The owners of City Storage, the four-story, self-storage facility at 500 Indiana Street, at the edge of Mission Bay, Dogpatch and Potrero Hill, are working on plans to add a fifth floor with seventeen “penthouse” apartments for people.
The proposed addition includes one three-bedroom, seven two-bedrooms, four one-bedrooms, and five studios.
Seventeen bike parking spaces, and a new lobby numbered 550 Indiana Street, would be added for residents as well, while all the storage units below would remain.
San Francisco’s Planning Department generally supports the “Indiana Penthouses” project, which would rise a half-block away from the Café Cocomo development at 650 Indiana, as proposed. We’ll keep you posted and plugged-in.
Comments from Plugged-In Readers
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great project and good template for adding onto potential buildings.
My dream house … on top of 4 stories of self-storage and at eye level and within stone’s throw of a 6-lane highway. Oh yeah, and no parking. Maybe they’ll throw in a free storage unit for me.
Really, who cares? Are self-storage units terrible neighbors, or something? Of course it has drawbacks, but a lot of people live in places with drawbacks.
Living above this place could actually be a nice perk. You’ve got as much rentable stuff storage and wine storage as you need, and also cargo vans when you need them. I actually have a 96 sqft unit here and visited it today. Rather than clutter my home with a bunch of stuff I only need occasionally (camping gear, ski gear, sentimental art/furniture/books), I keep that stuff at CityStorage. But it’s 3 miles away from me and can easily take 1.5 hours round trip during rush hour :/. But if it was just downstairs from me, I’d keep a lot more stuff there. And since the “penthouses” will have their own addresses and lobby, it’s not like guests will have to use the freight elevators. As far as parking, there is already a giant 1st floor garage which always has tons of open spaces (it’s free for storage customers). They will presumably offer to rent out these extra spaces to the apartment tenants.
This place seems quite well managed, so I trust that they will do a good job managing the apartments too. Also, there is a new park across the street (Mariposa) now.
Though from all appearances completed, neither the Mission Bay Playground nor Mariposa Park have been opened to the public as yet.
Nothing more to say after TBK. Is the top floor no longer a top floor [but rather] the Penthouse floor? What is a real penthouse called?
The pentultimate-house, of course… ^_^
This might create the only penthouses in the City where you can install hard flooring and not worry about your downstairs neighbors complain about the stomping.
They should plan ahead to turn the storage units into habitable micro- units in the future. People don’t need to store that much stuff.
Not so fast…I have two thousand bottles of wine there.
Why don’t you think we “need to store that much stuff”? I have an 8×12-foot unit there and love it. Obviously it’s a lot less convenient than storing stuff at home, but is also a lot cheaper on a per-sqft basis. And I avoid cluttering my home with a bunch of stuff that I only need occasionally (camping gear, ski gear, old files, sentimental art/furniture/books). It’s also a lot easier to get large stuff in and out with their freight elevators, carts, rental cargo vans, etc. They offer temp-controlled wine storage too (though I don’t use that).
Well, yeah, it’s a lot cheaper on a per-sqft basis. Which is why it would be logical for the owners to convert it into livable space.
I give it 6 months until after completion – then the owner files plans with the City to convert all the storage units in building mini studio single room occupancy condos. Like ‘Cubix’ but wth some neighborhood parking….
I actually think this is kind of an awesome idea. I wouldn’t want to live there now, but in my twenties I totally would have been fine with it if the rents were low enough…
Nice view of 280
This project is pretty disheartening. They don’t seem to be making any adjustments to the current facade? It’s remaining self storage?
Super huge waste of a large lot.
I think this building is FANCY self storage–art, wine, etc–notice fortress style construction
perfect place to live for the person with wayyyy too much stuff
How long is it going to take for something to happen to the big self-storage building on Geary and Masonic? Now that seems like a real waste of a location.
Isn’t there talk about replacing that Copper Penny Diner around the corner to housing? When that gets built, maybe something will happen with the self-storage. You are talking a very different income level area from SOMA. Otherwise, the Alexandria Theater would have been converted to housing already despite decades long battles back and forth. Currently it looks as desolate as it has ever before.
It doesn’t have much to do with income, the alexandria is just surrounded by fully developed neighborhoods with plenty of old people to go to meetings and complain about every design.
well, at least it’s better than people just living IN the storage units…
If I take up residence in a self storage unit, do I get eviction protection and rent control?
I don’t think you can go into the storage units at all hours of the night, so it would be pretty quiet except for your immediate neighbors. I’d prefer this over 4 floors of neighbors below me.
It’s great that someone’s taking space that’s already built upon and adding some addl height to create residential units. Bravo!
Oh that’s ridiculous. Won’t ever happen. Totally not going to happen. What kind of a hot mess do you think this town has become? Next you’ll tell me that kink.com is going to occupy the entire Armory and its owner and his pals will live there full time and even shoot their guns off inside. Not gonna happen. No way.
What better place to shoot guns than an armory?
A porn studio, dear. A porn studio.
you’ve complained about every housing proposal here on SS; if you’ve suggested good alternatives I missed those comments.
even if this non-offensive let-the-market-decide property is ‘no way’, where the f do we build new homes?
In Mountain House, of course.
Or maybe Reno.
Anywhere that is a long way away from Unlivable City. I think UC might be happier in the “urban prairies” of Detroit. Plenty of “open space” and “parking” and no pressure to build new housing in most neighborhoods!
Proof people will live anywhere. And a reminder that American stuffism is alive and well. Renting space to store crap. Only in the USA. What’s the point?
Because none of the responses above in this thread have any logical value?
Because you are, I assume, a virtuous Zen Monk who only owns a mat, a tea pot, and a rice bowl, and one piece of underwear.
The city just made it illegal to turn left onto Indiana from Mariposa, and vice versa. So anybody living there will have to go around the block.
The depth of tragedy just grows!
The 280 freeway north of Mariposa is going to get torn down soon. Read the tea leaves of all these housing developments going up right next to the current freeway. They don’t expect the freeway to be there much longer.
Just like Rincon Hill.