Bernal Heights Housing to Replace Big Lots Garage With Homes

Bernal Heights Housing wants to replace a parking garage at a shuttered Big Lots store in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights into dozens of homes for seniors.

The development arm of locally based nonprofit Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center filed plans to build the 70-unit, four-story apartment complex at 3333 Mission Street, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

Rendering of new 3333 Mission (Bar Architects)

Plans call for redeveloping the parking structure into 70 homes for seniors who earn between 30 and 120 percent of area median income.

The senior residential project would be built next to 49 apartments developed by Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center and Bridge Housing in 1989 atop a 16,000-square-foot Big Lots store.

The Ohio-based discount retailer closed its store at 3333 Mission in 2022.

Late last month, an affiliate of Bernal Heights Housing bought the former store and 19 parking slots for an undisclosed price, paving the way for the senior housing project. The 49-unit building will remain untouched.

The proposed 70-unit building will include 42 parking spaces, plus new courtyards for use by tenants in both buildings and a new public park along its southern edge on Coleridge Street.

Bernal Heights, zoned largely for low-density homes, contained 0.2 percent of the new homes built in San Francisco between 2016 and 2021, a San Francisco Chronicle analysis found.

In June, Bernal Heights Housing bought a three-story hotel and bar that had been gutted by fire in the Mission District for $3.8 million, with plans to turn it into 35 affordable studio apartments at 3300 Mission Street, according to the Business Journal.