San Francisco’s Treasure Island Offers Fresh Housing Option

After 20 years in the development pipeline, the first market-rate apartments on Treasure Island have emerged.

Last week, Wilson Meany and Stockbridge Capital Group opened their waterfront highrise, The Isle House, marking the first market-rate move-ins on the artificial 393-acre island in San Francisco Bay about halfway between San Francisco and Oakland. Its decades-long redevelopment could provide the Bay Area housing market with an entirely new neighborhood featuring more than 8,000 housing units.

Isle House is the second new housing on the former naval base, after the Maceo May Apartments opened in May last year. That 105-unit apartment complex was developed as affordable housing for homeless veterans by Swords to Plowshares and the Chinatown Community Development Center.

Rental rates at Isle House range from $3,285 a month for a 450-square-foot studio to more than $8,300 for a 1,600-square-foot three-bedroom, two-bath two-level townhome, according to the leasing site. The development currently offers up to eight weeks free on any apartment, which is applied to the first and second full months of occupancy.

“Laid-back” neighborhood

The David Baker-designed 22-story project has 250 apartments, including 24 affordable units and nine two-story live-work townhomes with private entrances, all built around a central courtyard.

Greystar manages the complex. The company’s Lease-Up Community Manager Corey Johnson said a common refrain he hears from prospective tenants is that they “want the high-rise lifestyle but without the grit of Downtown.”

“We have several prospects interested in Isle House who currently live at locations like Fifteen Fifty and Chorus,” he said, referring to two newly built luxury apartment towers on Mission Street. “They love their buildings and the overall atmosphere within them, but they’re very weary and uncomfortable about the surrounding areas. They are interested in Isle House specifically because they can live in a full-service building with more of a laid-back environment.”

That environment includes ongoing construction sites as master developer Treasure Island Community Development, a partnership between Wilson Meany, Stockbridge and Lennar, is expected to stretch on for years to come. Johnson said TICD is taking a phased-in approach to the development, which means completed areas are “vibrant, eminently livable, safe and well-maintained, even as construction in other areas proceeds.”

The developers have been focused on completing parks and open spaces so they are usable for these first new arrivals, he added, including Panorama Park, Signal Park and the 4-acre Buckeye Grove near the Treasure Island Ferry Landing park area. The ferry can have Isle House residents across the bay to tSan Francisco’s Ferry Building in eight minutes, Johnson said.

Island next door

The man-made Treasure Island sits next to naturally formed sister island Yerba Buena. A 960-foot causeway connects the two islands, and Yerba Buena Island provides access to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, which bisects it.

In tandem with the Treasure Island build-out, Wilson Meany and Stockbridge are standing up for-sale housing on Yerba Buena. The Bristol on YBI has 124 condos and opened in the spring of 2022, while the first phase of The Row Homes on YBI has 17 out of a planned 82 townhouses built. The Bristol has had four sales in the last 30 days and two townhomes have sold since the launch this past spring, according to a rep. The first phase of the Flats on YBI, which broke ground in 2021, will begin sales early next year with 14 full-floor units of the 55 total set for completion by then.

The first for-sale condominiums on Treasure Island will come from Wilson Meany, Stockbridge and third partner Lennar. 490 Avenue of the Palms has a planned early 2025 opening.

It will be six stories with 148 condos, including seven affordable units, and multiple roof terraces to take in the unobstructed city views. Lennar subsidiary Quarterra is also developing Hawkins on TI, 178 mostly market-rate apartments due to open late this year or early next year. The six-story podium building will have a mix of studios, one-, two- and three-bedroom plans and is located on Bruton Street, near the Ferry Terminal and planned shopping and restaurant developments.

Another non-housing element of Treasure Island is Bay FC, the professional women’s soccer team, which recently used Isle House as the backdrop to announce its intention to build a privately funded permanent training facility in the center of the island. The 8.5-acre facility will break ground next year, assuming it gets approval from the Treasure Island Development Authority and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. The project will put three practice fields and a 20,000-square-foot clubhouse on acreage currently used to store dirt for the massive redevelopment.