Startling UC numbers

Last night's HVNA meeting on the UC proposal for the old Extension site was about the historical/architectural significance of the buildings and, perhaps, the site itself. 

But, almost parenthetically, UC Planner Jeff Bond released some stunning numbers at last night's meeting. Last month, Bond refused to reveal what UC was paying to lease the 425 Market St. property and a Third St. property, claiming that it was against university policy to provide that information. Apparently UC has had some second thoughts about that policy. 

Bond said that UC is now paying $1.26 million a year for the two floors at 425 Market St. and $846,000 a year for a property on nearby 95 Third St. Since one of Bond's arguments in April was that UC couldn't afford to bring the site up to code and thus had to develop it, the inevitable conclusion is that UC simply wants the income it can get from for-profit housing development on the lower-Haight Street site. 

Pouring the millions it's now paying in downtown leases into the old Extension site would only give them a rehabbed, functional Extension site, not the tens of millions of dollars in income the housing development would provide.