As we wrote about the infill building site at 430 Eddy Street in early June:
“Approved for the development of affordable senior housing over a decade ago, neither the financing nor permits for a five-story building to rise on the Tenderloin parking lot at 430 Eddy Street were secured and the entitlements to build were cancelled and lost.
Two years ago the un-entitled parcel sold for $1.6 million.
Two months ago the City approved plans for an eight-story, market-rate building with 23 sub 500 square-foot residential units to rise on the site, along with a 970-square-foot retail space and a ground-floor room for the storage of 24 bikes.
And yesterday, the “Fully Entitled!” 430 Eddy Street site returned to the market listed for $5 million or roughly $220K per entitled unit in the Tenderloin, which is around the price per unit that developers have been paying for luxury sites around the city.”
This afternoon, the asking price for the 430 Eddy Street site was reduced to $4.8 million, or closer to $200,000 per entitled unit (which remains in the current luxury price range).
Exactly what kind of development policy allows an approval for “affordable senior housing” to morph into market rate housing once the original proposal has expired? Or was the city fine with market-rate from the beginning?
Absent that it sounds like a bait-and-switch; or at least a rather disingenuous strategy from ….well, someone.
What are you talking about? The article clearly states that the parcel got a new owner and they went through the approval process over again from scratch. Of course the city would have been fine with market rate – the only place a market rate moratorium was considered was in the Mission, and it lost at the polls badly. Most San Franciscans recognize that the idea that we can fix our housing shortage with ONLY public subsidy and NO market rate housing is fantasy, and so does the Planning Commission, for all their flaws.
The property changed hands, and it wasn’t entitled when it was sold… how is this a bait and switch?
What bait and switch? The development policy is called the existing zoning laws.
The original subsidized housing proposal could not get financing. It is private property, the new owner is allowed to put market-rate housing on it. There is nothing in the zoning law that limits development on the site to only affordable housing.
Hope someone buys it and builds the thing. Will be good for both meeting housing demand and revitalizing the neighborhood. Any hints as to whether it was sold because of the market cooling or whether the selling developer just likes to entitle projects and sell them as their regular M.O.?
The developer got the site 2 years ago and worked to re-entitle it. At that time condo prices were increasing significantly. The plan may have assumed that appreciation overall would spill over enough into the Tenderloin to warrant luxury level entitled unit prices. Not sure that was/is a good assumption and now, with new condo prices falling, this just reduced price may not pencil out. Making this entitlement flip, if that is what it was planned as, less lucrative than once assumed.
So, the land doubled in price in two years. When this finally gets to market in 2-3 years, who’s going to want a $500k+ <500 sq. foot studio? "One" bedroom?
… in the Tenderloin.
UPDATE: Another Cut for Approved Development Site in the Tenderloin