1740 Market Street Site

Plans for leveling the former Rebel Bar building at 1740-1772 Market Street and raising a nine-story development on the site, with 100 apartments over 4,400 square feet of ground-floor commercial space and parking for 160 bikes, have been granted a neighborhood-plan based exemption from having to complete a lengthy environmental impact report (EIR).

The development’s design by Forum Design has been refined, with a bit more separation to the east, and newly rendered.

And this Thursday, July 28, San Francisco’s Planning Commission is slated to approve the Conditional Use authorization necessary for the 1740 Market Street building to rise, adjacent to 8 Octavia, across the street from the Flax site and on the edge of the new Market Street Hub neighborhood as envisioned.

30 thoughts on “Big Rebel Bar Redevelopment Closer to Reality”
    1. Love the term hub monsters. Here’s a thought – better reduce the height of these monsters to fit in with the 8 story buildings that mostly would surround them. Visually the effect will be jarring if the hub upzoning goes through. le

      1. while we’re at it, why not just demolish and rebuild our city to the scale of bodega bay or sausalito?

          1. It would force the chronic complainers and NIMBY’s to dream up something else to fight.

  1. one of the best things things that noone has mentioned is how it’ll fix that bizarre garbage/parking area facing market on the octavia side of the property. for as long as i can remember, it has been slick with cooking grease, littered with detritus, etc. this new project will mean an intact streetwall from octavia all the way to gough/haight.

  2. 100 new apartments in the city center, that’s probably about 150 new cars competing in parking and traffic, with no corresponding increase in transport infrastructure.

    1. Not to mention the squeeze it’ll make on neighborhood parking since there is no provision for any off street parking for these 100 new residences.

    2. what world are you people living in? in my building, we have about 30 people, i know virtually all of them. we have an older couple (used to own the building), two tenants in their late 40s, and about 25 people in their 20s and 30s. only 2 people have cars, and both of them park them semi-permanently down on the peninsula and take a shuttle down when they need to pick them up.

      basically, people who live in walkable, central neighborhoods don’t usually have cars. my neighbor across the hall dumped his car after a few months of constantly moving it and dealing with the hassle. he’s been car-free for 3 years now. the people moving into a place like this one will be moving there for the privilege of shedding their automobiles.

      1. Seriously. I guess Sabbie must not get out of the suburbs much.

        In a convenient location like this, with half a dozen bus lines, a street trolley, and a subway all within easy walking distance, I imagine the number of cars per unit would be closer to 0.25 than 1.5.

        Especially now with Uber in the equation, there are a lot of people who just don’t want to own cars any more.

        1. I’ve been living in SF since ’96. What world are YOU living in, have you tried to drive anywhere lately? Before school let out in June it was absolutely out of control.

          You can take the anecdotal evidence or the facts, but my experience matches up with the facts.

          Just because there is proximity to transit doesn’t mean people still don’t own cars. That’s just a utopian pipedream at this point in time. They might use transit for commuting, but they still drive their cars for grocery shopping, weekend trips, shuttling the kids to soccer, etc. Lots of them have two cars per household.

          1. I moved to SF from LA to get away from what appeared to be the necessity of cars to get around in that city.

            I live down the street with my wife and kid, and not only do I not have a car, but neither does my wife. In fact we get around by bike all over the city and Bay Area as family. We are fit, healthy, happy, and save hundreds of dollars a month by not having a car. We have been carless for over 13 years.

            I had a car that I rarely used during my first decade here, and eventually gave her up, when I met my wife. We enjoy walking, biking, and taking transit over the nightmare of driving. It’s a great family activity, and always brings a smile to my kids face when we ride together. There is no parking in my building, and all of the people who live in my building walk, bike, or take transit. To no surprise, we are fit bunch in my building. Nobody here is overweight. What a surprise!

            Grocery shopping is breeze…We use either our bike trailer which snaps onto seat in 5 seconds, or our large grocery panniers. We spend on average $250 a week on groceries for our family at Whole Foods, and Rainbow, so we carry quite a bit of stuff. We don’t even use plastic bags for produce. Everything fits into the cloth bags and panniers. To get an idea of how it’s done. This guy from a car commercial, who actually doesn’t drive, uses a different trailer to haul his groceries, but his video is fun to watch, and might give you an idea about how easy it is to buy groceries without a car. Try it!! IT’s easy and fun!

          2. Nice post, No Need. I’m not trying to say that cars are necessary in the city, quite the opposite. My point is that the planners need to face reality- bringing in tons more people without expanding the infrastructure for alternative transport at the same time will only lead to more auto traffic congestion. They need to use a carrot and stick approach, make it way easier to use alternatives, at the same time make it less attractive to drive. The progress is much too slow compared to the number of new units.

          3. our transit is terrible. without citywide underground subways, it will only get worse and worse

          4. I couldn’t agree more. I moved to San Francisco 10 years ago without a car and for about 2 years used zipcar and grew tired of being at the mercy of time and forget muni – to get around this city you have to have a lot of time on your hands to use that system. I bought a car and pay $300 a month for parking and absolutely love the fact I can run errands whenever; and when I want to leave the City and experience California I can without the hassle of renting etc. San Francisco isn’t the end all be all in California. I ride my bike to work, take muni on occasion, but without a car in California–it would be like living on an island without a boat.

          5. @no need for oars…

            That’s terrific for you! I lived without a car for 15 years, in both DC, NYC and SF. 8 of those years were here in the Bay Area. Then I wised up after moving to the Sunset and got back behind my wheel. Did I decide to give up on transit? No. In fact, I still play the MUNI crap shoot weekdays (will my commute take 40 minutes or 80?). But, I refuse to waste my time dealing with public transit to get around the city outside of commuting. It shouldn’t have to take 70 minutes to go 2.5 miles. And you can bet your walking shoes that I will not spend over an hour to get to Caltrain just to endure another hour plus to SJ.

      2. this is just not true. the statistics in every neighborhood in the city is >50% car ownership per household. even downtown. citywide >70% own cars and 50% of households have 2 cars.

  3. It’s nice! Nothing too crazy, but could come out really well. Glad to see 8 Octavia with a neighbor.

  4. RE: “the hub”. Its the junction of perhaps the two most important streets in the city, with scads of transit, at least by American standards. That’s why it should have 600′ towers. The hub should be “marked” for what it is…a hub of regional importance, not a donut stand and a car showroom, and not 8 story buildings.

  5. Looks good for what it is. Not exactly going to be a tourist attraction but that’s fine, every building doesn’t need to call attention to itself.

  6. Now that Proposition Chicken is moving out this building no longer seems to have commercial tenants, maybe something’s about to happen here. Whether that thing is construction as planned or vacant storefront fines remains to be seen.

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