San Francisco Commercial Real Estate News: “The Scoop”

With an eye to the future, John King takes a looks at some of the changes coming to the recently named “Transit Center District” as the SoMa skyline is transformed by 700-1,000 foot-high skyscrapers. There is a valid fear that the TCD could become a sterile ravine of glass and expensive suits — so the Planning Department has started to take measures to ensure that the coming changes don’t have a negative effect on the “feel” of the neighborhood. So the question remains, how do you make a potentially cavernous district more pedestrian friendly? In a word, trees. In three words, lots of trees. And of course, by taking other boring-but-necessary precautions like limiting the width of lobbies and storefronts, and by preventing garage-entrances and loading docks from facing major streets. Will it work? We’ll find out by 2014, when commuters and SoMa workers make their daily trek from the city’s new Tower of Babel through its newest greentopia.
· Place: In S.F., Jessie St. is looking good [SF Gate]

More than one in five homeowners with a mortgage spends at least half their income on housing in San Francisco, and that’s true in about a dozen other large cities in the country. Over 7.5 million people (that’s 15 percent of all homeowners with mortgages) are feeling the very same pain. Worst-off in the country? Florida’s Miami area, where almost a third of homeowners spend half or more of their income on housing. Yikes. [L.A. Times]

[”Black and White,” by Curbed SF Flickr photog Whole Wheat Toast. Seems more black and red.]

· NYC’s tidal turbines get shredded by tides [TreeHugger]
· Cities debate nixing off-street parking [USA Today]
· Bus driver to phone gabber: shut the hells up! [SF Gate]
· Landscape architects who reinvent the environment [NYT]
· Say goodbye to Muni Metro’s crap maps [SFist]

Gavin’s back in high gear on the green front: The city’s Chamber of Commerce has gotten behind Mayor Newsom’s proposition to levy so-called “carbon taxes” on all San Francisco businesses to compensate for the level of greenhouse emissions spewed by their buildings. While Gav had stopped pushing for the bill’s inclusion on the November ballot, a revised proposal will allow for an adjustment of the tax rate according to how much carbon businesses actually emit. Fun with Logic. [City Insider]

The Under 500 Club is Curbed SF’s exclusive members-only support group for those shoddy, poorly-staged homes (if at all!) languishing on the market for under $500,000. It’s a sad state of affairs out there, San Francisco. All sad sacks and shitboxes should appeal to the Curbed SF inbox.

Click the image above to view the full photogallery.

San Francisco’s Under 500 Club stock is improving, no? New to market: A decently-staged, top floor 1 bedroom, 1.5 bathroom condo in David Baker’s 224 condo homage to density, 888 7th Street #LL32. 685 square feet for $499,000. 1 parking spot; extra storage for purchase. See also: never-ending neon-bright hallways, massive Soviet-style (and sound-proofed) courtyards, views, views, views— of the train tracks.
· 888 7th Street #LL32 [Redfin]
· Curbed Inside: 888 Seventh Street, Full Reveal [Curbed SF]
· Curbed Inside: 888 Seventh Street, Outdoor Edition [Curbed SF]

Storefronting is Curbed’s regular look at the changing retail scene, with an emphasis on how it impacts neighborhoods. Opening a store? See a store that’s opening? Keep us posted.

There is such a thing as handbag porn too, you know. Designer of luxe handbags and leather goods, Hlaska, has opened its flagship store in San Francisco’s retail red light district, the Fillmore— at 2033 Fillmore Street, not so far from other NKOTB, Ralph Lauren. Foregoing the sort of stark, modernist interior such a name might inspire, Hlaska’s moody decor resembles a scientist’s curiosity cabinet. Expect old-world details: dark wood, a scientific instrument or two, museum casework— and lots of leather.
· Hlaska [website]

SF Luxe photog Drew Alitzer stepped inside the one project that North Beach has thrown its support behind lately: the $2.9 million chapel, the Porziuncola Nuova. A replica of a Benedictine chapel built in Assisi, Italy in 1209, the PN (as it shall henceforth be known) will sit in the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi. The lawyer who spearheaded the project shipped in Italian masons, fresco artists, and woodworkers to replicate the original from hundreds of photographs— totally North Beach, no? [SF Luxe]

Our little Berkeley is growing up so fast! Planning Commission members voted to increase the number of 120-foot buildings in its new plan for downtown; to be considered in the EIR for its new downtown plan. The report will also encompass four 180-foot point towers and two 220-foot hotels. Do note that the buildings themselves aren’t yet approved— in fact, Berkeley’s planning director doubts that all will be built over the course of the 20-year plan. However, by killing a flock of birds with a single EIR report (imagine!) the Commission will make it much easier for developers to realize the proposed projects should they move forward. The University has offered funds to the city as mitigation for 800,000 square feet of construction by 2020; two of the towers sit on university-owned land, and the school is soliciting partnerships from developers for future projects. Not all folks— planners, Commission members, what have you— are in agreement on this one, naturally. However, the executive director of planning did make one recommendation that most sane people will concede to: Just say no to the Great Western Building, he suggests (a.k.a. the Power Bar building) which the Berkeley Daily Planet describes as a “cheese grater” at the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Center Street. Someone’s copping John King’s style.
· Commissioners Add Two New High-Rises To Downtown Plan Environmental Study [Berkeley Daily Planet]
· Rendering Reveal: Berkeley’s New “Highrise” [Curbed SF]
· Building in Berkeley?! [Curbed SF]

[PowerBar building courtesy Flickr photog myelectricsheep]

Catch 22: While more existing single-family homes sold in the Bay Area during August (up about 11 percent from last year) 36.1 were foreclosures. Those ultra-bargains in effect leveled the median home price to $450,000 (the same as May 2003) as compared to $655,000 a year ago. [SF Gate]

Last week, we checked in on the progress of a new Little Saigon parking garage and stumbled on a project with more history than we realized. Back in 2002, a controversial development was proposed by Hastings College of Law: an 800 car parking garage— read: a money-making venture— to be exact. To be even more specific, an 800 parking garage-slash-money-making venture that would replace demolish SROs. Bad call. A state senator intervened, protests ensued, a Supervisor was arrested— Chris Daly, disorderly conduct— and the project went back to the drawing board in order to become more community friendly. Gather ’round the fire while Curbed SF commenters school our asses tell the tale …

… What a swap - affordable housing to a large all-above-grade single-use garage in a dense neighborhood with oodles of transit! … The university determined to plow ahead all others-be-damned, except State Senator John Burton told them that if they moved ahead as planned with their dunderheaded project … he would yank every last cent of funding for the university in the next budget cycle. That got attention and the university slowed their plans, created a “blue ribbon panel” of “experts” and community members to evaluate other options, including incorporating student housing and a new YMCA, along with a slightly-smaller-but-still-too-massive above ground garage … Of course, the Y ended up being a patsy, or a token “greenwashing”, so to speak, for a massive garage that everyone but Hastings thinks is a waste of valuable central city land. yes, there will be retail on the ground floor — big whoop.

Big whoop indeed. Of course, there’s always another side to a story, just ask the Big Bad Wolf and another Curbed commenter:

So 2 SRO’s which serve not as affordable housing for hard working families, but as drug dens, flop houses, and brothels (as anyone who has spent 5 minutes in the Tenderloin knows), are good uses of valuable central city land? Most of the spots will go to professors and administrators who often are coming from less-public-transit-friendly locations and are wasting money parking in other garages. Plus, the land has been a flat parking lot for the past decade. A structure is more efficient, and the ground floor retail will give some life to what was, up until now, Heroin Row.

Well played Hastings College of Law — just six years later and you finally got that parking garage. Many thanks to the team of anonymous readers who dropped some serious development knowledge on us last week. THE END. For now.

[inset rendering via Socketsite]