With the prominent Hub District site having been completely cleared, which is a departure from what was originally planned, construction on the 47-story tower to rise up to 540 feet in height at 30 Van Ness is officially underway.

As we outlined last year, while originally envisioned to yield around 600 apartments, the Hub District development was subsequently redesigned by SCB to yield 333 condominiums, condos which will average over 1,000 square feet apiece, with 25 percent of the units to be sold at below market rates; 234,000 square feet of office space in the development’s 9-story podium; a wrap-around 10th floor terrace and amenity space for the tower residents; around 6,000 square feet of ground floor retail space; a basement garage for 151 cars; secured storage rooms for around 300 bikes; and an outdoor POPOS and enclosed 5,000 square foot “multipurpose space” at the corner of Van Ness and Market.

And the all-electric development, which is aiming for LEED Platinum certification, is still on track be ready for occupancy by 2025, as we outlined last year as well.

32 thoughts on “Construction of Prominent Hub District Tower Has Commenced”
    1. Images images images, reality not so pretty…..

      Maybe they need to take the BRT down to ceasar Chavez and loop it over to SFGH and T-third or south along mission to provide an express access to the performance space. Mission plaza was shut maybe the performances there can migrate to the new plaza in time for the ribbon cutting with the stolen Walgreens goods ? Maybe city hall garage sale next ? Real question is if one of those 20k cans makes it to the new entry plaza ?

  1. What, exactly, is an “all electric development” ?? If it means the building won’t have gas service, OK….but I would think that’s not really remarkable. OTOH, if they mean the construction is going to be done completely devoid of ICE’ed construction equipment/deliveries…well that I’d like to see !

  2. This building looks gorgeous. Super excited for the future of The Hub. It’s steadily getting better. A number of buildings have already opened. The Brady Block of buildings just opened, or is about to. One Oak and the Honda dealership project will happen – eventually.

    Two questions:

    – Anyone know the latest on the massive French American school project?

    – Is the SFUSD admin building (across the street) in use at all? Would love to see that sold to a private developer. It’s a sizeable lot with a gorgeous exterior that would be excellent for a “facadism” project. I’ve gotta believe it’s being underutilized. Or heck, as was done nearby for DBI, build a new HQ for SFUSD as an part of an office podium, with housing on top.

    1. I’ve gotta believe it’s being underutilized.

      From the comments I’ve read on this site, that world be even truer if it was being used by the SFUSD! 🙂

      1. SFUSD has other properties under utilized sota is one Franklin the other and one over near mclaren school site sunnydale. To name a few. We had a suggestion temporary for mclaren sfusd school site but zero info when they were asked.

    2. SOTA school wanted to flip there but costs will probably prevent infused issue of having tons of teens and drivers doing pick up in the area. Current Sota site is better for the school at crossings of transit lines and Forrest hill station nearby. Unless the mayor has plans for tons of housing for the canyon which will assuredly than invoke neighborhood ire like the one proposed north of the transit station at the church. Agree that SFUSD parcel needs to be looked at for facade and density going straight up but need to consider teacher housing as first 25 floors …

      1. 25 stories of teacher housing is a pipe dream. With all the constraints of public financing sources for affordable housing it’s very challenging to scale up above anything more than 8 stories, or more than 150 units or so in a single project. And among affordable housing product types teacher housing is the most notoriously difficult to finance.

          1. They also did nothing to connect bi-county some serious light rail and LRV systems to reduce traffic like over at Brisbane to Schlage lock and west side to new proposed Daly City housing behind Home Depot. Why no simple zoo tram to get people up to top of the hill down to the lower mall and around to the Bart stations they have some broad streets but no serious urban planning besides poorly designed buildings…
            And sprawl malls !

        1. That’s why they should buy back parkmerced for senior and teacher and workforce housing also stonestown apartments that sfsu took over. Than consider the glen park upper canyon sota site for mixed use staggered and platform terraced social mixed housing site. With water retention solar and a tram or shuttle system from top of hill down to glen park and the walkway started improve so more people walk the path 🧐

  3. Jeez, 25% BMRs. They really need to end that.

    I never understood why SF seems to feel that forcing rich people to live right next to poor people is some necessary element to proper society.

    Why can’t SF gov make a bunch of all BMR condo buildings somewhere and leave normal condo developers and buyers be?

    1. This form of engineered inclusion is a smoke screen. The real reason why the City squeezes BMR out of commercial developers is so that city family politicos can go chalk it up on their political ledger like they built it themselves.

      1. The city sold the parcel for 10-15M under market value in exchange for adding 10% more BMR. So they get 33 more BMR unit but those are not the very affordable ones, still its is a pretty good deal for the city. The supervisors angle will be; they now leave that part out and try to force more and more higher BMR perecentage on new builds and say how “it worked for the developer here, it can work for you”

    2. Hmmm….

      I find that comment problematic on many levels. You may not agree with the program, but the idea that living next to poor people is somehow degrading to rich people just smacks of elitism, intolerance and all sorts of ‘isms’

      If you’re old enough to remember the housing projects built in the 1960’s during the ‘Great Society’ programs, they became the byword for blight and basically government built ghettos’. Build housing for poor people and they’ll thank you … No, they won’t. (Granted there were and are a myriad of other issues, but putting 100% of the same socio-economic people together only made matters worse… economic, drugs, lack of work … take your pick) In a word. Awful. And I’m glad most, if not all of those horror stories are gone.

      My two cents, and I’m not sure where the line is, putting BMR’s into private sector built projects is fine. Making the private sector pay for it only works because property values are so high here. I’d like to see some incentives from Government. Our local Gov’t is one of the biggest hinderances of all.

      And maybe less outright corruption and incompetence at the SF Building and Planning Dept. Oh, and SF City Board of Supervisors office and the mayors office …… While I’m asking for the unobtainable…. Cheers

    3. Nobody’s forcing rich people to live anywhere. If you (presumably one of the rich people) don’t want to live among poorer people, don’t live in this building. That’s your choice. It’s to the benefit of the BMR residents to not be segregated into entirely low-income neighborhoods with a lack of services & amenities, and better for the city as a whole if such “poor people” as those who cook the food and educate the children of the rich can live nearby.

  4. The approach to public housing in SF & California in general is a complete disaster where ‘lucky’ lottery winners get access to all the public funding, & if you’re equally deserving and don’t get selected, you just have to wait your turn, (which may never come), or somehow be better connected to the decision makers. Give ALL people who qualify for whatever pre-determined criteria the city or state comes up with, a subsidy for housing and let them use that to assist with their own housing. The exact amount will depend on collectively what we as a society want to allocate as part of the city/state budget. As for below market condos, the concept is deeply flawed & the program is poorly managed. It’s ok to be a renter; home ownership is not for everyone. What a cluster…

    1. Your understanding of how markets work is what is deeply flawed. If The City and/or The State gave “ALL people who qualify…a subsidy for housing and let them use that to assist with their own housing”, other things staying constant, that subsidy would quickly be eaten up. The price level in the market would simply rise to absorb the increased ability to pay, and no more people would be housed than would be housed absent the subsidy. But buyers of housing would be paying more, and the public would be out of a lot of money.

      The only people who believe what you said would be a useful public policy change are those who stand to benefit from increased housing costs, such as flippers, developers, and other hangers-on in the real estate “game” who would stand to benefit from a windfall as a result of increased money available to purchase housing.

      1. Except it’s not all people, it’s a select group of people who quality, as you also said. Those lucky people won the lottery.

  5. I keep wondering when the constant encampments around Van Ness and Market will be dealt with. It makes the entire area around the former Honda dealership feel unsafe. I can’t believe the developers of Chorus and Fifteen Fifty haven’t been able to reach a solution with the city. It must crush the desirability of these otherwise stellar new properties.

    1. We’re about ten years away, in my opinion, from there being a critical mass of new buildings where new residents, building management and hired security effectively shoo them away.

      Could be sooner than that if the city proactively did anything of course.

      1. I’d like to agree, but I’ve seen zero visible efforts by the owners of Chorus or Fifteen Fifty to do this. The owners of the old Honda facility must be unmotivated.

        In the past two years that I’ve regularly walked through this area, I’d say it’s gotten slightly worse.

        I’ve just sent an email to the new district sup for D6.

      2. Nice touch, omitting the adjective before the word “encampments”, sforthright! Are the encampments going to get up by themselves and move out of the neighborhood?

        I don’t think that just the simple presence of new residents “effectively shoo [the people inhabiting encampments] away.” This happened about a mile away, but last week a nonprofit leader was attacked with wooden plank after asking two homeless men to move away from where children were attending summer activities.

      3. How does “shooing away” even work nowadays? There are (small) tent camps on 16th and on Noe in the Castro, and on a couple avenues in the central Richmond at Geary. All the foot traffic (and, in the former case, house music from Lookout) in the world doesn’t seem to cause the homeless to move.

        I’m not trying to jump on the “this city’s had it” bandwagon – and certainly these tent camps are problematic up and down the west coast – but it’s certainly difficult to envision ways to move the needle back to even the “gosh this city has rough edges” level of the 1990s.

    1. What upgrades would you propose? To me service quality and shorter headways matter more than station upgrades.

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