501-505 Brannan Street Site

Speaking of development along San Francisco’s emergent Fourth Street Transit spine, while the City’s Central SoMa Plan envisions up-zoning the southwest corner of Brannan and Fourth to allow a tower of up to 250-feet to rise on the site, TMG Partners appears to be moving forward with plans to build a six-story building on a large portion of the parcel, behind the squat Bank of America building which shares the lot and will remain in place (as will K&L Wines).

501-505 Brannan Street Site Plan

Scheduled to be presented to San Francisco’s Planning Commission next month, TMG’s proposed 501-505 Brannan Street development would rise to a height of 85-feet, the height for which the prime corner parcel is currently zoned, and yield roughly 137,000 square feet of office space with an underground garage for around 70 cars, and a little retail space along Brannan, replacing the current surface area parking lot and stretching from Brannan to Bluxome.

15 thoughts on “Underbuilding Along San Francisco’s New Transit Spine”
  1. 1. Parking along “transit spines” should be moved off-street.
    2. K&L Wines should be granted landmark status.

  2. It would be interesting to allow the ground floor office space to be used for retail in the back and side of the building. Some of the alleys in that area have bars or restaurants but few new developments are encouraging stores on the calmer alleyways over the sewer throughways that make up most of SOMA.

  3. Would this preclude a higher building in the future, on the B of A / K&L site? (e.g., because of FAR or height-to-footprint issues) TMG is no dummy, so presumably they have a good reason for proceeding with this plan – and preserving future options too.

  4. I can’t imagine the B of A branch being there in perpetuity. It has way too many branches (good for me but not great for the bank to be shelling out so much in rent expenses.) Plus I see them aggressively courting high income customers by offering a lot of perks and usually that group do not need to use branches.

    1. There are no other BofAs within quick walking distance of there and there is about to be a dramatic increase in local population, transit and business in the area. Of course it’s worth having a branch on that block.

      Also, why wouldn’t upper-end clients require a bank branch? Cashiers checks, certain payroll issues, mortgages and a few other things still require face time at the bank. I find some reason to go in about once every 3 months or so, sometimes even to that very location. If bank branches didn’t make sense, Chase wouldn’t have built one on every block for the last 5 years.

      1. Yeah, I’ve had accounts at that branch for over 20 years. Convenient not to have to walk all the way to Market St. Nothing remarkable about the building though. They could easily fit into a new building.
        The only bank building around there worth keeping is the old Wells Fargo at 3rd and Brannan – the one with a Jack London plaque. It hasn’t been a working branch since about the mid-90s, but it had a nice bank-styled interior.

      2. Keep the BofA but as a tenant at the ground floor of a highrise to replace this fragment of SOMA’s 1970s

          1. I think we all agree with you.

            Although it is an amazing example of 1970s neo-classical retro inspired architecture. And it was the first bank in southeastern part of San Francisco with bilingual ATMs. So maybe it should be granted landmark status.

  5. Back in the day, the ONLY ATM in South of Market was at that branch. That was when BofA used to take their ATM’s offline from Midnight to 4AM. I remember the line hot leathermen lined up at 11:45 on Friday and Saturday nights getting cash before the ATM went offline.

    1. Yeah, I worked in the area, which was utterly dead at night. True, it was the only ATM around for blocks and blocks. Back then BofA’s versateller machines were the reason to bank with BofA, if you lived in SF.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *