SF Seeks Developer for Affordable Homes in Transbay Block 4

San Francisco is on the hunt for a developer to build hundreds of affordable homes where a Hines-led group once planned to build more than 600 apartments.

The city’s Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure is slated to issue a request for proposals to build between 300 and 325 apartments on a 0.6-acre slice of Transbay Block 4 at 200 Main Street, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

The development, known as Block 4 West, calls for studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments for families and for seniors earning up to 60 percent of area median income.

Proposals are due July 31. The Office of Community Investment expects to enter into an exclusive negotiations agreement by early next year, with the apartments built by 2030.

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie called it part of “our city’s comeback.”

The move comes a year after F4 Transbay Partners, a joint venture between the Houston-based Hines, Goldman Sachs and locally based Urban Pacific Development, declined to extend its exclusive option to develop the property.

In 2018, the partners had proposed a 683-unit apartment building, including 306 affordable homes on Block 4, a city block bounded by Howard, Main, Folsom and Beale streets.

The project would have helped the consortium meet affordable housing requirements for its adjacent Transbay Parcel F project, a 61-story hotel, condominium and office tower at 542-550 Howard Street.

Both Block 4 and Parcel F are within the Transbay Redevelopment Project Area, 40 acres downtown that once housed the Embarcadero Freeway and ramps to the former Transbay Terminal, according to the Business Times.

A year ago, the Hines-led group blew its first deadline to pay $40 million in damages for its delay in building the 1.1-million-square-foot Parcel F project, an 800-foot, silver-blue skyscraper that never broke ground.

In 2016, F4 Transbay bought the 0.75-acre site for $160 million, then continued plans to build the tower despite Salesforce canceling its commitment to the office portion in 2020. The approved project is overshadowed by an $80 million loan secured by the lot that matured in October 2023.

While lenders haven’t seized the property, Hines said it’s working closely with them to retain ownership.

The pending RFP for affordable homes at Block 4 West could impact F4’s ability to move forward with Parcel F. Should the group proceed with the tower under terms for which it was approved in 2021, it will need to find a new site to for the affordable units it is required to build.

— Dana Bartholomew