SF has a slew of mega housing projects on track for 2022. Here’s what it could mean for the city – San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco housing development in 2022 will be the year of the mega-project.

Even as smaller projects are stuck in limbo due to market uncertainties and astronomical construction costs, the citys colossal multi-phased projects like those at Treasure Island, Mission Rock, Pier 70 and Power Station will steam full speed ahead. Streets are being laid out, sidewalks poured, trees planted, streetlights installed and buildings are sprouting from the ground.

Nowhere is this more apparent than Treasure Island, where, after two decades of planning, the first residents will move into new buildings on both the main island as well as the adjacent Yerba Buena Island in 2022.

On Treasure Island Swords to Plowshares and Chinatown Community Development Center will debut the 104-unit Maceo May Apartments late in the year, apartments that will house some formerly homeless veterans. On Yerba Buena Island, Wilson Meany will open The Bristol, a six-story, 124-unit condo project over looking Clipper Cove and the eastern span of the Bay Bridge.

But the creation of a new 8,000-unit neighborhood on the 400-acre island will only accelerate after the first two buildings open. Treasure Island could see work start on as many as 985 units in 2022, including Tidal House, a 20-story apartment tower. A new ferry terminal will open in January offering residents a 5-minute cruise across the bay to the Ferry Building, according to Wilson Meany Partner Chris Meany.

We cant wait to welcome residents early this spring to become a part of this exciting new residential community, said Meany, whose firm is the master developer for the island.

At Mission Rock, across the Lefty ODoul Bridge from AT&T Park, Tishman Speyer and the San Francisco Giants are rapidly transforming an 11-acre surface parking lot with three new buildings one residential, one biotech and one slated to be Visas new corporate headquarters.

Construction crews pour concrete in a section of the new Mission Rock development near Oracle Park in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, April 7, 2021. The development, a collaboration between the San Francisco Giants, Tishman Speyer, and the Port of San Francisco is building with the impending sea level rise in mind and elevating the ground level.

Construction started December of 2020 on the first two buildings, Visas corporate headquarters and Building A, a 23-story apartment. That was followed by a life science building on Third Street. In 2022 work will start on a fourth building, a 255-unit apartment complex designed by Studio Gang, as well as the five-acre China Basin Park.

We are trying to deliver the park and the four buildings as close together as we can, said Carl Shannon, senior managing director with Tishman Speyer.

All told, work could start on some 3,000 units spread across the citys mega-projects, often former industrial or military properties that require a multi-phase approach and infrastructure work like streets, sidewalks, parks and utilities. About 1,300 units are expected to be completed as part of these projects in 2022, including about 300 units at 5M the 4-acre development next to The Chronicles newsroom at 901 Mission St. and 350 apartments that represent the first phase of a project Local 38 Plumbers and Pipefitters is building with Strada Development at 1621 Market St.

Construction takes place on the steel beams at the top of the 415 Natoma St. office building, part of the 5M development project, in SoMa, San Francisco, Calif. on Friday, Feb 5, 2021. The 640,000-square-foot office building recently topped out.

Breaking ground will likely include 708 deeply affordable apartments built at three different public housing complexes 357 at Potrero Hill Annex and Terrace, 183 at Hunters View in Hunters Point, 168 at Sunnydale. At Power Station, a former power plant on Dogpatch waterfront, construction crews are busy restoring the historic 19th century power plant in 2022 grading will be completed and utilities installed.

Our major projects are starting to produce the new homes, open spaces and jobs that weve counted on for years, said Judson True, Mayor Breeds Director of Housing Delivery, who has focused on pushing the mega-projects forward. We still have more to do, but were working with all the City departments closely to help these future neighborhoods take shape.

But while several of the citys largest projects keep on trucking, others are stuck in neutral. The redevelopment of Parkmerced, slated for 5,600 apartments, still has not started, more than a decade after it was approved by the Board of Supervisors. Work at Schalge Lock, on the citys border with Brisbane, has been delayed due to the pandemic, while the 12,000 unit development at the shipyard and candlestick point has been mostly on hold with the exception of one 77-condo building.

And the future for many smaller projects that dont involve public-private partnerships or spread risk out over a decade is even less certain. Stalled projects include an apartment complex slated for 9th and Mission, a tower approved at Market and Van Ness and several mixed-use projects in the South of Market.

While Tishman Speyers twisty, white Mira condo development near the Embarcadero has done well since it opened last year its 70% sold Senior Managing Director Carl Shannon said that the math is not working at the moment for a typical housing project.

Mira condo tower (middle) at 160 Folsom St. seen on Friday, Oct. 25, 2019, in San Francisco, Calif.

Construction costs have gone up a lot, and even though rents have recovered somewhat, the generic market rate project in San Francisco doesnt make sense today, said Shannon. You would need rents to go up or construction costs to go down.

John Manning, who heads up commercial real estate financing for Avison Young, said there are very few housing developers looking for debt or equity for new San Francisco projects. Part of that is because sites where projects have been approved are clustered in downtown areas like Civic Center, South of Market and the Tenderloin all neighborhoods that continue to struggle with empty office buildings, vacant storefronts and open air drug dealing.

Neighborhoods that have bounced back more successfully from the pandemic like the Sunset, Haight-Ashbury or the Marina dont have any approved projects ready to break ground.

The areas where development is allowed are, generally speaking, those that have been hit hardest in terms of rental rates and condo values, Manning said. To break ground on a new project would require a vision and confidence that things are going to pop back up to an extent that is hard to imagine right now. Thats not something Im hearing a lot of.

The fact that so many infill projects are not going forward doesnt bode well for housing production over the next few years.

This year the city is on track to open about 4,500 units, most of which started construction prior to the pandemic. Another estimated 5,800 units are under construction, most of which will wrap up in 2022 or 2023. That is a lot less than the high of 10,000 units that were being built in 2016 or 2017. The data suggests that 2022 and 2023 could be lean years in terms of completions, with less than about 3,000 new units a year, according to city data.

Rudy Gonzalez, secretary treasurer of the San Francisco Building Trades Council, said he is optimistic that some of the big projects will help some of the 1,300 union construction workers who are currently out of work. But he said that the fact that downtown office buildings are still largely empty because of the pandemic is hurting plumbers and pipefitters and electricians who rely on tenant improvements in corporate space for about 50% of their work.

Mission Rock is beautiful. Treasure Island is beautiful, he said. But all the (tenant improvement) work generated from the buildings downtown? At the end of the day we are just not seeing downtown come back to life.

Meanwhile housing development battles continue to rage at city hall. San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently made national news for rejecting over 800 housing units proposed for the Tenderloin and South of Market.

Partly in response to that, Mayor London Breed has introduced a charter amendment that would allow some code-compliant projects to bypass the citys famously difficult approval process.

Working people like our nurses, teachers, and even the construction workers who build our homes are suffering because we havent built enough housing for decades, said Breed. Even with the progress on moving large projects forward, we have to make fundamental changes to how we approve and permit housing in San Francisco so families can afford to stay here.

J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com

Read more:
SF has a slew of mega housing projects on track for 2022. Here's what it could mean for the city - San Francisco Chronicle