West’s greenest building faces delay

SAN FRANCISCO — A vine-shrouded green office tower is slated to sprout at the site of a former union hall that was once stained red by the blood of striking longshoremen, but lawmakers on Tuesday could throw salt on those plans.

A two-story building on The Embarcadero next to Boulevard restaurant sits vacant at the site of the planned tower.

Development company Hines plans to build an extremely eco-friendly 10-story office tower with vegetated walls.

The Planning Commission’s January approval of the project is now being disputed because an environmental-impact report wasn’t completed to study the historical significance of the building, the shadows that would be cast by the building’s height, which would exceed the parcel’s 84-foot height limit by 39 feet, and other factors.

The company said the additional floors will help it secure the revenue needed to fund green-building elements — such the insulating plants that would grow along the building’s walls — to create the West Coast’s most environmentally sustainable office building.

The existing gray-and-white building, which replaced a burned-down barn after the 1906 earthquake, appears unremarkable from the outside. But inside, it played an important role in Depression-era labor battles.

In 1934, when picketing longshoremen shut down the Port of San Francisco to protest working conditions, the top floor was being used as a meeting hall by the International Longshoremen’s Association, planning documents show.

On July 5, 1934, police fired at groups of strikers near the building, killing a longshoreman and a volunteer cook from the union’s soup kitchen.

The bodies lay inside the union hall for several days until a funeral was held, and the strike then snowballed into a general work stoppage involving more than 100 unions and 100,000 workers, documents show.

The longshoremen eventually secured the 30-hour work week and other benefits they demanded.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will consider the appeal of the Planning Commission’s green-light on the project. In making its decision, the board will consider whether the existing structure is historically significant.

If supervisors uphold the appeal, demolition and construction will be delayed until an environmental-impact report is complete. Depending on report findings, plans might be approved, modified or nixed.

The developer aims to begin construction this year and lease space by 2011, but the project could be delayed by more than a year if an environmental-impact report is required, according to Hines Vice President Paul Paradis.