45 Lansing: Site (www.SocketSite.com)
The word on the street as confirmed by a plugged-in developer: Turnberry is quietly shopping their 45 Lansing lot (outlined above in blue).
The implications: likely no new building at 45 Lansing for 5-10 years, and extremely low odds that once developed it will be the uberluxury product Turnberry (and neighbors) had envisioned.
And sorry folks, no April Fools.
The Turnberry (45 Lansing) Scoop: Construction Starting Early 2009? [SocketSite]
True Luxury Condos At 45 Lansing? [SocketSite]

33 thoughts on “The 45 Lansing SocketSite Scoop: Turnberry Quietly Shopping The Lot”
  1. Your description along with the image of One Rincon in the corner sounds like some kind of Rincon Hiil eulogy.
    [Editor’s Note: No eulogy, but a development of which plugged-in people should definitely be aware with respect to inventory, timing, and mix throughout the city and not just with respect to One Rincon Hill.]

  2. actually i think this is good for that area. they don’t need another massive tower given the inventory sitting there currently, and the space can be used as open public space or some sort of retail which the richie riches at 1 rincon, met and lansing could use.

  3. Great, another dirt field to look at for a few years … sigh I’ll add this site to my prayer that the Fremont/Harrison corner get developed before 2015.

  4. The Californian was canceled a while ago, I think. ORH is getting lonelier by the day… On the bright side, its views will last a while longer.

  5. Can someone tell me if this is the lot next to the gas station?
    I remember a sales guy named matt told me about turnberry going up there, that’s tough. Wonder what they’ll do to stem people leaving.

  6. this is just more reason why the city shouldn’t let developers demolish existing useful buildings before the developer is ready to build the new building. the previous bulding at 45 Lansing was a nice brick building with architects offices in it. Also one of the buildings demolished to make way for the long-delayed Californian (399 Fremont) was a very nice 3-story deco-ish office-industrial building. Those buildings were occupied by businesses up until the day they were demolished. It’s really a shame that we now have just dirt lots and no buildings for years to come. Not good for the neighborhood or the City.

  7. i agree!! a building shouldn’t be demolished (unless its fugly) until the funding and all is ready for the new building.

  8. today’s chron:
    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/01/BUQ816QS2H.DTL
    During an industry panel discussion on Wednesday, Michael Covarrubias, chief executive officer of San Francisco development firm TMG Partners, said that he doubted he would witness another residential skyscraper built in San Francisco.
    “And you’ll never see two towers again,” he said, referring to projects that included twin high-rises, such as The Infinity and One Rincon Hill condominiums in the SoMa neighborhood. “It’s the death knell for residential development.”
    If his prediction is true, it would undermine assumptions in long-range planning throughout the city. Notably, the Transbay project includes – and depends on land-sale revenue from – as many as seven new skyscrapers, filled with an undetermined mix of residential and office space.

  9. Why dont they fill all those empty lots where buildings won’t be going up with grass and call it a park? That is the least they can do for those poor lonely ORH residents who stuck way up there all alone. We need more parks, not more buildings.

  10. jessep – It is possible Covarrubias’ statement isn’t a prediction but rather a bluff.
    As a developer he’s got to maximize profit and one way to do that is to talk the market down to get concessions from parcel owners and the city.
    It might work and it doesn’t hurt to try. Talk is free after all.
    Personally I do hope the city eases back on the BMR requirements. As you mention, SF might actually be shooting itself in the foot if no-one can profitably develop Transbay with the existing BMR requirements.
    The loss of the Transbay project would really hurt SF but wouldn’t mean much to the larger bay area. Both San Jose and Oakland are well positioned to become the bay area’s transit hub.

  11. “Both San Jose and Oakland are well positioned to become the bay area’s transit hub.”
    I think both San Jose and Oakland WILL become the Bay Area’s transit hub. Don’t forget the majority of the population lives south of here in the largest city in Northern California, San Jose, while Oakland was for decades the traditional rail hub of the Bay Area before the advent of commercial air travel. The cost of trying to bring the high speed rail trains into San Francisco is huge vs. letting them terminate in the south or Oakland.

  12. Don’t underestimate value of Speaker of the House being a San Franciscan .. and a fairly powerful Senator. I have no doubts the Transbay Transit Center will come to life … my only worry is whether the currently designated residential blocks will stay that way or become office space.

  13. jamie – transit hubs need not be tourist destinations. Very few transit hubs draw a majority of traffic from tourism. Business travel (commutes or longer trips) sustain almost every transit hub.

  14. Jamie, for decades, rail travellers arrived in Oakland, and then took the ferry to the city. Now we have BART, and other choices. Tourists will not be upset if they have to get a glimpse of Oakland.
    As for business travel, if the economic center of the Bay Area is 40 miles south of Nob Hill, why would they not want a hub in San Jose?

  15. “As for business travel, if the economic center of the Bay Area is 40 miles south of Nob Hill, why would they not want a hub in San Jose?”
    Uh, because there’s no transit in San Jose to connect with? Unless we built a big AVIS garage at the terminus. /end snark.

  16. There are 3 heavy and 2 light rail passenger lines serving downtown SJ. If BaRT to SJ ever gets built it will add much more traffic. Then there’s the web of bus lines. Their service level is not as good as Muni but at least it is a lot more comfortable.
    Still a car rental agency in downtown SJ would be a good idea in downtown. I never looked that up though as the non driving alternatives are good enough for me.
    And that’s where SJ is today : a century behind in transit compared to SF-Oakland. But they are catching up.
    SF on the other hand is comparatively anti-growth and will remain in stasis while the rest of the bay area grows.

  17. Milkshake,
    What’s your point? Obviously, San Jose is a bigger and more economically important city. That doesn’t mean that’s where a hub should be.
    But is not nearly as dense or geographically constrained.s Making the transit hub in SF would make much more sense for ferry/bus connections to Marin, Bart to the East Bay, and light rail lines/BART from various parts of the city. The utility that people derive from transit in SF is many fold what people derive in San Jose, and for that reason it makes to sense to have the “hub here” not out of any sort of need to satisfy an edifice complex.

  18. What is so wrong with Oakland being the hub? It would be the easiest place to bring the high speed trains into the northern Bay Area, and has easy access to ferry and BART. Bringing the trains into the city would be very expensive because of the bay or peninsula.

  19. Actually in my view: There’s nothing wrong with Oakland being the hub.
    12th street city center area would be great.
    Isn’t that’s BART’s Hub?
    Oakland has the infrastructure at least, but not the density. If costs are such a huge factor, then I would rather choose Oakland, but not San Jose. That’s crazy.
    But I don’t think San Jose should be the hub just because it think it’s “important enough” to be.
    We should utilize existing transit infrastructure as much as possible with new transit infrastructure.

  20. No way! We *NEED* a big, shiny HSR terminal right in downtown SF. It’ll be great. It’ll be big, shiny and right there where everyone wants to be. Major boost to downtown SF hotels, restaurants and businesses.
    Plus Caltrain service will be extended which will improve transit options for Peninsula dwellers immensely.
    Imagine trying to connect, with luggage, in Oakland? That’s an awful idea. Why pay extra to take a fast train only to have to sit on BART for 30+ minutes to get where you’re going? That totally ruins the economics of the service.

  21. What’s your point? Obviously, San Jose is a bigger and more economically important city. That doesn’t mean that’s where a hub should be.
    This is an absurd statement. Perhaps all of Santa Clara County is what you say, but San Jose is the largest city in the US to lose population during the day (it’s the bedroom community for the job centers in Silicon Valley – Cupertino, Mountain View, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Milpitas, Palo Alto, etc). The daytime population of SF is far larger than the daytime population of SJ, even though SJ’s nighttime population is 200k larger than SF’s. That is not what a “business capital” looks like.

  22. jessep – BART is nearing capacity in the Transbay Tube and certainly would exceed it if HSR terminated in Oakland. So…the question is whether it’s better to allocate money to build HSR to SF or to build HSR to Oakland and then allocate even more to build another transbay tube to SF.
    FYI – BART has the worst peaking problems of any heavy rail system in the world (highest percentage of passengers coming at peak times, with very low use outside of those times comparatively), which means that money spent on BART should be to build more non-peak lines that make the system more useful outside of peak times (in other words, more intraurban lines in SF and the East Bay). HSR wouldn’t necessarily hurt peak times more than non-peak times, but BART doesn’t need to be taxed more than it is before some more huge investments are made. BART to SJ will likely only worsen the peaking problem, unless SJ starts to significantly add jobs in downtown SJ (creating another job center for the region’s transit systems – most of the jobs in the South Bay are scattered and don’t work well for transit).

  23. jessep – I think that SJ could make *a* good hub but need not be the prime candidate. Oakland, San Jose, and SF would all make excellent locations for a transit hub (in that order, IMO).
    Actually the best outcome would be for all 3 to become hubs.
    The bay area’s density reminds me a lot of Germany’s Ruhrgebiet region with Dusseldorf, Duisberg, Essen, and Dortmund all serving as nearly equal transit hubs. The Ruhrgebeit has almost the same size, density and population as the bay area. However it does also have great transit connection to cities outside of the region, something we definitely do not have.

  24. “Germany’s Ruhrgebiet region with Dusseldorf, Duisberg, Essen, and Dortmund all serving as nearly equal transit hubs”
    Thank You! This may come as news to some, but the Bay Area density is NOT like more traditional cities such as Chicago where you have a primary core with rail, roads and transit radiating out like spokes in a wheel. The Bay Area has multiple centers, and as was pointed out, although the Bart plan chose to make Oakland the central hub, I like Milkshake’s multi hub idea better.

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