1721 15th Street Site

Plans to level the Mission District garage at 1721 15th Street, between Little Star Pizza and The Monastery, are in the works.

And as proposed, a five-story building, with twenty-four (24) residential units over 2,700 square feet of retail space, will rise up to 55 feet in height upon the site which was formerly home to Jay’s Auto Body Center.

As designed by Workshop1 for Dragonfly Investments Group, the proposed development’s eight (8) one-bedrooms would average around 780 square feet apiece while its sixteen (16) two-bedrooms would average closer to 1,100 and the building, which now includes off-street parking for twenty-four (24) bikes and zero (0) cars, and the building’s facade would be finished with a perforated Corian panels.

And while the existing 102-year-old garage had been tagged as a potential Historic Resource for the ‘Inner Mission Reconstruction Historic District’ when purchased by Dragonfly in 2016, the group has just secured a determination from Planning that there are “no historical resource(s) present” to impede the building’s demolition.

We’ll keep you posted and plugged-in.

26 thoughts on “Plans to Raze Mission District Garage for Housing and Retail to Rise”
  1. ah yes, across from ‘Valencia Gardens’.

    “270 feet of retail space” … 5 yrs ago that sounded promising, today it sounds … anachronistic.

    1. Smaller retail is actually much better and more likely to work for a small business. It’s the 1500sq ft places (and up) that have a really hard time finding sustainable tenants.

      1. Based on my friend’s experience trying to run a small cafe, it’s going to be difficult to make retail work here due to the midblock location and low foot traffic. It’ll have to be something people hear about through word of mouth/Yelp/etc and come out of their way for.

    2. As reported above, it’s actually “2,700 square feet of retail space” (2,644 to be exact) which is designed to accommodate two separate storefronts/businesses.

  2. I wonder if it’ll be rentals or condos. With no parking I’m guessing rentals? Guess it depends on owner’s pockets (better be deep if they think they can cashflow new construction in this town) or if it’s a flippur, it’s also risky planning on selling market rate condos, at top dollar, 2-3 years out. At any rate, embarking on new construction projects now in the city seems a bit risky.

    Wonder what the back story is on this.

    1. Judging by the fact that the top floor units are two floor with private roof decks, I’m going with condos.

    2. Metro liner- good point on the penthouse units. Yeah that probably tips it in favor of for sale condos. Good.

      Sparky-b- I’m just thinking from a developers POV there is some risk, given already high (peak?) pricing, uncertain interest rate future, and a nutty federal gov. We’ve also seen some developers choosing to sell their parcels rather than build. But others are going forward, so I guess it’s a mixed perspective overall. Your take?

      In my case the calculus is different because I hold all my properties, so it’s more about managing development debt and cash flow, as the long term I’m bullish on.

      1. I’m thinking that the jobs/housing balance is going to get worse before it gets better, any new plans to build more housing are going to take longer than 4-5 yrs. to come to fruition. The Mission and southern hoods are seeing high dollar sales and will keep doing that.

        That doesn’t mean all of these projects are good ones, because construction keeps getting more expensive and everyone is booked so doing a project is hard and slow. So I don’t think selling for top dollar is going to be the problem, whether selling for top dollar makes a project worthwhile is the question.

      2. Agree about the risk of starting a project now given the things you mention and more. For investors, SF is not a good bet now. I know individuals who have been involved in successful entitlements in the Bay Area who are not doing more of such. Let alone the build out. Investment money is shifting to other markets which have a higher upside potential in the medium term and cash flow from the get go – a winning combo. Speaking of the entitled projects put on the market (close to 1000 units of housing), it will be interesting to follow what Crescent does with 524 Howard. It’s about time that they have to extend the lease of the parking lot (and delay the project another 3 or 4 years) or move forward with the condo tower now.

  3. Shouldn’t there be something like 4 BMR/affordable units in this development? (assuming 18-19% inclusionary requirement I think is now in place from Prop C)

          1. Per SPUR:
            Some areas of the city have been carved out for special treatment. For the Mission, the Tenderloin and the 6th Street/Folsom corridor, areas that are all anticipated to go through future planning processes, 2016’s Prop. C requirements remain in place: 25 to 27 percent affordability requirement onsite, 30 percent fee or offsite requirement.

  4. No Car parking? then it needs more off street bike parking required by the City.

    One bike space per unit and Zero for the retail is not sufficient – it pushes it out into the already narrow sidewalks.

    Plus bike theft is rampant in the neighborhood with the police doing nothing about it.

    1. Can’t the resident’s bring bikes inside their units? I would never leave a bike elsewhere. As I heard my local SFPD chief say, any item not stored in the home itself is as safe as leaving it on the street overnight. Anyway, bike ownership is less prefereable every day. Much cheaper and easier to use a bikeshare program.

      1. “…bike ownership is less prefereable every day”. Ummm, no. Heaving those heavy bikes around town is not for everyone—especially for people who actually go riding on weekends.

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