With San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors having overturned the revised plans for a 13-story, mixed-use building to rise on the site of the columned Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist at 450 O’Farrell Street, revised plans which would have yielded around 300 “Group Housing” units on the site rather than 176 individual apartments as originally proposed and approved, even bigger plans for the site have been drafted and are close to being approved.
The re-revised plans for the site, as newly rendered by Gensler for FORGE Development Partners, would now yield a 17-story development, rising up to 182 feet in height on the site, with 266 regular dwelling units (a mix of 103 studios, 114 one-bedrooms, 30 twos and 19 three-bedrooms); 2,700-square-feet of ground floor restaurant/retail space, including the existing 1,000-square-foot restaurant space (i.e., Shalimar) at 532 Jones, which is part of the project site; and an 8,850-square-foot replacement church fronting O’Farrell Street.
We’ll keep you posted and plugged-in.
What a putrid design.
Baseless criticism. I think it looks nice especially considering what it’s replacing.
What an odd comment – what it’s replacing needs some restoration but is unique and different, and speaks to a period of history – and it’s going to be replaced by a bland tic-tac-toe of glass and overwrought mullions. Bland, bland, bland.
I don’t know about unique – the Christ, Scientists made a specialty of these Temple-as-a-bank-as-a temple structures….many found them unwelcoming – but yes it’s more atmospheric than the current proposal (which really isn’t bad, on its own merits)
Yes, grim indeed.
I disagree. I think it’s a cool look, I just know it won’t be built.
At the top of the picture, in the sky, I can see the pie.
This proposal makes as much economic sense as installling welding shops in Salesforce tower.
looks nice, but thats a really tough place to live.
This is Fox Plaza redux.
Vertical construction is not financially viable in SF at this time and likely for the foreseeable future. Odds are this does not get built. On top of which, the area continues to deteriorate. Not far away Nordstrom announced the closure of its store with the spokesperson for Westfield Mall (which is being shopped by its owner) taking a shot at SF leaders for the worsening situation downtown. Today T-Mobile announced the closure of its Stockton St store. Who exactly would want to live downtown? Presumably the developer will put the entitlement on the market at a discounted price.
In a related development plans to construct a 400-unit tower at 110 Fifth St. have been placed on ice. Hearst said the project “doesn’t pencil because of market conditions and construction costs.” This was part of the second phase of the 5M development which apparently won’t move forward. If 5M does not pencil, then even more so the Christian Science project does not either.
I would think it is just the opposite. 5M is the poster child for how to not work out in this environment. Didn’t they concede to like 40% below market housing in exchange for having much more office than zoning allowed or something like that.
With respect to the 5M project, the major concessions were in exchange for a major up zoning of the site, which was only zoned for development up to 160-feet in height. Now back to the proposed project and site at hand…
Regardless, 5th & Mission is a much better location than O’Farrell & Jones. Which isn’t saying it’s a great location; just a 3 out of 10, instead of a 1 out of 10…
Not only is hearst suspending 5M project, they are losing their biggest office tenant, yahoo!, which will be vacating chron building at 5th and mission.
The neighboring 415 Natoma [Street Tower] … is 97 percent vacant. Home service tech company Thumbtack has leased only 20,000 square feet, which represents just 3 percent of the total office
It must be weird to work in a building that’s that empty. Granted you aren’t likely going to the floors that are empty, but just the utter lack of activty in comparison to the size of the building must be…depressing?…unsettling?…(something undesired)
“Who exactly would want to live downtown? ”
Not many of the class that can afford the current prices, that’s for sure, but many posters on these boards thought it was a great idea to build luxury lofts on skid row, and apparently many still do. What could possibly go wrong?!
Thanks for the reminder that there are a few distinct units on the market recently at The Historic 2 Mint Plaza that might have changed status since the last time we talked about that particular live/work loft development that for years has served as the lodestone for gentrification in around here. Apt 307 appears to now be ‘Contingent’ (Unit 502, which ss highlighted, appears to have had it’s listing removed from the MLS without a sale).
To my layman’s interpretation it looks like Apt 307 was purchased for $540,000 in the third quarter of 2007 and then put up for sale asking $689,000 at the end of the third quarter of 2021; the seller evidently swinging for the fences during the mid-pandemic housing bubble, but also during an overlapping time period when well-heeled white-collar professionals in San Francisco collectively woke up and realized that expanded work-from-home policies meant they could buy real estate pretty much anywhere and get much more value for their money outside of a city long since overrun by many folks from elsewhere who arrived here with a gold rush mentality trying to make their fortune in the S.F. real estate “game”.
Beginning in the second quarter of 2021, the listing for Apt 307 went through a few iterations of price changes, listing removals, and re-listings, finally landing on an asking price of $510,000 during the first quarter of this year. In March, 2 Mint Plaza #307 appears to have been sold for $525k, a sale which might be considered to be “over asking” according to the industry stats that appear on post cards unsolicited in my physical mail box on a regular basis, but also a 2.8 percent nominal decrease from it’s sale price over one hundred and eighty-five months earlier. According to the CPI Inflation Calculator at the BLS, that $540k purchase amount in 2007 has the same buying power as $782k in 2023’s money.
Apt’s 6 and 900 are still for sale at 2 Mint Plaza. Last time I checked (a few months back), someone apparently with a lot of disposable wealth and NYC envy combined units 901 and 1001 into a 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom 2500 ft.² “super loft” and was then trying to rent it out at the rate of $15,000 per month.
If you mean SOMA, luxury lofts were constructed there starting in the 1990’s (and some quite fashionable conversions predated the new construction by several years), which is well before this “board” or nearly any other online development forum even existed.
All the years that I hoped DTO would one day have the excitement and options that DTSF did. Now that the day is seemingly near, it’s less rewarding than I thought it would be.
So the 2.0 version eliminates the group housing and reverts to market rate with probably a percentage devoted to below market rate? I cannot keep track of the gyrations here. That said, where are the buyers for this awful location? They seem to be leaving town. CA is losing residents. The state and SF are also losing wealthier residents: the San Francisco Chronicle reported that “people who exited the city [of San Francisco] in 2020 and 2021 made about $15 billion more than those who arrived.” Bring back the group housing which I assume will be taxpayer subsidized. Beats housing them in hotels.
UPDATE: Re-Revised Plans for Overturned Development Approved