As we first reported last year:

Plans to raze the former KRON TV building at 1001 Van Ness Avenue and develop a 14-story building, with 239 condos over 5,000 square feet of retail space fronting Van Ness, were approved two years ago but never broke ground. But that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been any behind the scenes movement with respect to redeveloping the site.

In fact, both demolition and building permits for the site have been requested. But the previously approved plans have been scrapped.

Instead, Oryx Partners is now planning to build a residential care facility on the Cathedral Hill site, with 247 assisted living units for seniors over 8,200 square feet of ground floor retail space, the new plans for which are working their way through planning. We’ll keep you posted and plugged-in. If you are not in this area to use these facilities, you can look at others closer to you, such as the Lakeside Manor Assisted Living facility based in San Diego, please check your local area to find the best one for you or your loved ones.

Oryx Partners has since revealed that they’re planning to partner with Atria Senior Living on the project, as “condos are not now financially feasible at the current location,” and that the exterior design of the proposed project would remain roughly the same as previously approved.

And if the revised plans are approved, the project team is positioning to break ground at 1001 Van Ness, “in about a year.”

14 thoughts on “New Plans for Prominent Van Ness Corridor Site Progress”
  1. No BMR requirement for this new use, I assume. Just like NO FORMULA business created lots of empty store fronts, too high of an extorted BMR mandate, now means no more condos.

    1. I think the high cost of liquor license is a big factor. Cafes selling anchor steam are dime a dozen. Show me a taqueria with pitchers of margarita, and I’ll show you a quickly filled storefront.

      Obviously there’s a limit to this, but every bit helps.

    2. Call me crazy, but maybe no more condos because new-construction condo prices are slipping but other costs (including but not exclusively BMR) aren’t.

      And even if this is entirely the fault of BMR, this is neither a hotel nor office project. Seniors also need a place to live, and plans for the Van Ness corridor have already been shaped by the ones who already live there.

      1. That’s the idea, build so many condos that the prices come down significantly. They have only come down a little so far.

        1. Well, If you believe the libertarian propaganda we all have pumped into our heads, markets are self-correcting.

          The paragraph preceding the diagram above provides an anecdote that if prices begin to come down, no more condo projects will be built until prices recover, including projects that already have approved plans. Which in turn means that prices will not come down significantly.

          Which means that the arguments of supply-siders (“Oh my gawd, if we increase supply, prices will come down, it’s Econ 101”) are almost self-refuting.

  2. I live right behind this. I’d be glad to see Something there. Although if they are basically making a clone of the Avenues building next door it won’t add activity to the street level.

  3. Condos wouldn’t activate the street either. Van Ness is basically an unwelcoming tedious & dreary pedestrian experience. It seems to be wholly without a pedestrian vision or plan. Obvious lost opportunity of a central boulevard. Say something new (talking to myself).

  4. We walk by often enroute from Tommy’s Joint to the Opera Plaza cinema and/or bookstore. Inside the glass entrance is the circa 70’s KRON signage. I want it so bad it hurts.

    1. It would be so cool if the developer used that signage as a feature of the new lobby. I’m sure it will end up in a landfill.

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