Manhatanizing San Francisco

One by the ocean, another in the Mission

In the SF Examiner:

Sunset skyscraper proposal has a sister tower in SoMa

by Andrew Fortin-Caldera

Designs have been revealed for a pair of residential skyscrapers proposed for construction in San Francisco, but both towers face long odds of being added to the The City's skyline.

The two mixed-use skyscrapers — one 50 stories tall and the other 47 stories tall — would be located in the Outer Sunset and SoMa districts, respectively, and offer San Franciscans about 1,200 new homes.

The taller of the two Solomon Cordwell Buenz-designed structures would sit at 2700 Sloat Blvd., iterating on a skyscraper the planning department rejected in April. 

The developer, CH Planning LLC [Nevada] promised 712 apartments of varying size in the April design, with the rest of the tower being dedicated to retail spaces, a 212-car basement and bicycle parking.

The second skyscraper would be constructed at 636 Fourth St. just across from the San Francisco Caltrain Station, and would offer at least 520 apartments along with space for 130 cars and 231 bicycles.

Despite the progress the towers would make in The City's goal to construct 82,000 new units of housing by 2031, residents and officials have voiced various concerns about construction projects.

When the 50-story Outer Sunset tower was first proposed in April, the San Francisco Planning Department objected to the project's bulk, prompting a back-and-forth over the project's size and cost between the department and CH Planning LLC. 

SF Yimby reported that, in the latest filing, city staff contended the tower was 316% taller than base zoning allows.

Just last week, the Board of Supervisors killed a plan to convert a single-family Nob Hill home into 10 townhomes due to concerns that the proposed projects would cast too large of a shadow over a nearby recreation center.

Newly released federal housing data shows The City permitted just 81 units of new housing through the first five months of 2023, meaning San Francisco is off to its slowest start in approving new homes since the Great Recession.

Rob's comment:

Turning San Francisco into Highriseville has been going on for years, thanks in part to the Chronicle and John King. 

On the front page of today's Chronicle, King is boosting the dumb and ruinously expensive high-speed rail project:

That debut is at least seven years away, and progress will likely be dogged by more of the political second-guessing that has clouded high-speed rail since voters gave their blessing in 2008.

But, for the architects and structural engineers starting to craft their designs for the four stations — in Merced, Fresno, Bakersfield and near Hanford — extended timelines are the norm with a project of this scale.

“You have to have a long horizon,” said Peter Sokoloff of Foster + Partners, the architecture firm that is teamed with engineering firm Arup and was selected in April to design the quartet. “These are the most important kinds of projects for us to work on.”

It's also apparently important for Sokoloff to sing for his supper.

See also How the SF Chronicle failed San Francisco and John King and "slender" highrises in 2005.