250 4th Street Rendering
As we first reported last year, the existing two and one-half story building occupied by Olivet Theological University at 250 Fourth Street between Howard and Folsom is proposed to be razed with an 11-story hotel with 220 guest rooms over a ground floor restaurant (and/or retail) to rise on the site without any off-street parking except for (ten) bikes.
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Assuming approvals which could happen this week, the demolition of 250 Fourth Street would commence in July of 2013 and the finished building would be ready for occupancy by the end of 2014. And as the site currently appears:


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A Kynar, Gentler Eleven-Story Hotel Proposed To Rise On Fourth [SocketSite]

10 thoughts on “Designs For Eleven Stories Of Infill And More Feet On Fourth Street”
  1. Kind of bland, but a great location for a hotel with Moscone across the street and a new Muni metro station coming soon next door. Glad to hear it might get off the ground quickly.

  2. Very bland. It seems like SOMA is being assaulted by boring, glassy, boxy designs from all sides. However, it beats what’s currently there.

  3. No parking in or under this builing? did i understand that correctly? Where are the cars to be parked? Guests will drive to the hotel and guests will drive to the restaurant.

  4. Guests will drive to the hotel and guests will drive to the restaurant.
    There’s this thing called valet parking, for one. And if they don’t have parking on-site, you can bet that they’ll be marketing to those folks that arrive without a car. I’ve had several friends in town over the last year that came for conferences (which is what this hotel will likely market to) and never did they have a car. They usually had a cab from the airport to the hotel, then stayed at the W or Marriott and walked to the convention center.
    No idea why you think this hotel would be different?

  5. “There’s this thing called valet parking, for one.”
    Exactly. Also, a fair number of people do take BART in from the airport so onsite parking isn’t an issue. The issue will be the connection at the Market St. subway from BART to the CS once it gets built. Faster to walk from the station than transfer and wait for a packed 1-car T train.

  6. ^^^ And visitors won’t even be able to use a single ticket on that combined BART+Muni trip. Clipper helps a little but isn’t very well suited for visitors. So they need to fiddle with two different ticket machines, jet lagged and laden with luggage.
    Many of our public transit problems arise from the lack of coordination between transit agencies.

  7. “Kind of bland” is an understatement! This is one of the most boring buildings proposed in a long time. It is sad that the Planning Department doesn’t encourage some surface development or some level of sculpting of the street level space. SF’s architecture scene is going downhill so fast.

  8. “Many of our public transit problems arise from the lack of coordination between transit agencies.”
    Amen to that. However, I found the Oyster card in London confusing too so my partner and I ended up buying day passes for the zones we would be hanging out in. Regardless, the transit agencies in the Bay Area are not set up to make things easy for residents or visitors. I remember 6 months after Clipper was rolled out I still couldn’t add money to my card at the Daly City BART station because there were no machines available to do it.
    Getting back to the building…it reminds me of a lot of the sterile architecture that arose in the late 50s/early 60s. It lacks depth and is very forgettable which is a shame because even though it’s in the middle of the block the side alley gives it an extra facade to play with. Unfortunately, the front and the side are dull and uninspiring, but fit perfectly with the generic HOTEL sign.

  9. It’s a three minute walk from the 5th and Mission garage, seven minutes from Bart, and ten minutes from the future Transbay Terminal. Transportation isn’t really an issue here.

  10. It is terribly bland, but if the city required “surface treatments” or “sculpting” then we’d get more new buildings that look like the jukebox Mariott. No thanks!

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