Amazon’s Plan for That Prime Showplace Square Site
February 24, 2021
Amazon’s plans for a “last mile” distribution and delivery station to rise upon the Prime Showplace Square parcel at 900 7th Street, a nearly 6-acre parcel which is bounded by 7th, Berry, De Haro, Carolina and Channel Streets, have been drafted and submitted to planning for review.
As proposed, the three-story center would now rise up to 58 feet in height upon the current Recology site, with 632,600 square feet of interior loading, staging and van queuing space; 17,400 square feet of accessory office space; and 395 “accessory use” parking stalls upon the building’s roof with 84,800 square feet of roof space reserved to comply with San Francisco’s Better Roof Ordinance as written and 13,700 square feet of space at the corner of 7th and Berry reserved for a publicly accessible open space (POPOS).
We’ll keep you posted and plugged-in.
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Such a bummer there’s no way to combine this with some affordable apartments facing the Berry Street or 7th side. So close to Caltrain. 🙁
Say ‘Bye-Bye’ local stores… ‘Hello’ Amazon Behemoth – Frowny face
You’re about five years too late on this one.
If you’re a local store selling generic mass produced stuff, you wouldn’t do well even without Amazon in your back yard, not to mention all the other corporate chains. Sell an experience, sell unique, sell a story.
I don’t see how it matters to local stores whether Amazon has a distribution center in the city or someplace in the East Bay. Amazon already offers “same day” and “next day” delivery in San Francisco without this facility. While it will make life simpler for them, the level of competition they offer to local businesses should be about the same.
Disagree. Using made-up numbers, what used to be 1,000 products offering “same day” can become 10,000. This makes their already very good experience even better. Think of it as a “nail in a coffin” type maneuver that extends their advantage.
This is definitely a blow to SF retail. Amazon shipping is about to get even faster.
On another note, I really hope they demolish 280 at Mariposa as has been discussed, and have 7th St become a boulevard a la Octavia to take on that traffic and on-ramp. That area will always be held back from it’s true potential until that’s done.
What is more of blow to SF retail is all the insane policies of the politicians in the city let the crime ran rampant in this city, like the current DA’s crazy policies.
It is surreal to see people robbing Walgreens in broad daylight. No one can do anything. Police refuse to do anything.
Even file a report of crime is discouraged. My neighbor apartment building’s front lobby got broke in, when he called police, they came and discouraged him to file a report (there is nothing they can do anyways), just ask him to install cameras and install stronger metal gates.
Yeap, saw that Walgreen a few times on nightly news. Made me feel fortunate to be living in South Bay, we don’t have all the robbing, no parking challenge (at least not as bad as SF), no rent control law to stir up hate among tenants vs. landlord…..
Abundant surface parking shouldn’t be a point of pride…
Plenty of smash and grabs in the South Bay.
(I am a victim of one, my car got broken into on a weekday during dinner time while eating at a restaurant in Cupertino, also saw it happen at a different location in SJ a few months later to other cars, luckily my car was spared)
Maybe ST’s a landlord in an unincorporated area of Santa Clara County.
In most of the incorporated areas, the South Bay has a problem just like S.F. with people arriving here from elsewhere with dollar signs in their eyes and cash counting machines ringing in their ears, ready to exploit local workers by buying existing properties and jacking up the rent. And that is why San Jose, among others, has several ordinances that govern rental housing in general and in particular, limit rent increases on approximately 38,000 apartments.
So what? Crime in S.F. hasn’t even begun to approach the point where I would consider moving to the South Bay.
This building will have zero effect on SF retail.
The internet, though, has already had a huge effect on SF retail along with all retail everywhere.
Yes, a healthy amount of damage has already been done to SF retail. However, this squeezes them even more. When you need an item quickly, like same day, Amazon doesn’t work for you quite yet. You make a quick run to a store (at least I do). This building attacks that use case.
The need case you’re talking about (people who need something today but can’t wait until tomorrow, who have spare time on their hands to walk to the store to buy something instead of just clicking on it, who also have a secure location to receive deliveries) is vanishingly small, and not enough to support retail anyway. Personally I barely shop for anything on the internet, but I’m the outlier. The vast majority prefers online, and retail can’t survive on the few people like you and me who prefer it.
“Definitely”?? I don’t see how it will. See what I wrote above. It’s hard to see how their delivery can get much better if they had a center like this on every block. Right now, the problems with ordering online aren’t the speed with which Amazon gets the package to your building. It’s the likelihood that that package will be stolen before you pick it up or, in the case of a building like mine that has a concierge, the delay in their notifying you that it’s arrived and the hours they are open for you to pick it up.
Disagree. If you need something today or tomorrow, Amazon will not work for you. You end up making a run to a brick and mortar store. This building will improve speed of delivery and thus eliminate the last minute errands.
Don’t think a 7th St Boulevard is possible until 280 is brought down. Until then, that area will just be a possibility but its potential never fully realized.
So, we have become Tracy? Or Hayward?
Stockton.
I do not see a problem with a light industria/warehouse property being built on a parcel already zoned for and used as light industrial. God forbid, SF build anything except overpriced condos, ultra-high end single-family homes, and super-expensive to build affordable housing, which is always delivered years too late and never makes much of a dent in filling the need for true affordable housing.
As for Tracy and Hayward, guess what? People of relatively ordinary means can afford to live in those places. SF has spent many years and lots of taxpayer resources throwing up protectionist barriers to prevent franchises and national chains from opening in the city, and yet “mom-and-pop” businesses have struggled, long before the pandemic hit.
This is the world we live in. Most people order, at least some of their consumer goods and food items, from big online retailers, such as Amazon, Walmart, etc. Denying reality does not do anyone any favors. Perhaps San Francisco should focus on continuing to reduce burdensome business regulations and other red tape, overly restrictive zoning/permitting, and high fees and taxes if they want to help small businesses thrive in the city. I know some recent efforts have been made, but it is not nearly enough.
Don’t hate on Hayward. Prime central Bay Area location 🙂
No hate on Hayward…..it’s just that for years we’ve been tearing down warehouses in Mission Bay/Showplace Square for higher-value uses, and now we’re building a massive, Tracy-style “fulfillment center.” Weird how quickly things change.
What historic warehouse is being torn down in this case? It’s mainly a parking lot and some crummy non-historic cement block buildings used by Recology. Even Tracy would be embarrassed to have the current buildings on the site. The fulfillment center is needed and the site was is already zoned for such use.
Who said historic? Also, I honestly don’t care whether they build it or not. I was just trying to make the point that for years we’ve been hearing that there is no need for warehouse or factory space in San Francisco anymore and that it should all be redeveloped as coder condos and tech office space. This is just different.
One plus is that allows for the possibility to resupply the warehouse via rail instead of trucks at night when Caltrain isn’t running.
That would be nice but I doubt that will occur. The main reason is because there’s no railway spur at this location. Building a new spur off of the Caltrain mainline would be expensive and messy. Plus the functional layout of the building would have to change to accommodate a separate dock for rail.
Use of freight along the peninsula corridor is fading away.
That’ll be a huge flat roof. Besides solar panels perhaps a recreational use: tennis courts, golf putting greens/driving ranges? I know, I know. It would be impossible to navigate thru the city bureaucracy even if Amazon allowed it from a $$$-making point of view.
That’s a future drone airfield, if the city allows it.
Anyone wondering where all those Recology trucks and employees will go once they vacant this site? Check out Recology’s Facility Modernization Plan for their site at 501 Tunnel (The Dump) in Visitacion Valley on the SF/Brisbane County line.
UPDATE: No Red Flags for Amazon’s Big Project as Proposed, but…