Sandhill Seeks Talk With SF Over Tenderloin Project

Sandhill O’Farrell has requested a parlay with city officials over plans to build a 17-story apartment building in San Francisco.

The Palo Alto-based Sandhill, owned by Prabhas Kejriwal, filed permits requesting the meeting regarding plans to raise the height of the 141-unit highrise at 550 O’Farrell Street, SFYimby reported.

The building would replace a century-old parking garage that qualifies as a historic landmark.

In May, the developer shifted gears by increasing the height by four floors and 30 units via Senate Bill 330, which freezes the planning code, ensuring new laws can’t be drafted to prevent the project.

The new application employs a state density bonus to boost its capacity to 141 units, from 94. Of those, 19 apartments would be affordable, including three for moderate-income households, two for low-income households and 14 units for very low-income households.

The proposed 170-foot-tall highrise would contain 79 one-bedroom, 32 two-bedroom and 30 three-bedroom apartments above 1,300 square feet of ground floor shops and restaurants. It would have parking for 149 bicycles and no cars.

Presidio Bay Ventures, based in the city, had received Planning Commission approval in 2021, then a year later sought a demolition permit for the project, which would have incorporated the historic building. It’s not clear when the project was turned over to Sandhill.

The current project, designed by Santa Monica-based HGA, had been designed by Oakland-based brick., which has since merged with HGA. Its first three floors would be clad in terra cotta, with the above floors sheathed in precast concrete.

It would rise from a quarter-acre lot containing the parking garage on O’Farrell, between Leavenworth and Jones Street. The property last traded in 2002 for $3.1 million.

The two-story garage, built in 1924, may be eligible for historic listing under Criterion 3 as a good example of the Gothic Revival style, with golden eagles jutting from below its roof, according to a historic resource evaluation.

The style was prevalent across San Francisco from the 1850s through 1925, with plaster finishes scored to appear like ashlar masonry patterns, buttress piers and blind quatrefoil panel parapets.

It’s not clear what Sandhill, founded in 2004 by Kejriwal, has developed since.

— Dana Bartholomew