxes pay for BART? More housing = more people = more taxes = more BART employee benefits
Looks like someone found out how to clean up this intersection – by rebuilding from the ground up!
What about the SF Unified-owned lot on Mission between 15th and 16th? It’s another prime site for development.
BART is funded primarily through sales tax and fares…so in an incredibly marginal way 500 or so more people will improve BART finances.
I hope this will be a luxury building with 24×7 on-site security. Even though the property doesn’t include the open sewer that is the BART “plaza” it would be nice if someone had a vested interest in the safety and sanitation of the neighborhood and actually might report the crimes on that location.
should be 25+ floors. can people please try to think beyond 10 yrs from now? This building will be around for 100+. 10 floors is way way too low for this location
This project could not happen soon enough. Sure, the building is boring, but that’s pretty common of new buildings here. This building will be a very nice addition to this neighborhood and hopefully give BART incentive to improve their plazas as well.
10 stories will be one of the tallest buildings that I can think of in the Mission. Let’s be realistic with all this talk of 25 story buildings when there is a residential street on Capp. People are going to be fighting over 10 and this will end up at 5 stories
This is great. Next I would like to see a lot more office space open up on Mission St between 16th and 24th. That would be AWESOME for the neighborhood.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that the soil doesn’t allow for buildings any taller than this in most of the Mission.
The interface, or lack thereof, with the BART station is unfortunate, cuz the station’s going to be there… forever.
Still, better than what’s there now.
You’re wrong, Schlub. It’s the same basic soil conditions as most of downtown & SOMA, which of course have a wide range of building heights. From the maps it looks like alluvial soil associated with Mission Creek might be under this site, although it’s close to a more stable zone.
http://geology.about.com/library/bl/maps/n_map_sanfranliqmap.htm
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that the soil doesn’t allow for buildings any taller than this in most of the Mission.
Sorry, but you’re wrong. There’s nothing special about “Mission soil”. Now, Mission Bay is a bit different, in that taller buildings require very deep pilings – but it’s still quite possible there.
The Mission can handle as tall of a building as can be constructed anywhere – there are better conditions than the financial district, actually.
SF is finally catching up to Walnut Creek in it’s development philosophy. Bravo!
It’s probably the fault of the illustration, but this looks a bit fortress like, as if to protect the residents from the crime zombies just outside. Hopefully this will change. It feels suffocating.
I hope this trend of ripping out old and underutilized along transit becomes fast growing. Rather than hoping that efficient transit becomes available in nice areas, convert crappy areas into nice areas.
Terrific news, very nice SOM design. Build it now please!
This is the kind of place I would love to inhabit. Soon, please, and more like it.
I’m with zig.
Maybe it makes logical sense to build taller here. But it ain’t gonna happen, not with the NIMBY’s righting to preserve, uhhhh, the Walgreens and other crappy buildings there now. Mark my words, there will be opposition.
If they’re smart, they’re planning on building, say, eight stories, so they throw out a proposal for ten, reach out to the neighbors, make big donations to neighborhood groups, hold ‘design charrettes’, blah blah, pretend to give up two stories, and build the eight they were planning all along.
8 stories is fine.
This is the first of a few baby steps.
In 5 years, someone can develop the corner diagonally across the intersection, where there’s currently a Well’s Fargo, another business, and a parking lot. With the precedent set by this development, the second one can be 10-15 stories and 450+ units, which I think is appropriate for the location.
“The Mission can handle as tall of a building as can be constructed anywhere – there are better conditions than the financial district, actually.”
Interesting. Good to know, thanks for the correction. I was basing my comment on other people who’ve told me as much.
What about the school on Capp Street adjacent to the site on Capp Street? 10 stories will block their light & the garage on Capp will have a major impact.
I thought this was a drawing of the original brutalist 10 story building designed for this location back in the 60s. I know this drawing is without color, but I would like to see a bit more detail.
These look like old renderings to me.
10 stories is massive in this neighborhood, but reasonable. Hopefully they only cut it down to 8.
I think the adjacent parcels around BART stations are actually zoned for this extra height, if Im not mistaken…
Taller, yes, like yesterday.
The garage entrance on Capp Street is going to be filled with filth. But on the other hand, I guess it could be the first step in cleaning up the street. The rendering itself looks a little ugly and I’m sure the residents will fight this “gentrification.”
One reason Mission Street was selected for BART, and the reason 16th and 24th Sts were selected for the stations was the development potential. There is no point in building heavy rail and surrounding the stations with 1-story buildings that are there now. At the time, there were serious plans to develop these sites, including bridging over the BART “holes in the ground.” These plans were killed by the “Mission activists” who then, as now, don’t want any change in the neighborhood, and then wonder why a studio in the Mission rents for $2500/month, and the BART plazas are crack central.
OMN, that’s a good point. This is (hopefully) the first step. When (if?) this gets built, the next one on the other corner can be taller. Then we can hope to get reasonably tall buildings on the 24th St. station.
This should have happened 20 years ago, and if it happens it will take ten years too long, but maybe it will start now.
Really getting tired of the box and glass. Boring and very repetitive. Where is our planning commission?
Ok, Grace. You said it 3 times.
Since you and a lot of others keep complaining about “glass and boxes”, what would you prefer?
Oh, I know. How about a high rise wooden Victorian?
I would prefer to see something super modern and innovative. I know strange shaped buildings can add to the cost, but we can still have some fun with it without driving up the cost too much. Check out this great Dutch building: silodam.
Taller, taller, taller.
And tapered.
But hopefully this will help clean up that consistently deplorable corner.
Not enough bay windows. How would someone even know this was in San Francisco? More bay windows please. Also, shorter. Maybe 2-3 stories instead. Also more parking, needs to be at least five parking spots per units. And shiny/reflecty to make sure that the children next door aren’t tortured by shadows (think of the children!). Also, no market rate units, all below market rate. Also, no subsidized units, needs to be all market rate. Also, taller.
NoeValleyJim. that is the ugliest building i’ve ever seen. thanks for the perspective. yes, architecture could indeed be worse than what we are seeing here.
Heh, that building NVJ links looks like it was made from leftovers.
Yea, see NVJ certainly is entitled to his opinion as what constitutes a “great” building, as he shows us.
But he doesn’t really have the skills to talk about good, modern architecture:
Other than to hark back to wanting us to copy Dutch architecture, and of course, require us all to ride little bikes like the Dutch do.
And yea, that building is pretty ugly.
NVJ said that you could do something fun without driving costs up. Check out the Silodam building: it is a basic rectilinear box and as cheap to construct as they come. But the architect used color, fenestration variation, and other minor changes in form to make something interesting.
Anywhere 5-10 stories is fine, but way less parking. In compensation every tenant should get a free Fastpass. A better design might be to take over the “plaza” within the footprint.
I emailed my BART supe, Tom Radulovich, to ask why this project was so short. Here’s what he had to say:
“[..]BART staff are meeting this week with the developers to hear about their plans. BART has no land use authority, but we is working with them on an integrated approach to open space. The existing buildings don’t do much for the neighborhood, and the right project would be a tremendous improvement.
Thanks to the Eastern Neighborhood rezoning five years ago, the site has no density limits or minimum parking requirements. As far as I know the developer is not asking for a height exception; I think a height increase would trigger more extensive CEQA review.”
Since I don’t have a design degree I will keep my comments to myself. In addition, I will smile and nod to anything that Futurist has to say because he seems to be our resident SS expert. Let us all bow.
San Franciscans love to impose their values upon others.
“Hey, you ride a bike, and you, lady, here’s a Fastpass, no car for you. Stop eating meat. This should be a meatless building.”
^Happy to hear that you’re for getting rid of all zoning. At least I assume that’s what you mean, since you don’t want to impose your values upon others.
I hadn’t realized that this location had the financing available for a “great” building. Maybe you could share with us some of your ideas to buildings that would be similar to what could be built here at a reasonable cost.
The Guggenheim Balboa cost $89M (in 1997 dollars). The Getty cost $350M. I really doubt that we will have that kind of budget here. So you really need to scale your expectations to the likely budget of the developers and architects.
The Getty cost $1b, and probably more.
Yeah you are right, I was going off an old LA Times article. According to wikipedia, the Getty cost $1.3B.
This ain’t New York. Go back there all of you