Crescent Heights gets extension to build 55-story apartment tower in SF’s Civic Center

The hourglass on building the second-tallest housing tower in Downtown San Francisco has been turned over to allow four more years to break ground.

Miami-based Crescent Heights won a four-year extension from the city’s Planning Commission to build the 55-story, 1,012-unit skyscraper at 10 South Van Ness Avenue in the Civic Center, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The flatiron-style apartment tower would rise from a 1.2-acre former Honda dealership site at Market Street and South Van Ness Avenue in an area nowed dubbed The Hub. It would require demolishing a two-story building used for art shows.

In approving the extension, the commission required the developer to start construction by January 2027, or risk losing approvals.

It also allowed Crescent Heights to boost the number of apartments by 5 percent, or 46 units. An earlier plan called for 984 units, so the increase would be 28 apartments.

In redesigning the tower, the developer whittled down the number of larger units and increased the number of studio and one-bedroom apartments.

The extension comes as dozens of market rate developments in San Francisco have stalled as the city copes with tech job layoffs, vacant offices and a looming budget deficit.

Planning Director Rich Hillis said that he expects a crush of developers with entitled projects looking to extend the three-year period they have to begin building after project approvals.

“As we know, projects don’t work right now,” Hillis told the Chronicle. “So we are going to see more of these extensions.”

Jim Abrams, attorney for Crescent Heights. said its lender on the project required the four-year extension as a condition of closing a loan. Its previous entitlements would have expired in March 2024.

“We are here because we have a lender who is requiring an entitlement extension in order to close a loan,” Abrams said.

The 1-million-square-foot tower would soar 590 feet, making it the second-highest housing highrise behind the 645-foot Millennium Tower – minus a few on account of sinkage – in the South Financial District.

Plans by Crescent Heights now call for 374 studios, 501 one-bedroom and 137 two-bedroom apartments, and 19,000 square feet of ground-floor shops and restaurants, with parking for 255 cars. The earlier plan, designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, called for 30,000 square feet of cafés, restaurants and “active social spaces” in two towers on a building base.

The decision to jettison some of the largest units was based on market conditions at NEMA, a Crescent Heights-owned tower at 10th and Market, Abrams said, where studios and one-bedrooms are getting snapped up while the two-bedrooms are not renting as well.

“They are doing everything they can to get this project moving forward and get financially feasible,” Abrams said.

Crescent Heights has spent $40 million to satisfy the city’s affordable housing requirement by buying the “Monster in the Mission” property atop the BART station at 1979 Mission Street and giving it to the city for low-income housing.

— Dana Bartholomew

Read more

San Francisco

‘Monster in the Mission’ a step closer to becoming affordable housing

Chicago

Crescent Heights proposes West Loop’s tallest tower