With plans to level the historic Lucky 13 bar and develop a new five-story building upon its 2140 Market Street parcel having been approved, and the demolition and building permits for the project in the works, the Market Street site and newly rendered plans are officially on the market for $9.75 million rather than preparing to break ground.

In the works since 2015, as we first reported at the time, the plans for the building to rise upon the Lucky 13 site include 27 condos (3 lofts, 12 one-bedrooms and 12 twos), a 1,230-square-foot commercial space fronting Market Street, and a storage room for 34 bikes on its ground floor.

Based on when the initial application for development was filed, only four of the approved 27 condos would need to be offered at Below Market Rates.

And once again, the existing little building on the parcel has a rather storied past, which includes being the site of Harvey Milk’s election night celebration when it was then a bar known as Alfie’s.

15 thoughts on “Historic Market Street Bar and Plans for Development in Play”
  1. This brings the unit count to 111 in projects put on the market in the past several weeks rather than moving forward with construction. Two of those projects are in the sketchy Tenderloin area, while the other is in the “Hub” district.

    Though this project is in a good area, the 9.75 million price works out to 361K per entitled unit. Even with the lesser BMR requirement, it’s hard to see this going for anywhere close to the asking price. Clearly, more and more projects do not pencil out given the likely trajectory of new condo prices over the next 5 or so years.

  2. Works out to 424k per market rate door!

    This price would be a new high water mark for SF, and it’s on a mid-block site with no parking. Currently, the condo and apartment market is softening while construction costs are soaring, not sure how they came up with this price?

  3. I am all for more housing, especially on market st, but seeing Lucky 13 replaced with that literally makes me want to cry.

    1. Imagine if the other new buildings on Upper Market had been built twice as tall. There would be much less incentive to build on this lot. Low-density zoning forces new housing to spread out over more space so that more is lost.

      1. If the nearby wedgy blights were taller, that would drive up nearby property values even more, increasing the incentive to build even more, even pricier buildings. High-density only works up to the point (height) at which construction costs explode.

    2. Lucky 13 has hardly been around very long. There were other bars there LONG before 13 came along, including, I believe a sex club once in the 70’s.

    3. It sucks, but it has to happen. Having a parking lot in the middle of Market St is just ridiculous. I know it seems impossible to imagine in the short term, but there’s a new retail space below just as big as Lucky 13 for a new owner to start their own history. Every bar from 1849 is now gone from SF. I’m sure people in 1890 thought the city was going to crap because of that. Life moves on. We can’t have parking lots anymore.

  4. How could a well-liked, well-used bar, and historic resource be planned to replace with this mess? So this is the future of SF unless this wet city administration changes its planning rules. Does anyone still believe that these units are built to solve the “housing crisis” rather enrich developers and then investing landlords. Why not tax empty units?

    1. We can’t have parking lots in the middle of Market St. It’s just an incredibly inefficient use of space. Instead, we need housing. Lots and lots of housing, just like this. It sucks that Lucky 13 has to go, but it’s the right call for the city. We need to do this with just about surface parking lot, along with a bunch of 1 and 2 story buildings that need to become 4-10 stories.

  5. More corporate architecture by C students from Academy of Art design department. Outside and inside, these buildings look like offices with stoves in them.

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