Forest City Residential Development is making headway on its reimagining of the four-acre South of Market project known as 5M that's now home to the San Francisco Chronicle building.
A public hearing is scheduled for Nov. 20, kicking off a political and community process that will help determine the mega-project's fate. The developer submitted a 740-page environmental impact report to the city Wednesday to outline more specific sketches of the more than 1.5 million square feet of new offices and housing that it wants to add to the area between 5th, Mission, and Howard streets in SoMA.
The step is the latest marker in the decade-long process before the project come to fruition. The "plans are already nearly three years in the making as Forest City experimented with a temporary 5M space for social entrepreneurs, arts organizations, technology startups, media and others to try out new work spaces. Here's what seems certain: The developers want to renovate the Chronicle building at 901 Mission St. and the Dempster Print Building at 447 Minna St. Six surrounding buildings would get demolished to make room for buildings ranging in height from 50 feet to 470 feet. This would require up-zoning approval, as the area is only zoned for 160-foot development.
But a big part of the plan is up in the air: How much office and how much housing? Forest City is pitching two scenarios. The "office scheme" would give the site 871,900 square feet of office space and 914 housing units. The "residential scheme" would provide 598,500 square feet of office space and 1,209 housing units. The residential scheme would also include 59,100 square feet of shared open space, about 15,000 more than the office plan. Both office space and housing are of course in high demand and short supply in San Francisco. One of the difference makers could be the office space cap that the city expects to bump into next year because of the 1980s law enacted under Prop. M.
The project is in the city's queue for office space approval by the second quarter of next year, which would likely allow it to get space allocation before the city is expected to hit its limit, "as "the Business Times reported earlier this month. Like in "Forest City's Pier 70 project, which is on November's ballot, the developers are stressing that the space is for more than just office workers and residents who can afford luxury.
A fact sheet distributed by Forest City stresses that the site will transform from " its current mix of office buildings and two acres of surface parking lots to a thoughtful balance of residential, office, retail, cultural, educational and open space uses that provides a unique opportunity to connect surrounding districts and create a vibrant location for everyone in the neighborhood." It says it would fill the site with more than 150,000 square feet of retail space and other uses that "spills into streets, alleys and open spaces."
The developers would also build 25 percent of the dwellings as as on-site and off-site affordable units. The environmental impact report also does not address community benefits or architectural designs. Forest City expects construction to begin in 2016 and to be done in phases over 10 years.