Construction has begun on a major renovation to San Francisco’s San Cristina SRO — best known to movie fans as the hotel where Christian Slater has his ill-fated interview with Tom Cruise in the 1994 movie, “Interview with the Vampire.”
Filming at the 1913 flat-iron-style building on the corner of Golden Gate and Market Street took place shortly before the former office building was reopened by HomeRise as one of the nonprofit’s supportive housing developments. Managed by Community Housing Partnership, it has 58 units, each housing a single adult, plus a community room and an office for supportive services.
Homerise has gathered more than $60 million in public and private money for the renovation. The total amount of financing for the renovation was not disclosed, but the Chicago office of Merchants Capital, working in conjunction with the AFL-CIO’s billion-dollar Bay Area Housing Investment Trust, came through with $35 million on Aug. 31. Construction began soon after, according to Lee Oller, executive vice president of Merchants Capital’s Chicago office. The funding will go toward upgrading major building systems, including plumbing, HVAC and electrical; the addition of six ADA-accessible units with modifications for those with hearing and visual impairments; exterior upgrades; and overhauled units with new fixtures, floors, paint and baseboard heaters.
The funding also covers the estimated $1.85 million cost of rehousing the 46 tenants who had been living at San Cristina when construction began. All tenants were transferred to locations within the city, Oller said, and the relocation is expected to last about 10 months.
The rest of the financing came from the public sector, as San Cristina was one of just 27 projects to receive a 2022 California Housing Accelerator Award. That contribution amounted to $24.2 million of the $1.75 billion total accelerator monies, which the state carved out from the federal Coronavirus Recovery Fund. Additional public funding came from the California Department of Housing and Community Development Multifamily Housing Program, the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development and the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco’s Affordable Housing Program through Century Housing.
Oller said via email that the accelerator award made it possible for the lender “to reduce the cost and complexity of the San Cristina financing” because Merchants was able to “reduce processing time, reduce fees and eliminate certain soft costs that comparable bond or tax credit transactions would have required.”
Overall, construction has slowed to a crawl in the city as interest rates have risen and financing becomes increasingly difficult. But the affordable housing renovation benefited greatly from the accelerator funds and that is why the project was able to move forward in the current environment, Oller said.
“While it may be more difficult and more expensive to do construction loans generally, and affordable construction/renovation loans specifically in San Francisco, the accelerator program actually countered these trends and made the transaction easier to complete, both from a cost and timing perspective,” she said.
This is the second HomeRise project Merchants has worked on with the support of the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust. The first was the 96-unit Jazzie Collins Apartments in the city’s Hub neighborhood. Oller said the lender is looking to utilize the accelerator and the union partnership to invest in other San Francisco affordable housing projects.
“We recognize that these funds are limited, but Merchants is happy to partner with the AFL-CIO HIT to be a part of this existing program to help the city and state further their affordable housing goals,” she said.
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