The San Francisco Unified School District has officially hired McCarthy Building Companies and DLR Group to design Mission Bay South Block 14 to serve San Francisco’s newest and fastest-growing neighborhood, Mission Bay. The 2.5-acre site would offer Pre-K through 5th Grade education for up to 600 students.
Much of the Mission Bay neighborhood, formerly an industrial area, has been built in the last two decades with 30% affordable housing, public parks, the University of California San Francisco Campus hospital & medical offices, biotech space, and the new Chase Center arena.
Mission Bay South Block 14 outlined by YIMBY, image via Google Satellite
SF Board of Education President Jenny Lam describes the project as “a rare opportunity for SFUSD to design a 21st century school from the ground up. It further strengthens our commitment to each and every student in providing high quality education and ensures they succeed in the future.”
McCarthy Vice President Jack Carter went on to describe the importance of the new school for the area, saying that “the addition of this vital piece of infrastructure will not only be a cornerstone within Mission Bay but also allows San Francisco Unified School District the opportunity to develop a school from the ground up to provide for today’s and future students.”
Mission Bay South Block 14 school entry, preliminary renderings courtesy of McCarthy | DLR Group
Mission Bay South Block 14 sidewalk view of the school’s outdoor play area, preliminary renderings courtesy of McCarthy | DLR Group
The four-story building will yield roughly 81,800 square feet of floor area for the 600-student school, a STEM-focused learning hub for high school students, and a district professional development space for educators.
The following passage provided by the DLR Group and McCarthy Building Companies outlines what the school will offer students:
First-floor learning environments have direct connections to outdoor play- and nature-based learning spaces to meet all early learners’ sensory needs and seamlessly extend learning to the outdoors. Learning studios on the second and third floors feature breakout rooms and collaboration spaces to foster innovation and collaboration with flexibility for different small group breakouts. The learning hub on the fourth floor prepares high school students for careers in health, bioscience, and STEM-related fields.
Much of the 2.5-acre lot will be improved with outdoor space for the students. There will be a playground, basketball hoops, and other activity areas circled by a track loop. Along 6th Street, next to the picnic area, a garden will encourage students to engage with plants and food production. Kindergarten students will have a dedicated yard and play area by the Mission Bay Boulevard sidewalk. The area will be surrounded by fencing and bioswale landscaping.
Mission Bay South Block 14 site plans, preliminary renderings courtesy of McCarthy | DLR Group
Mission Bay South Block 14 nature exploration area, preliminary renderings courtesy of McCarthy | DLR Group
The facade will be clad with yellow and green metal panels, with sections dedicated for art murals. DLR Group Principal Christopher McGiff-Brown shared that “our team’s design solution expresses the joy of learning with dynamic architecture to create a vivid and welcoming campus for all users.”
The construction of Mission Bay South Block 14 would be the first elementary school in close proximity to the neighborhood. Construction is scheduled to start in 2023, with completion by 2025. $95 million of funding is coming from the 2016 Proposition A Bond program.
Mission Bay South Block 14 entry, preliminary renderings courtesy of McCarthy | DLR Group
South Block 14 is located directly across from 1450 Owens Street, a 109-foot life sciences research building being constructed by Alexandria Real Estate Equities.
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My place is a 10 min walk from there which is great if ever have kids. But it’s for only 600 and I think in San Francisco they have a lottery system, so my kid would have to take a bus to the other side of town anyways. That’s a hard to reach place for those coming from across town. With SF school enrollment plummeting along with the district budget I would have assumed they’d be closing schools rather than opening them. A lot of biotechs would would be in the bidding for that land, providing badly needed revenue for the district.
Are you kidding? What suburb do they think they are building this school in? Why not a mid-rise with teacher housing and a school on one site?! All that landscaping will be a mess in no time at all.
@Eric,
The developers of Mission Bay paid into a fund to provide for the school, and it’s use it or loose it. The SFUSD can’t decide to just sell the land.
I am torn on this (and parent of three kids; the two school-age ones are in SFUSD schools).
On one hand, there are a ton of kids on that side of town (relatively speaking). The space is also part of the development.
On the other hand – SFUSD (like Oakland) – has too many schools and not enough kids. From a financial perspective, opening another one doesn’t make sense (unless we close others – good opportunity to turn them into housing or other). And as other posters have mentioned, it doesn’t matter how many kids live in the neighborhood due to the current lottery system. That being said, there are efforts underway to go back to neighborhood schools.