The Fang family is planning to level the San Francisco Newspaper Printing Company building at 1201 Evans Avenue – within which the San Francisco Examiner, SF Weekly and a number of other local periodicals are currently printed – as well as three industrial buildings upon the adjacent 1241 Evans Avenue lot.

And as envisioned, a 7-story building would rise up to 75 feet in height upon the Hunters Point/India Basin site, which stretches around the corner from Evans to Fairfax Avenue, with 220 apartments over 25,000 square feet of ground-floor PDR space, a basement garage for 110 cars and the development’s residential entrance at the corner of Evans and Keith.

The Fang family, which had owned the Examiner from 2000 to 2004, purchased the 1201 Evans Avenue parcel for $1.5 million in 1991 and acquired the adjacent 1241 Evans Avenue parcel for $1.4 million in 1995.

Keep in mind that the assembled site is currently only zoned for production, distribution and repair (PDR) uses (which doesn’t include housing) and development up to 40 feet in height. We’ll keep you posted and plugged-in.

32 thoughts on “Plans to Raze the Examiner’s Printer for Housing to Rise”
  1. Great idea for a few reasons:

    1) More residential housing along Evans Avenue will create a natural link between 3rd Street and India Basin / Hunter’s Point residential areas. I assume traffic on Evans Avenue will be improved too (think: better bike paths, wider side walks etc). This should make it possible to cycle from, say, your condo in Hunters Point to your office in Mission Bay without fearing for your life.

    2) This is one of the few parts of town where market rate housing can still be build to be relatively affordable. Large developments with few potential permitting obstacles can hardly be found anywhere else in the city.

    3) Overall, the mix of density, height and parking seem to be appropriate for this location.

  2. The Ex – maybe soon to be the exEx?? – is down to 3 days a week…can’t imagine they’re making much off the contract.

    1. Exactly the reason they only bought it to develop the land in time….city needs to wake up and realize they need to support the local press in neighborhoods and independent papers or we just get ads

  3. Pero – Help me understand point 2). Construction costs are the same at this location and in SOMA, Mission, very expensive. Add in BMR requirements, only item you are saving on in this case is Land Costs. What makes this deal more affordable other than land costs?

    1. I’m not an expert but I believe:
      1) This is not a landfill site like Mission Bay. This might lower requirements for EQ-safety.

      2) No major clean up costs as in Mission Bay

      3) Less danger of costly appeals and delays (although I don’t put anything past Potrero Boosters).

      4) Less need for streetscaping etc than in Mission Bay

      1. This site is actually solid land. Should be much cheaper than the Mission Bay marshmallow.

        Google maps has a fun tool to show you what is solid land in San Francisco and what is fill. If you type “San Francisco Bay Shoreline, c.1850” in Google maps it brings up a current map with the old shoreline overlaid.

  4. Housing is sorely needed so this is good. Would that HP/CP would ditch the lion’s share of its office component in favor of housing.

    That said this design is pretty bad. Basically a Soviet style housing block with trees. I can only hope it is a placeholder. Does anyone in this city care about the physical appearance of buildings? Does anyone care to enhance the physical plant of the city? Apparently not.

    1. I believe it takes 5 seconds to recognize that this is a placeholder. That drawing wouldn’t pass the 1st semester or architecture studies.

  5. The City really does need some space for things other than housing.

    And lets face it -w/o subsidies, even this parcel’s units will NEVER be affordable. Just look up the hill and across the street. I remember when those were built, with the affectionate designation of “affordable”. Now they are just like any other townhouse/condo, except maybe in a dicier neighborhood. Same with these units, after they go in. Meanwhile, the cost of supplying services to the City’s inhabitants keeps going up, every time some company has to relocate to South SF to stay in business.

    As for the “Ex” … placeholder.

      1. $600/mth.

        But that’s just me. 🙂

        Otherwise, its a convoluted question; devolving into statements like: “a miminum wage worker would have to work 360 hours a month to be able to afford the average 2 Br apt in San Francisco” (as if min.wage workers ought to even be looking at a mid-level unit). YMMV.

        1. That would be very sweet. I fear that these times are not coming back anytime soon. I doubt you could find 2bd condo for 600$ per month in Stockton or Sacramento.

          1. And yet homes were going for $10,000 in Cleveland just a few years ago.

            Rents however are a different animal. Difficult to find $500/ studio anywhere in the US these days.

  6. Seems like this is when our planning department ought to step in and defend the printed word. I mean we’ve had newspapers for years and people like newspapers and my neighbor is a Cantonese granny and she has a parakeet and she uses The Examiner to line the bird’s cage. What’s she supposed to do now? Have to pay for something?

    Can’t we defend the San Francisco we remember by enshrining this location as Heritage Media Site.

    (You’re all: “This guy is so over-the-top sarcastic. No one would suggest something like that.” And I’m all, “AUTOMOTIVE SUPPORT STRUCTURES“)

    1. I’ve been in SF land use debates too long; I got embarrassingly far into this comment thinking you were for real.

      They should call this apartment complex Byline or something to honor the site’s past. “Write your next story at Byline, a luxury rental community.”

    2. If you could stand more than 2 minutes of Automotive Support Structures, you are more patient than I am. Our tax dollars at work.

    3. Wouldn’t mind at all if the one time “Monarch of the Dailies” completely disappeared. Am so sick of picking up their Sunday papers thrown indiscriminately all over our sidewalks by their “delivery” people. Try calling them to stop delivery. Exercise in futility.

  7. I dunno…that whole area is light industry and office. Housing would be weird. Plus we have a lot in the pipeline already for the next two decades. Best to maybe build out some tech office space. Let’s get tech going in that area now, so more can continu moving into the shipyard and candlestick when they build their commercial parcels there in the decade ahead. And maybe a big tech firm like google, FB, etc. will realize that they can get class A continuous office space in this area at a good long term rate.

  8. It’d sure be convenient to live there, it’s a real pretty neighborhood, with lots of grocery stores and neighborhood-serving businesses. Oh, wait…

    1. Exactly. That’s why there will be all those things nearby at: shipyard, candlestick, India basin, pier 70, etc.

      1. True. But the difference is, so far as I know, the area around this site is not being rezoned for residential use, and there are no grand plans to turn it into a residential neighborhood. So it’s unlikely there will be an influx of neighborhood-serving retail.

    2. The parcel fits the trifecta of particulate pollution – 101, 280, Caltrain, Ceasar Chaves, and Evans.

      Who wants to live there, now?

      1. What? Not even anywhere close to Caltrain, Cesar Chavez,101, or 280. The air quality is fine at 1201 Evans.

        The infamous Crescent Cove at 420 Berry Street, SF? That’ a real trifecta – surrounded on all sides by Caltrain, sewage treatment plant and 280….

  9. This site is zoned for PDR-2 and prohibits housing. It’s next to the main post office, Speakeasy Brewery, Meals on Wheels and whole lot of light industrial uses. It may be doable but it’ll be tough.

  10. a terrible idea pushed by terrible people who trashed a newspaper for willie brown

    the land should be seized and made into a work camp for techies with a cell phone blocker to keep the little dears happy

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