Purchased for $1.9 million in July of 2019, a permit to raze the one-story Living Water Fellowship building at 2308-2016 Vicente Street has been requested. And as proposed, the Parkside parcel would be subdivided into two separate parcels and two four-story buildings would rise up to 40 feet in height on the site, as rendered below by Schaub Ly Architects.

The development as proposed would yield a total of six three-bedroom condos averaging 1,482 square feet apiece, with off-street parking for a total of six cars and bikes. And the formal application(s) to move forward with the subdivision and re-development have been filed with Planning, including a request for the necessary building permits.

23 thoughts on “Parkside Church to Be Razed, Condos to Rise”
  1. The city needs more of this type of project, replacing a single story non-residential building with multi-story residential. Will be interesting to see how long it takes to actually get built, though.

    1. I mostly agree but would prefer to not see street-level activating commercial space getting replaced by garage doors and curb cuts.

      1. Meh, unfortunately the demand for retail space is plummeting – and this isn’t a commercial district in general, so replacing a single “business” (which, as a church, only generated sidewalk traffic for a couple hours one day a week) with residences. It’s like all the shuttered bodegas and small shops along Balboa between 4th and 7th, or in the teens, in the Richmond – in theory it could be nice if those were all viable businesses again, but the fact is that will never be the case, in the absence of having a coherent critical mass of businesses to attract people (as here would be the case 2 blocks north along Taraval).

        1. For the record, we don’t call them “bodegas” in SF. Corner store, liquor store, or just “the store” is the local terminology. Also, ground floor retail would definitely be better than garage doors. The church is located two blocks away from the Taraval commercial corridor and L-line, and there’s retail scattered along Vicente as well….it’s about as “commercial” as many other residential areas in SF, and more so than some. Not a bad area for retail at all (retail sure isn’t dead, yet…though removing retail space seems like a great way to accelerate that).

          1. …by people who are transplants from NYC, or people not from New York with pronounced cases of Manhattan envy.

  2. A million per parcel just for the dirt. Add increasing wages and building material costs.

    These can’t rent affordably even if they are built as inexpensively as the design suggests.

    Can you get $5 per foot from a Parkside walk-up?

    Good luck to the developers….

  3. Also, the value of 2 more apartments at ground level is greater than the bump in rents one would would receive for the provision of parking. Delete the garages and add units.

    But you know, add the “bike parking” that the 28-year-old planning staffers love.

    Maybe I’m being too cynical for the holiday season.

    1. Sounds like they are condos not apartments? So they would be sold not rented. The cap rate in SF has always been low, so the developers need to appeal to buyers. I know the garage vs no garage for family-friendly units on the Westside has been argued to death so I propose a little study. In this development, one lot should be 4 units (3-bedrooms, no off street parking) and one lot be 3 units with a garage and let’s see which one is more profitable/gets off the ground!

      I say gets off the ground because I’m sure neighbors would complain about a development without off-street parking.

      My little take on the garage vs non-garage battle: people and families come in all shapes and sizes and preferences. I do think it’s possible to live without a car or a garage, but you will HAVE to be lucky in your school lottery, stable in your job (I know people whose jobs have gone from East Bay to Peninsula to WFH to SF, all within 10 years, now imagine twice that in a 2-income family), and okay with limiting your activities to stuff that is easily accessible by public transit (do you have family in Marin? do you like to hike somewhere different every week or have a hobby like competing your dog? Do you want to go to Chabot and the Shoreline in one day?). Personally, I would find it kind of boring to stay in SF that much, with such great weather for outdoor activities here in CA, BUT the unanswerable question is what percentage of the population is that in SF?

      And if we develop with the mindset, Thou Shalt Not Have A Car If You Want To Live in SF, I guess that will mean the city will then be defined by those kind of people. That’s fine, it might just work, but I guess I’ll have to move to the suburbs then.

      1. No one is prevented from owning a car – it’s simply that street parking makes ownership more onerous.

        I have found that parking in nice hilly parts of Marin and the East Bay is equally contentious.

        1. I do think your earlier point that rental units might not really need parking is valid. People who rent whose job and school situations change can move (and new units aren’t rent controlled right? at least not yet…), but it is harder for homeowners to just pick up and go.

      2. I’m more concerned by the lack of bike parking. I know a lot of young parents who are finding ebikes with space to carry the kid(s) to be a great car replacement, but you need more than one bike per household. And ebikes are heavy, so once those three spaces are filled – if they even fit a bike with a kid carrier – you’re not carrying that upstairs. Seems to push the residents toward using a car just because it’s easier to store.

    2. Developers are in the game to maximize their profit. Why would they deliberately choose a smaller profit?

      More likely, ground floor units sell for significantly less (more noise, less light) and the top floors also sell for much less without parking.

      1. Irrespective of the value of parking and how it pencils, particularly when it comes to the marketing and sale of larger units, the two proposed parcels would only support the development of up to 3 units each as zoned.

  4. So SF used to have all these “churches” largely for the purpose of tax avoidance. They were of every stripe, too. Black, Buddhist, hippie-dippy, cult, even occult. Fun times.

  5. Rather than the usual mundane work of schaub-Ly tack on the extra block at right with a larger corner site and redesign 3 parcels with a central space or inner hoff and start some serious transit planning along sunset Blvd… ??

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