SF highrise The Cube aims to raise height by four stories

SoMa project grows to 826 apartments

Align Real Estate's Jason Chadorchi and 620 Folsom Street in San Francisco (LinkedIn, Arquitectonica)
Align Real Estate's Jason Chadorchi and 620 Folsom Street in San Francisco (LinkedIn, Arquitectonica)

The developer of an apartment tower in San Francisco nicknamed The Cube wants to add four more stories and top it with 200 more apartments.

Align Real Estate, based in the city, has filed plans to raise the height of a residential highrise at 620 Folsom Street in SoMa from 58 to 62 stories, the San Francisco Business Times reported. The project would replace a three-story office building built in 1922.

The proposed height increase would raise the building from 575 feet to 640 feet, topping the building with an extra 200 units for a total of 826 apartments.

The project is seeking a 50 percent density bonus in exchange for providing 135 affordable units at below-market rates.

The building would include 118 studios, 118 one-bedroom, 472 two-bedroom and 118 three-bedroom apartments.

The apartment tower, designed by Miami-based Arquitectonica, includes a five-story crown of apartments that looks like a floating white cube, raised above a deck on the 54th floor – hence the building’s nickname. Also, each apartment would feature floor-to-ceiling windows in a “Hollywood Squares” pattern.

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The updated design replaces one drawn by Chicago-based Solomon Cordwell Buenz in a preliminary application filed in August by Chris Foley, founder and principal at Ground Matrix.

The tower’s proposed site, home to a 48,000-square-foot building a century old this year, is owned by McLaughlin Family Associates and EJC Folsom, according to the Business Times.

On July 16, the owners entered into an “option to buy” agreement with CPF-SMW Holdings, which is registered to Foley, a former principal of Polaris Group, a real estate sales and marketing group that spun off Ground Matrix in 2017.

— Dana Bartholomew

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