An appeal of Planning’s findings with respect to the expected environmental impact of the proposed 168-unit apartment building with a mix of 78 studios, 54 one-bedrooms, 31 twos and one three to rise up to 130 feet in height on the northeast corner of Van Ness and Golden Gate Avenues, where a McDonald’s had previously stood, has been withdrawn.

And as such, the proposed development, the off-street parking ratio for which has been reduced to 0.5 spaces per residential unit, could be approved by the City this week.

But once again, as the 600 Van Ness site is currently being employed as a construction staging area for the City’s Van Ness Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project, a project which isn’t expected to be finished until mid-2020, at the earliest, the development isn’t likely to be ready for occupancy until the second half of 2022 based on a projected 24-month construction period and assuming the project is financed and the ground is broken once the staging area is cleared.

21 thoughts on “Appeal of Proposed Van Ness Corridor Development Withdrawn”
  1. I appreciate the sculpted, 3-d aspects, yet wonder if the overall aesthetic could be a tad less stoic?

  2. I have yet to see a boulevard converted to Bus Rapid Transit that is not a total livability fail. It makes the whole user experience of the street life into “its all about the busses.” Even the red lanes on Mission have completely changed the vibe to a lopsidedly bus-centric one.

    1. Can you elaborate on this complaint? Sure, high volume high frequency bus traffic tends to create an environment where you see a lot of buses. Yet those buses serve people who are traveling on or to destinations on the street. The negative (noise, big vehicles) is offset by the positive (efficient transportation). Do you have another solution in mind?

    2. Oh yeah, because 2 extra lanes of gridlocked car traffic is sooooooo much better for livability.

      1. I am consistently dumbfounded how folks used to total car dominance (including parking and gridlock) are so uncomfortable when anything else becomes more visible, whether it’s bicycles, electric scooters, people walking, or transit.

        1. I have a car in the city, and I still constantly wonder why they’re being accommodated as much as they are.

    3. I live right on Mission for a decade and the red lanes haven’t changed anything about the street. However, my commute on the 49 has speed up.

  3. I am so looking forward to having my view (from Alamo Square) of a top contender for Ugliest Building in San Francisco – the Federal Building – disrupted by this new residential building on Van Ness. I mean this sincerely.

    As for BRT being a “total livability fail,” please explain, UnlivableCity, what leads you to this conclusion. Van Ness was/is a noisy, dirty, dangerous, traffic-clogged car/bus/truck sewer. Most cars contained (and continue to contain) a single driver. It’s an easily demonstrable fact that buses, light-rail, and subways move people dramatically more efficiently than private automobiles, and when electrified, as the new Van Ness BRT will be, far more quietly and with less or no pollution. If your answer is that there should be a subway, well, yeah! That would be great. But at the cost of $500-$900-million dollars more per mile than BRT, this is not realistic today. A subway would be perfect. BRT is good. Perfect is the enemy of good…

      1. Pretty sure Boojum is talking about the old Federal Courthouse next to this new development (tho both are mostly just a giant rectangle block from afar).

        1. Yes, thanks, I realized that after looking at the map; but if s/he thinks the older one, which is no winner, but hardly different from dozens of blockish buildings around town, is better than the new one – which must be for it to be he ugliEST – then I’ll have to assume his/her view of the latter is already blocked.
          (And I was in error: Mr. King is still as enthralled by the freakish design as ever, he just had to face the facts that it didn’t ignite the Revolution…thankfully, I suppose)

  4. That is an enormously unattractive building. Nevertheless, a generation/culture inevitably gets the architecture that it deserves and I guess that we — given the systems and priorities that we’ve put in place — deserve this.

    1. As the renown architectural visionary, Hugh Ferris, proclaimed in 1929:

      “Architecture never lies. It invariably expresses its Age correctly.

  5. I’m thinking the architect needs a new seeing eye dog. That assemblage of random lego boxiness is truly unfortunate.

  6. i do appreciate how honest the architect is — down to the size of the tress being approximately what they will be at ribbon-cutting. all the renders help us understand that, unfortunately, the building needs a concept. especially the elevation along golden gate, it’s looking pretty sterile.

  7. Looks dated before a shovel even hits the ground. If you want to see how fugly those panels look in real life, check out the recently built AVA building on 9th between Market and Mission.

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