Schlage Lock factory may finally meet wrecking balls
By: Katie Worth
Examiner Staff Writer
December 19, 2008
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The Schlage Lock Company on Bayshore Boulevard has been shuttered and vacant for years. (Examiner file photo)
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SAN FRANCISCO — The City’s old Schlage Lock factory, closed in 1999 and left derelict since then, will finally meet the proverbial wrecking ball, perhaps as soon as February, according to city officials.
The Planning Commission on Thursday approved a proposal to transform the abandoned site and the neighborhood around it into a 46-acre transit village. The plan consists of cleaning up rife contamination from 70 years of lock manufacturing and building hundreds of new homes, parks, businesses and even a grocery store.
Though the plan must still be approved by the Redevelopment Agency and Board of Supervisors, Thursday’s approval by the Planning Commission gives the site’s owners the green light to pursue demolition and cleanup.
The transformation is a long time coming, said Fran Martin, chair of community group Visitation Valley Planning Alliance.
“I joke about how happy everybody will be at the demolition party,” she said. “There will be dancing in the streets.”
After the factory closed in 1999, Home Depot expressed interest in the site. However, that idea was killed after it met staunch opposition from the neighborhood. Shortly thereafter, the community started meeting to discuss better options, said City Planner Steve Shotland.
As that planning process evolved, the property was the subject of years of legal battles and also came under the regulatory eye of the state, which demanded toxins on the site be removed, according to Tom Evans of the Redevelopment Agency.
The lawsuits were finally resolved this summer, when the 12.6-acre factory site was turned over to Universal Paragon Corp., owner of an adjacent former rail yard, who agreed to clean up both sites and develop them.
If approved by the Redevelopment Agency on Jan. 6 and the Board of Supervisors afterward, the entire 46 acres of the factory, rail yard and neighborhood around them would become a redevelopment area. As it stands, about 390 people live on those 46 acres; the proposal would allow for up to 1,600 new housing units, 132,000 square feet of retail space and three parks, Evans said. A grocery store, which Visitation Valley currently lacks, could also open on the site.
“Our commercial area is moribund,” Martin said. “Everyone in the whole valley has to leave the area to go shopping.”
With the nitty-gritty details of the design still to be fleshed out, Martin said she hopes the result is something that Visitation Valley can be proud of.
“I’m hoping they make something really beautiful here,” she said. “It’s really exciting. It’s like Vis Valley is growing up and becoming part of The City. We’re being paid attention to, at last.”
Schlage Lock Factor project:
46: Acres being considered for redevelopment
390: People currently living in those
1,600: New homes
132,000: Square feet of new retail
9: Years the Schlage Lock factory has been closed
SOURCES: San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, San Francisco Planning Department
