While there are big plans to redevelop the Transbay District block bounded by Howard, Beale, Folsom and Main once San Francisco’s Temporary Transbay Terminal is shuttered after San Francisco’s new Transbay Transit Center opens sometime next year, the ground for around 240 affordable units to rise up to 165-feet in height on the southern third of the site fronting Folsom Street won’t be broken until 2020 at the earliest.
Instead, the Transbay Joint Powers Authority is planning to lease the temporary terminal building on the Block 2 site to Tishman Speyer through the end of March 2020 at a rate of $29,200 a month. And Tishman Speyer is slated to turn the building into a sales office and design center for Tishman’s twisty 400-foot-tall tower and podium development that’s under construction across the street on Transbay Block 1 and is expected to be ready for occupancy in the first quarter of 2020, as we originally reported earlier this year:
Keep in mind that San Francisco’s Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure, which controls the option to acquire the Block 2 site and sell it to an affordable housing developer, was consulted and “is amenable to the interim use proposed by Tishman Speyer” versus pushing for a quick turnaround of the site upon which affordable housing is to rise.
Do the “big plans” refer to Parcel 4 Partner’s planned 40 story or so condo tower? It’s all tied into Parcel 4 IIRC and, assuming appreciation remains sluggish for the next 4/5 years, it is not the best of bets that these big plans will come to fruition anytime soon – as in the coming decade. Parcel F may be problematic in the current environment. But it’s development is years away so the developers have time, years, to wait before moving forward. Maybe they can coincide completion of the Parcel F tower with HSR reaching the TTC.
[Editor’s Note: As (now) linked above: Big Plans for San Francisco’s Temporary Transbay Terminal Site.]
The red brick façade building in the foreground above is, I assume, not the 165 foot BMR project? The brick building looks, including the apparent setback of floors at the top, to be 10 stories. Not 16 or so. Still, from the image, it’s hard to see where the 16 story BMR balding would be squeezed in.
The BMR project will rise on the site currently occupied by the temporary Greyhound terminal; pictured in the rendering is the parcel across Main St from the temporary terminal that’s currently under construction.
There will never be affordable housing in these condos when HOAs are over $1k monthly
When in doubt try following our links, such as to the massing for the future BMR building to rise in the site versus the development to rise across the street as rendered (and also linked) above.
Even as appreciation plateaus, we remain in an affordable housing crisis. I wonder what’s holding the affordable housing developer back from breaking ground as soon as the (permanent) Transbay Terminal opens?
Try re-reading our last paragraph above. It’s the City which is delaying the development not the developer (which has yet to be identified).
What effect (timing-wise), If any, might this have upon conversion of block 3 as Transbay Park?
In view of “Dave’s” predictable expression of pessimism, any further word on the progress of Transbay Partners’ plans for Parcel F and Block 4?
I, too, am interested to hear what has happened to Parcel F. I thought they were supposed to have ‘refined’ designs back out this past summer.
Actually it’s a realistic look at the future of these projects given the new condo market in SF. As to further word, 524 Howard was first proposed years ago with “coming Soon” signs posted at the lot back in 2013. Then in early 2016, rather than build, Crescent leased out the lot for parking for another two years. Two years is coming up and no news as to whether the proposed 48 story condo tower will go forward or remain on indefinite hold.
Transbay and the Hub have independent momentum which will not be denied. Absent a calamitous 2008 redux, I think you can safely anticipate high rise residential on the four corners of Market/Van Ness and a trio of new towers on the 500 block of Howard in the next several years.
I’m glad the lower income development has been delayed. From what I see thus far such development at Essex and Beale/Folsom has brought in more of a 6th street feel. Well maybe not to THAT degree but I’m sure some others have noticed the same.
But that Philz is delightful!
Hey man, get over it if not everyone is white/asian, tech, super well off, and revoltingly boring, scarred of those not like them.
I’m white, and very well off thank you, but I couldnt be happier with the new street life in the exact area you mention. That new bus stop outside the mercy housing next to Philz, where people actaully congregate and talk on the street, while waiting for a bus…wow it actually feels like a city street! God forbid they arent all white rich people. Sorry nothing against white or rich, its the diverstiy/inclusion point I am trying to drive. We need this diversity to be a truly great city, and you need to get off your little pedastol. Sorry if you would prefer to live in a bubble but this is not how reality should be. People should be given a chance.
This are IS NOT anything like 6th st…..you probably werent even around before this area started redevelopment, when the area was a parking lot, with tons of hobos, needles, feces, laying around, either. Uhhh huh.
The city is developing wonderfully in the new transbay area and i really hope to see even more affordable housing…becuase often its those people who actually get out on the street, vs just run from thier uber to thier hi rent apt or condo, like the little worker bees.
Sorrry for the rant, but my goodness the closemindedness and privilidged feelings some people openly display. its actually very sad.
Hear, hear!
If we’re going to have affordable housing, then it should be spread around the city and the neighborhoods, ideally included in buildings with market-rate apartments, increasing the chances that people from different walks of life meet and maybe even get to know each other.
It is a good thing to spread such development around the city, thus diluting it to the point NOWHERE develops “the 6th Sreet feel to THAT degress” (including a much-redeveloped 6th Street)” but to the degree everywhere does, energizing housed middle class persons such as you and I to stay on the backs of city officials to not give in completely to anti-social behavior. We definiely do not want to create more old-school 6th Street by concentrating such development, even in the places where we have previously done so (and destroyed potentially viable working class neighborhoods thereby).
Essex and Folsom feels nothing like 6th street, and it never will. And as BTinSF says, supportive/BMR housing should be spread all over city so that areas like the TL and 6th Street no longer isolate such desperate poverty and addiction.
Pac Heights, the Marina, the Sunset, etc could all use a serious dose of reality instead of segregating our poorest residents to a few rough blocks.
30-40 yrs ago, Essex was just another deserted, dirty on-ramp. Litter, yes; campers, no.
Trouble with distributing the poor across the City is that its way more expensive to do so. Maybe its a great experiment. But come up with the money for housing people before you decide to rethread the poor into a fabric they never inhabited.
The other option, concentrating the poor in a few areas, is even more disastrous, as these areas become irredeemable ghettos and schools for scandal. No part of the city should bear the burdens of low income concentration and crime that the city is pushing on SOMA and the Tenderloin. Shame.