The Master Plan for developing around 2,900 residential units, up to 200,000 square feet of new office space and an additional 200,000 square feet of new retail and amenity space on the nearly 27 acres of parking that currently wrap around the 11-acre Stonestown Galleria have been drafted and formally submitted to the City for review.

As envisioned by Brookfield Properties, in conjunction with SITELAB urban studio, the existing 775,000-square-foot Galleria and additional commercial development would serve as the “Town Center” for the new neighborhood, with surrounding buildings rising up to 190 feet, or 18 stories, in height; a new restaurant and retail corridor, “main street,” along 20th Avenue (which would be reconfigured through the site); six (6) acres of park, plaza and open spaces; and 3,700 parking spaces, which is 300 more than currently exist, primarily in underground and podium parking garages along with a new six-story garage along Buckingham Way, on the northern edge of the site.

In terms of timing, Brookfield is currently aiming to complete the required environmental and design reviews over the next two years, secure approvals, and break ground on the $2 billion redevelopment sometime around 2024, with a phased development of condos, apartments and new commercial buildings, including a potential 200-room hotel.

And yes, while around 2,900 units of housing have been proposed, closer to 3,500 could be developed based on the current zoning limits for the site. But the Stonestown site is also currently only zoned for development up to 65 feet in height. We’ll keep you posted and plugged-in.

42 thoughts on “The Master Plan to Transform Stonestown into a Neighborhood”
  1. This could actually be built because Brookfield is well capitalized and knows what they’re doing. Parkmerced on the other hand, while still operated by Maximus, will never be capitalized or built.

    1. Park Merced is going to turn into “Old Town”.

      SFSU will have to open up more walking paths into it’s campus on the Stonestown side. but that’s no biggie.

  2. Between this plan and the Parkmerced redevelopment I hope Muni is still working on extending the Twin Peaks tunnel down 19th ave ?

    1. Not only that, but even with improved transit, there are going to need to be some major intersection improvements with this much added trip generation – especially at Winston & 19th, which is already a bottleneck.

    2. Nothing to date zilch zero naddah nil null….

      Just wait till all are under construction and everyone has to drive there including construction delivery and workers can you say standstill carmeggedeon….?

      1. Muni does run down 19th Ave., but (1) doesn’t connect with BART at Daly City and (2) is a slow crawl to West Portal where it then jockeys for position to enter/leave the portal. The $3B plan to underground the M line (insert raucous laughter) that was floated around a few years ago would do nothing really to improve transit and/or get anyone out of their cars. I lived in the Outer Sunset for many years. First few years without a car. I ended up going back behind the wheel out of necessity.

        If the Central Subway delays and cost overruns are any indication of how transit gets built in a Transit First City, then any improvements, be them large or small, in this corridor will take decades to complete and most likely not solve the problem.

  3. I love that raised podium green roof garden structure that all the new buildings surround. Between that and the ample parking provided, what more is possible needed? Let’s name it “The Villa’s at Concrete.”

  4. That’s a good point. Let’s demolish the legacy structures and replace them with a park so everybody gets their green space. Then in the center of the park we put a one hundred story tower to make up for all that lost retail space and to allow for even more residential space. It’s win, win, win.

  5. I like this plan, except for the parking. Too much of it, presuming that the retail mix changes to become more neighborhood-serving. If we could get better transit service from muni, and a more dedicated and high frequency connection to BART, why not cut some of the parking out of this. Presumably they are leaving the option of that 6 story garage should it be needed, but perhaps it wont.

    1. If they had listened to the concept we had of linking the L taraval and routing south at 20th use the ramp at petco up to an elevated station and run it south to Daly City Bart with a stop at cambon proposed redevelopment to senior housing would have been a better all around plan

      1. Skip light rail altogether. Muni in mixed traffic and 5 lines in 1 tunnel = complete mess. Nothing can run on any dedicated schedule, unlike BART. If SF is to help save itself from carmageddon then it should build a Geary BART line that turns down Park Presidio/19th Ave to connect with Daly City with connection points with 3 of the surface lines (Judah, Taraval and 19th Ave.) and a far faster connection across a larger swath of the city.

  6. just curious how much business they might expect for a hotel there. Why would anyone stay in this location for business or personal reason? Housing instead of a hotel seems like better use

    1. For one thing, there is a major university next door, which also happens to want to build a conference center and hosts other events. There is plenty of demand for non-business and major tourist travel that doesn’t want to stay downtown or Fisherman’s wharf. Pretty much anyone who has out of town guests and lives in the western half of the city has few to no options for hotels other than a smattering of crappy motels. AirBnB isn’t for everyone and isn’t necessarily cheaper than a mid-range hotel room. Also lots of people cruising down Hwy 1 needing a place to crash for the night. No, a 500-room major hotel wouldn’t have enough business, but a 100-200 room hotel, sure thing.

    2. I obviously can’t say exactly what kind of numbers they’d do but I’d think with an undergrad size of 24k students, SFSU would provide a hotel with decent business.

  7. Has this been done anywhere else? Building a new urbanist neighborhood on the parking lots of an old mall? Curious to know of precedents and whether they are successful.

    1. This is common smart money thinking for those who hold equity in 80’s style malls. They are steadily doing these kinda of revamps all over the country based on more or less these ideas.

      I see acres of asphalt all over the country being put to a higher and better use.

    2. Santana Row in San Jose is really popular and always busy but I’m not sure if it’s just because San Jose is super suburban and the residents are excited to have any locale where they can walk. Not sure how well that would translate to Stonestown.

  8. The city should consider moving up their plans for the Muni line to coordinate with this new development. Someone proposed a really ambitious plan to shift the line west under the edge of the Stonestown site; but at the very least they could underground the section between where it crosses Sloat/Serra and have it surface after passing under the northbound lanes of 19th. Start getting the public transportation situation in order before all of the new residents of this development have moved in.

    1. We already pushed that when SFSU and parkmerced were proposed the muni and SFBOS had their head in the sand like ostriches…there are a lot of other alternatives the problem now is muni is handicapped with $$$ issues and has nothing shovel ready to go…can you say central subway fiasco #2

  9. The entire mall should be demolished and upzoned 25+ stories all residential. Serramonte in Daly City has completely driven all retail out of the Stonestown area. The mall has been in decline since the late 2000s and has no department stores and an abysmal selection of retail inside.

    Get the place torn down and build high density housing. This one is a no brainer.

    1. Unlike Serramonte, Stonestown is accessible via rail. It would be good to retain a commercial core there, even if it’s a downsized mall/outdoor shopping center built around the new megaplex.

  10. Atrocious. How to maximize the remaining profitability for the real estate of a dying mall without caring about the long term consequences of such an action.

    Who in their right mind thinks a 20 story building next to a dead mall makes that a “town center”? It’s a joke.

    Level it all and start fresh with a medium density neighborhood that feels like it belongs there. This proposal doesn’t belong there.

    1. Tell that to Brookfield corporate retail folks who are adamant that Stonestown is still a retail cash cow. I don’t think they see it as a dying mall at all. The food offerings are in high demand and they have a few anchors (some new) that are not old-fashioned department stores, including Sports Basement, Target, Whole Foods, cinemas and some other non-traditional mall tenants, like health care and gym. I haven’t gone to shop at an indoor mall in over 30 years and detest the experience, but I do patronize TJs, Target, and Sports B at this location when it’s convenient.

  11. New housing, green space, entertainment, dining, and useful retail all within walking distance of the surrounding neighborhoods and the university and supported by multiple routes of public transit. I live in the surrounding area and can’t wait for this project to break ground. Bring it on.

    Atrocious would be to build yet another medium density neighborhood in this area without the aforementioned services forcing everyone who moves there to drive *sarcastic gasp* to the already overcrowded Serramonte to buy food and supplies in what amounts to a weekend grocery run/rugby scrum.

    Successful neighborhoods need the support of groceries, drugstores, restaurants, etc. Stonestown is starting to focus on filling those needs. They are also doing a good job of reaching out to the surrounding communities for input. So again, can’t wait for this to start.

    1. Around half, but primarily configured as a “Linear Park,” with a series of “greenscape areas” along Buckingham Way and a “Greenway” connecting to the Rolph Nicol Jr. Playground on the northwestern edge of the site.

  12. I recently walked around the whole new Mission Bay Neighborhood by the hospital with all the new condos and green space. The design of this seems similar and will be a nice addition to the neighborhood- big change but a good one.

  13. We do not need more housing, we need less people. Yeah, I’m talking population control. Regardless, we like over populating. This site, as well as Park Merced deserve better. Has any study been done of who wants to live in the fog that shrouds this area. Assuming global warming increases, perhaps living in this area of fog will be the draw expected, idk.

    1. The population we need to control are the greedhead flippers, so-called developers and other hangers on in the real estate “game”, who move here from elsewhere to make as much money off of other, less well capitalized people who need housing in order to quickly depart with their “winnings” to Texas or Florida. Those are the people we need less of. Yeah, I’m talking fewer so-called entrepreneurs who think they are doing something new by buying rent controlled buildings, ripping out the walls between existing apartments so they can rent out individual rooms and then selling them as “co-living spaces”.

    2. Wow. What a take. Super condescending to a large part of the SF population who live around and west of 20th. I think they have done a study, they called it “resent home sales in the Sunset, Parkside and inner Parkside” It showed lots of people willing to spend a ton of money to move into the area. There have been articles about it as well.

      Image if the fog was snow! I wonder if there has ever been a study of who would want to live in the snow.

  14. This is a ridiculous High density housing scheme. Just to qualify that there will be additional pressures on the infrastructure, traffic and how many people post pandemic want to live in a rabbit warren?

  15. Funniest was the op-Ed from Sonia Trauss where she talked about rail and social housing.

    That WAS Parkmerced till they started pirating the housing stock and selling it to SFSU.. eliminated rent control and general control of the family and senior units.. became de facto dorms which now is a bit harder to live around if you want to sleep and not have a party with over 100 people in the unit above you… a bit difficult for families to find anything in SF… they should purchase all of parkmerced and stonestown apartments back as social housing stock allow some infill and build correctly the transit extension to Daly City Bart over brotherhood and the I-280 and alemany fly-over. All ignored by the transit agencies who only extended to parkmerced or Randolph link… they did not want to deal with the real crux of the problem…

  16. I was hoping for a more inventive proposal from site lab schematically it’s basic cake layers and does not show much of the inventive side of what the mall and housing can become… try another couple rounds…

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