NNN Brokers USA – San Francisco Commercial Real Estate Brokers: "The Scoop"

SF Citizen notes the food fight is commencing swiftly on the Stow Lake boathouse proposal — the one to turn it into “something like the Warming Hut at Crissy Field.” At 2 today, Rec and Park meets to talk about the potential death of pink popcorn and hot dogs. It’s early to be calling this one, but the Citizen has a prediction: a “partial yuppification” following a compromise between NIMBYs and Rec and Park. So… organic pink popcorn and hot dogs. [SF Citizen]

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The 7-unit TIC building at 733 Chestnut in Russian Hill was built in 1957 and recently remodeled by the looks of it. Unit 5′s been sold, and units 2, 3, and 7 are currently shopping for buyers by appointment, all at the nominally under-500K price of $499,000. For that, you get a 1-bed, 1-bath tenancy in common with an “open flr plan & tons of light.” Each unit has one parking space, and everyone, we assume, gets access to the 2,000-square-foot roof deck. Homeowners dues: $357 a month.
· 733 Chestnut [Website]

[Hotel on the Bay Bridge eastern span, by Lan Hu. More images at the story.]

Look what the Bay Line’s spawned. The condos on the Bay Bridge, a concept developed by Oakland architect and Berkeley professor Ron Rael, were inspiration for a studio at Berkeley recently. Headed by professors Marc L’Italien and visiting professor Fred Schwartz (of World Trade Center runner-up fame), the studio churned out a few more pie-in-the-sky ideas for the the Bay Bridge’s eastern span, which is planned for the big junkyard in the sky anyway. Those ideas include an extension of the Bay Trail (“A Park Above the Bay”), a space for farming, and a big hotel embedded in the bridge’s structure. It’s unlikely any of this would ever happen now, but L’Italien thinks if we could do it all over again, things might have been different: “I really believe that if a choice was being made today, we’d be looking at the alternative of salvaging the bridge a lot more than in the ’90s.”
· Design fantasies for obsolete Bay Bridge span [SFGate]
· Seriouser and Seriouser: The Bay Line, Condos on the Bay Bridge [Curbed SF]
· That Old Bay Bridge Span? Slap On a Park and Some Condos [Curbed SF]

The LA Times has a fascinating profile of a blind San Francisco architect, one Christopher Downey, who lost his sight as an adult to brain tumor complications. It never occurred to him to give up work in the “heroically visual” field of architecture, though, and he’s now working on the Polytrauma & Blind Rehabilitation Center in Palo Alto. He and other blind architects do note the work is a lot more about tactility and the other senses, though “personally I think I’ll avoid tasting buildings for now.” [LAT]

In two Thursdays, the proposed 400-foot twisty cylinder at 555 Washington will go to the Planning Commission for the final certification of its environmental impact report. In anticipation of the big day, the Planning Department’s released all of the letters that have been collected in its inbox. Judging by some of the names that express serious reservations about something or another, things aren’t looking too hot for Aegon Group, which also owns the Transamerica Pyramid (and basically the rest of that entire block). Two members of the Planning Commission think the draft EIR, as published last March, gets way too subjective. They both complain about a statement saying the building’s distinctive design “is unlikely to be perceived as a negative visual change by most observers” — hardly the kind of “analysis,” they say, that’s par for the course in assessing environmental impacts.

And if the director of “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill” has any weight to her name, she’s using it to sum up the problems other critics are having with the building. Says Judy Irving: “Please do not erode current law with spot zoning, demolish an historic building, and cast shadows on public parks, all for the sake of luxury condos that the city doesn’t need!”

Howard Wong, former senior architect at the city’s Bureau of Architecture says, “A tall, signature‐styled design would detract from the Transamerica Pyramid. … The Pyramid needs ‘room to breathe’ as a SF architectural icon. Spot zoning’s an issue here, too. The site at 555 Washington’s zoned for 200 feet, while the project’s just about double that. Allowing the extra height at this one project would, in the words of a couple urban designers from SOM, reveal that “San Francisco has no plan for its future growth nor for what it wishes to change or protect.”

Which brings us to 545 Sansome St., which would be demolished in the plan. The old headquarters of California Ink Co. is judged to be worth preserving by some, and indeed, the Historical Preservation Commission says Aegon’s “preservation alternative” is better than the twisty cylinder. In that particular scenario, the developers wouldn’t build the condo cylinder, and instead would keep 545 Sansome, while tacking on a nine-story residential addition to the building.

All that said, there are a couple groups that are pulling for the cylindrical condo building: RENEWSF, a group that follows projects in the city’s northeast area, and the Barbary Coast Neighborhood Association — they’re both pretty psyched about the improved Redwood Park and its gifting to the city. More word on Jan. 21, when 555 Wash gets its hearing.
· FiDi’s Shadow Drama: Free Park to Make Up for the Trouble [Curbed SF]
· Height Choppers Eye the Twisty Cylinder [Curbed SF]
· Twisty Cylinder to Play Sidekick to Transamerica’s Pyramid [Curbed SF]

[A 16th floor BLŪ model unit]

· BLŪ’s got new 16th floor model homes [Facebook/BLU]
· Fremont proposing A’s stadium on NUMMI land [CBS 5]
· Already: skydiving off the Burj Khalifa [Developments]
· Landscape architects for the Burj: local firm SWA Group [SFGate]
· A brief history of geography vs. geometry in subway maps [DO]
· SoMa’s Eagle Tavern up for sale [SFist]
· San Leandro plans a solar parking garage [IBA]
· Graffiti’s “bold” solution: murals! [SFGate]
· Adobe HQ’s vertical axis wind turbines [Inhabitat]

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Wood shingles! Nothing says down-home quite like them. The 22 townhouses of Fulton Grove were designed by Dan Solomon and built in 1992. One of them, a 2-bed, 1.5-bath, 1,146-square-footer is on the market now. Or rather, it’s been on the market since September. It’s got a “lovely private garden” like all its siblings, and a lane divides the development in half, with “access at both ends … through large apertures in new buildings.” Asking price is $729,000.
· 445 Fulton St [Redfin]
· Fulton Grove Townhouses [Solomon E.T.C.]

A WSJ story Saturday on the conversion of Treasure Island into a pedestrian eco-wonderland is a pretty straight-up summary on the whole project, including a quote from an excitable think tank director who says it “could turn out to be one of the premier examples of base conversions in the country.” But Tony Hall, who used to head the effort but was ousted after locking horns with Gavin, remains frowny-faced: “My contention is you’ll never see that island developed under this present scheme.” He cites the cost of toxic cleanup and seismic prep as potential project killers. [WSJ, previously]

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The Presidio saw a groundbreaking Friday of a center for the Family Violence Prevention Fund. The event brought the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Nicole Kidman to the Main Post, which only half a year ago was still mired in bad vibes from all that art museum talk. The opening of the Disney Museum on the Main Post grounds, however, speaks to the new way forward for Presidio architecture: restore an old building, and if you have to add anything, make it glass. Local firm BAR Architects are the designers for this project, which will run an $18.2 million tab turning Building 100 into the fund’s official headquarters.
· S.F. nonprofit starts work on $18.2M presidio HQ [SFBT]

The SF Business Times reports that the Trader Joe’s slated for Market & Noe Center is a done deal, with the lease having been finalized. Assuming no hiccups, the supermarket should open its doors at the old Tower Records site in about a year. [SFBT, previously]