Apartments to sprout near Rincon Hill towers
By: John Upton
Examiner Staff Writer
March 22, 2009
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| Park it here: Possible park amenities include cafe seating and a coffee kiosk. (Courtesy Rendering) |
SAN FRANCISCO — What was once slated for parkland will instead be developed into a seven-story residential building.
The tetrahedron apartment building will be wedged between the Bay Bridge and several residential towers, including the towering One Rincon Hill project.
The 308-unit building is planned for a 1.7-acre site between Harrison Street and the Bay Bridge that had been slated to be used as a public park once Bay Bridge construction was finished, but Caltrans instead sold the land to development firm Emerald Fund Inc.
Under Emerald Fund’s plans, approved Thursday by the San Francisco Planning Commission, the Bay Bridge-abutting half of the irregularly-shaped lot will become home to a residential building with 308 rental units, and the Harrison Street half of the site will be dedicated to a public park.
Architect David Baker told The Examiner that the building will provide an urban ambience that’s needed to bring safety and vitality to the planned open-space, and that it will buffer the park from freeway noise.
The units will loop around a private courtyard, which will link to the public park through a four-story archway carved into the building’s front façade.
Some neighbors objected to the plans, saying they would lose views and that they had looked forward to a park that spread over the entire site.
Before commissioners voted unanimously to approve the project, some of them praised the plan, and said naysaying neighbors should have known the area was being intensively developed before they invested in their units.
“I don’t think that we, under any circumstances, protect speculative views at a time when an area is in the process of a build-out,” Commissioner Kathrin Moore said.
The apartment building will create a neighborhood-scaled anchor to the urban high-rise-dominated Rincon Hill residential enclave, which was beginning to boom before the economy soured.
Emerald Hill representatives neither told the commission when building efforts might begin, nor returned phone calls from The Examiner seeking comment. Caltrans will vacate the site next month, spokeswoman Margena Wade said.
Construction of the second tower of the adjacent One Rincon Hill residential project has been delayed for the past year. It’s unclear when construction will begin, according to developer Mike Kriozere.
“If we saw the economy start to bottom out and move in the right direction, we’d want to start right away,” Kriozere said.
