Plans to raze the two-story building on the northwest corner of Harrison and Lapu Lapu Streets, merge the 744 Harrison Street parcel with the parking lot parcel at 29 Rizal Street behind, and construct a skinny 8-story building across the Central SoMa site are slated to be approved next week.
As designed by Charles F. Bloszies and inspired by the M3A2 Cultural and Community Tower in Paris, the 85-foot-tall building would now yield a 50-room hotel and nine (9) units of market rate “group housing” (with a common kitchen, dining and living areas) over a ground floor restaurant fronting Harrison.
The entrance and lounge for the hotel and housing units are to front Lapu Lapu.
Well done. More please.
Agree 100%. Hoping these smaller projects in central soma can get approved and finished faster in 2018!
I walk by this location daily. Perfect. Build it.
If only that central island/lot behind this was a park. We could use way more in-block parks, a la South Park, etc.
Also agree—I know Jane Kim’s staff was actively seeking potential locations for smaller parks, and hopefully CalTrans will allow some of the waster freeway space to be redeveloped into parks.
Maybe at some point we can close off half of the internal street and turn it into a park! Perhaps that corner between the community garden on Lapu Lapu and Mabini…would be perfect for a small playground and dog run.
Ah, yes…another SoMa park…so that it can be immediately turned into a drug den/encampment, followed by having to fence it in and lock it down to everyone. What we need are more housing units, not undeveloped space ripe for blight.
I knew a defeatist post couldn’t be far behind.
You evidently have not walked through South Park since it was finished. I walk through it almost every week and it is a very pleasant and enjoyable area.
South Park is gorgeous, and has always—even 15 years ago when I first moved to the neighborhood—been special…and more of an exception. Try the reader-proposed small-block park there and you’ll instead get the cesspool that SF makes of its unpoliced, unused by the average citizen public space: a là McCoppin Hub Plaza.
McCoppin is in a totally different location. This area is in closer proximity to SP and the vibe in the hood is changing. A park is a great idea for this specific location.
McCoppin is in a terrible place for a park, sandwiched between a freeway off-ramp and a U-Haul, with little residential density in the neighborhood and no employment or tourist density to speak of.
SoMa badly needs activated parks surrounded by dense housing. I wish there were an attempt to get a signature neighborhood park as part of the Market Street Hub plan, maybe an Otis Park on the site of the Planning Department’s 1650 Mission building. I was excited for the Hub until I realized the small parks proposed are so inadequate for the level of density.
You’re wrong—the parks around Yerba Buena are clean, well used, and monitored by the CBD. A small park behind Whole Foods would be perfect.
Victoria Manalo Draves Park is much closer and fairly grimy.
No, Yerba Buena Gardens is the closest to this spot. 6th street is between this area and Victoria Manolo Draves, but regardless, VMD is a well loved neighborhood park and doesn’t have homeless encampments or tons of drug use as you suggest. Maybe you’re confusing SoMa’s parks with the Bart plazas?
South Park is also closer than VMD, not sure what’s wrong with your map skills?
Refreshing!
Oh man. I love this.
First words out of my mouth SEXY! I love love these types of buildings. Very Tokyo-esque (my current location)
Agreed! Hotel and compact housing. What’s not to like?
I walk by this lot regularly and am excited to see this get built!
Should be taller so its slenderness can stand out. Right now it looks like another squat building as it is attached to the one enxt to it.
Very cool. Reminds me of Tokyo.
UPDATE: Timing for Skinny Central SoMa Hotel Pushed Back