On November 16 the San Francisco chapter of the ULI Young Leaders Group held the latest installment of DeTour, this time walking the streets of Central SOMA and mapping out some of the largest projects on the drawing board in San Francisco.

The catalyst for this boom of planned growth is the Central SOMA Plan, for which a revised draft was formally unveiled by the City this last summer and which is expected to be fully approved in 2017. The Specific Plan up-zones a large portion of the Central South of Market area and provides a clearer path to approvals by documenting the increased allowable heights and densities through a Program EIR that developers will be able to submit under. The area encompasses 230 acres bound by 2^nd, Townsend, and 6^th streets and an irregular border generally south of Folsom to the east and stepping up toward Market to the west. The plan roughly accommodates for an additional 7,500 housing units (around 2,500 of which are expected to be affordable), enough office to house up to 45,000 workers, and a requirement for projects to preserve or include PDR space for artists and light manufacturing.

An additional catalyst for growth in the area is the Central Subway now under construction, which will add two light rail stops to the already transit rich area. Central SOMA currently benefits from the nearby Cal-Train King Street station, and the T-line which connects riders with between Downtown, the North, and Mission Bay, as well as Dogpatch and the Bayview to the South. The new stations will sit at 4th and Brannan and at 4th and Folsom across from the Moscone Center. Ridership of these transit lines is being encouraged through a maximum parking allotment for each project of 0.5 stalls per residential unit.

Projects under construction on the tour included 505 Brannan being built under a partnership between TMG Partners and Alexandria, the 220 key hotel being built near the Moscone center and adjacent to the new subway station, and the 120 unit apartment project being built by Align Partners at 923 Folsom.

Many of the projects included on the activity map are still in planning and are awaiting the approval of the Central SOMA plan to formally submit.  Many of these projects sit within a few blocks of the planned 4th and Brannan station, and include major projects from some of the City’s largest builders: Kilroy Realty (Flower Mart project with 2.1M SF office and 100,000 SF retail – pictured above), TMG / Alexandria (764,000 office project at the current Bay Club tennis site), and Tishman Speyer (700,000 SF of office at 598 Brannan; 449 condos at The Creamery site on 4th and Townsend).

As a part of the approval of the Specific Plan the city will also be adopting a new fee schedule, which could collect over $2 billion in impact fees to be used for affordable housing, transit improvements, and other community benefits.

DeTour is a program put on by the ULIsf Young Leaders Group that includes a casual walking tour of a specific neighborhood ripe with new development followed by networking at a local watering hole within the tour boundaries.  Previous programs have toured Hayes Valley, Mid-Market, Dogpatch, the Transbay District, and Uptown Oakland.

By Scott Bohrer and Alexandra Stoelzle