75 Howard Rendered at 220 Feet

The multiple appeals which aimed to overturn the City’s approval of a 220-foot building to rise at 75 Howard Street, with 133 luxury condos over a restaurant, café and underground ‘parking vault’ for 100 cars, were all denied by San Francisco’s Board of Appeals last night.

While the Board had deadlocked as to whether or not to uphold the appeal of the Planning Commission’s exception to allow for the development’s full height and mass with one member absent last month, the motion to uphold the appeal failed in a 1-4 vote by the full Board last night.

75 Howard Rendered at Dusk

Keep in mind that building permits for Paramount Group’s 75 Howard Street development, which should take between two and three years to construct, have yet to be requested, approved or challenged.

18 thoughts on “Contested Waterfront Development Survives Challenges”
  1. Glad to see this approved to feed the “SF Pension Beast” with additional property tax revenue.

    Of course, round three begins with appeals of issuance of a Building Permit

  2. On what grounds can someone appeal the issuance of a building permit? And if they expected an appeal of a building permit, why would the developer risk the capital outlay required to get to that point in the process?

    1. We already have one of the most extensive permitting and city planning processes in the world complete with many many democratic inputs like town halls. For the sake of functionality we really need to cut back on the number of ways individuals with the money to create legal trouble can instigate once a decision has been made.

  3. stacked cargo-boxes, or a jenga tower? you be the judge.

    come on SF, design a building with a concept that is more than square footages and glass views for missing inhabitants…

  4. In their very first proposal, in addition to contributing to funding of BMR project in the Tenderloin, the developers had offered to pay for conversion of the triangular DPW parcel in front of the building into a plaza. It is just a marvelous space with tremendous potential which has gone unfulfilled for decades.

    Wonder if that “largesse” survived all the wrangling. I know the contribution to TOCCO was withdrawn with the first scale back and redesign though alternative funding has since been secured.

    1. I think you overstate any remaining peril to this development (rump that it is of the original proposal ).

      The BOS has already unanimously passed favorably upon it in the history detailed in the thread of items published here. Neither Art Agnos nor even John Grolinger are likely to risk discrediting themselves by seeking to take a ballot initiative to the voters over 20′ on a building to replace a parking garage.

      There was mention earlier by the Editors of a second pending appeal before the Board which was not given much chance of success. Wonder if it was also disposed of at the same time as the one which had originally deadlocked?

  5. It’s amazing the hoops a developer has to jump through to build up to the same height as the BUILDING NEXT DOOR for god’s sake.

    1. Not to nitpick but I think they wanted an extra 20 feet. 200->220. Not that it matters much. At this point is the 1% complaining about the .1%.

  6. No doubt the legal and other costs contribute to the price of the apartments, another factor is the high cost of housing.

  7. Even before its completion in 2021, the condominium building complex located at 75 Howard St began its marketing as 1 Steuart Ln (One Steuart Lane) in the South Beach neighborhood near the Embarcadero. Last I checked, the building was over 80 percent sold out, although it appears to me, as a non-player in the S.F. real estate game that the developer is intentionally directing a significant number of the units directly to the high-end rental market.

    From Emily Landes’ piece last month (Ultra-luxe condo market heats up downtown), in The San Francisco Standard at about paragraph ten:

    “It is a nice sign that San Francisco is back, because when people are spending this kind of money, they have options to go wherever they want,” Zeger said. “They appreciate that San Francisco is not only the best place to live, but now is quite a good value.”
    Developers are being strategic about how they release their best units. At One Steuart Lane, Zeger said, condos in the building’s 01 line have been popular for their “dead-on” views of the Bay Bridge and the water. Unit 1001, a three-bedroom, three-bath with nearly 3,000 square feet, sold in November for $9.25 million. With that data in hand, Polaris in January began marketing the identical unit one floor below at the same price. It went into contract in July.

    Luxury home “collectors” who also own properties in London, New York, and Hong Kong still make up one of the main buying pools at One Steuart Lane, Zeger said.

    She doesn’t tell us what price it actually closed at. Assuming that she’s referring to Unit 901, the 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom, 2,974 ft.² middling floor-located unit closed at the tail end of July, 2025 for $9.1 million, or a near-stratospheric $3,060 per ft.², a contract price representing a 1.62 percent decrease from the price initially asked for in January of 2025.
    But does that support the narrative that members of the global cosmopolitan luxury home collector class appreciate that San Francisco is not only the best place to live, but now is quite a good value? Because according to Homes dot com, Unit 901 is now available on the rental market for the bargain lease rate of only $35,000 per month, a rent which will apparently enable the owner to cover the water/sewer bills for the unit, but not the optional, one-time pet fee of $2,000. The Security deposit is $52,500. And btw, that lease rate corresponds to a GRM of 21.7, if the new owner can actually get someone to pay it.

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