Updated plans have been filed for a potential skyline-reorienting project at 88 Bluxome Street in SoMa, San Francisco. The proposal aims to add two skyscrapers and 1,500 rental apartments to the former Tennis Club, reaching heights of 51 and 58 stories. Strada Investment Group is responsible for the application.
Plans to redevelop the site have been in motion since 2017, when Alexandria Real Estate Equities purchased the full-block Bay Club San Francisco Tennis complex for $140 million. The club closed in 2019, with plans to build a massive office complex anchored by Pinterest alongside a new tennis club, co-developed by Alexandria Real Estate and TMG Partners. However, in August 2020, as work-from-home became more established, the company spent $89.5 million to terminate its 490,000-square-foot lease.
88 Bluxome Street seen from along Brannan Street, rendering by Henning Larsen and SCB
Demolition went forward in late 2020, and the 2.6-acre property has sat empty since 2021. Plenty of drama has occurred behind the scenes, with lawsuits between the joint developers and the former owners, Bay Club. Strada stepped up in late 2024 to consider shifting the project from Alexandria Real Estate’s commercial project to residential use.
The project application, filed yesterday afternoon, confirms the story first reported last Thursday by Sarah Klearman for the San Francisco Business Times. The prolific local developer is looking to transform their hometown again. If built now, the tallest tower will have a 600-foot rooftop height, or 628 feet including the mechanical equipment. The shorter tower is expected to have a 528-foot rooftop, or 558 feet above the mechanical equipment.
88 Bluxome Street private mews, rendering by Henning Larsen and SCB
Full build-out will yield over 1.1 million square feet of housing across the two structures, alongside parking for 468 cars and 2,300 square feet of retail. Additional space will be provided for 468 bicycles. Residents will benefit from a combined 77,880 square feet of usable open space, while pedestrians will find 1,730 square feet of public open space.
Of the 1,500 units, there will be 150 affordable residences designated for households earning roughly half of the area’s median income. The application invokes Assembly Bill 2011, Senate Bill 330, and SB 423 to streamline the approval process.
The design is a collaboration between SCB and Henning Larsen. Previous work in San Francisco by the Danish firm, Henning Larsen, has taken inspiration from California’s natural beauty. The firm took inspiration from the striped basalt columns at Devil’s Postpile National Monument for the Visa offices in Mission Rock, and the Redwood Trees for 395 3rd Street. Similar to 88 Bluxome, the latter project is a proposal in SoMa developed by Strada.
88 Bluxome Street, isometric view by Henning Larsen and SCB
88 Bluxome Street ground-level floor plan, illustration by Henning Larsen and SCB
The plan set for 88 Bluxome Street does not describe an exact point of inspiration from California, though the architects do describe the podium programming as a “Green Valley” concept, integrating open space with a handful of setbacks carved out of the 14-story podiums. The bottom of the ‘valley’ will be the Mews, a linear private pathway on the ground floor, bisecting the property and overlooked by fourteen townhouse-style stoops.
The property spans most of a city block, bound by Bluxome Street, Brannan Street, and 5th Street. Future residents would be just over a block from the San Francisco Caltrain Station, and half a block from the Fourth and Brannan light rail station, built as part of the Central Subway expansion.
88 Bluxome Street establishing view, rendering by Henning Larsen and SCB
88 Bluxome Street, image via Google Satellite
The aerial rendering shows two nearby projects currently sitting in the city’s pipeline. This includes the two-towered project across from the Caltrain Station at 655 4th Street, and the 47-story tower at 636 4th Street. Both those projects feature design by SCB.
Alexandria Real Estate Equities is still the property owner. The estimated cost and timeline for construction have yet to be shared.
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looks great. let’s get them built!
This needed to be started yesterday. I love the utilization of large block density. There are very few spots left in the city that are close to transit and can deliver this kind of impact.
These two would also help carry the skyline southward and maybe encourage more height growth between downtown and SoMa. There are not a ton of plots left, but there would be no excuse for bs height restrictions other than ensuring they are seismically capable.
Here’s hoping they skip all reviews and just start building in a month or so.
It’s not the environmental review, it’s our dog eat dog, for-profit development industry that is failing us. This will almost certainly not be built within the forseeable future because it probably doesn’t “pencil.” Don’t believe everything that Scott Wiener tells you.
Delays make projects more expensive, and SF is infamous for intentional delays. That’s why only expensive / over-budget housing gets built unless it’s a privately-funded affordable development.
Math isn’t Scott Wiener’s fault.
By this logic and everything else you b*tch about, this is why sprawl in the outer reaches of SF and Scaremnto are the only spaces delivering housing.
Gilroy wouldn’t need to develop farm land IF San Jose and SF logically utilized their downtowns. But instead, the pipe only leaks drops of units here and there.
How about we oversaturate for-profit housing so we break the supply-and-demand scale that most strong liberal cities feel doesn’t apply to them and must rely on heavily subsidized housing to create some concept of affordability? I’d love dense social housing, but that concept hasn’t progressed much in the States.
Please explain to me why we have close to 80,000 fully entitled housing units in San Francisco that aren’t being built. It’s not preservationists that are stopping anything; it’s simple economics. If you want affordable housing you have got to either build social housing or the government has to heavily subsidize it. And yet you guys believe Scott Wiener’s lies as he guts the regulatory state to benefit for-profit, luxury housing developers. You guys are getting played.
lol
Take your meds.
You guys can’t handle the truth that Scott Wiener is not your affordable housing god but instead a shill for Big Development. Full stop.
As someone who works in the real estate and construction industry, it’s not about Scott Weiner, as he and Daniel Lurie’s local and state legislation is working to remove the red tape and streamline developers pathways towards construction.
A huge factor is the developer’s proforma (how the projected cashflow pencils out if it was built). As someone mentioned earlier, delays from environmental reviews, excessive permit reviews (which Weiner and Lurie are trying to tackle it), lawsuits, etc. result in cost escalation because material and labor prices increase the longer it gets delayed past the project’s start date. This ultimately effects the developer’s ability and desire to build because it impacts their ability to finance or obtain a construction loan.
I recommend speaking facts in lieu of opinionated comments towards Scott Weiner being the reason for the lack of housing construction
I am not blaming Scott Wiener for lack of new housing construction.
What I am blaming him for is a misguided (and likely duplicitous) effort to “pave” the way for unregulated development in the future by 86-ing CEQA. His antics are doing nothing to speed up development for the time being because housing no longer pencils.
However, when or if it ever does make sense to build housing in this region again there will be zero brakes and developers are going to go hog-wild ripping down historic buildings and plowing up farms and ranches without anything to stop them.
Scott Wiener is a smart guy and the developers financially support him. He carries water for them because they finance his campaigns. He is also very ambitious. He is angling for Nancy Pelosi’s seat so he can take his warmed-over trickle-down housing policies nationwide.
Don’t want to be there when the “big one” shakes.
Taipei 101 has disproven this repeatedly. While being almost triple the height, the 7.4 quake last year had minimal damage, and the tower is clearly still standing.
Just make sure the foundations are secured and have a flexible yet rigid frame, and you’ll be much safer than almost all soft-story structures—the ones that are left.
Rather be in a solid high-rise than a house on landfill.
Cool project. Strada does great work.
Strada does do nice work. This is actually a pretty handsome project and it would be cool if it got built someday.
This project would greatly revitalize this part of SoMa. Really hope to see this push through, along the other high rises already proposed/approved! Let’s go San Francisco!
Should have kept the tennis club… big loss for SF, now we must drive all the way down to Burlingame
There are numerous private tennis clubs, as well as public tennis courts and tennis centers in the city.
NIMBYs will say anything. A tennis club (of which there are many in the city), is more valuable than 1500 apartments.
NIMBYs are getting stranger and more pathetic by the day.
Say, what?
I stand by what I said. You are proof of what I said.
I am not a NIMBY. I am a MIMBY. Maybe in my back yard. I am not opposed to infill development at all. I AM opposed to demolishing CEQA and giving for profit developers the keys to the store.
There’s a spectacular electric train that’s even faster than a car and takes you right into downtown Burlingame. I recommend it.
It’s like a block from this exact site, too!
This has GOT to be sarcasm, it’s just not very well delivered!
Thank you Strada! When can you start? Yesterday? The site is already cleared and graded. Shovels up! As a nearby resident I so much want more dense residential in the area to support more choice for grocery stores, restaurants, services, etc.
Cool to see their rendering with these two proposed towers plus the other three nearby that we’re still waiting for years after they’ve been approved. If they all get built as planned/proposed these two will make the ones at 655 4th street look puny!
And eventually the current Caltrain yard will be covered over and more land available for dense development. Keep it going, SF!
The site may look “cleared and graded” and therefore ready to go. But in fact it has sub-grade work done in preparation for the previous 88 Bluxome office complex, which was less than 1/2 the height of these towers. So, its nowhere near as simple as “shovels up”.
This project would need massive new excavation, shoring/retaining walls and deep piles/foundations for towers of this size. If you look at the ‘pit’ near Salesforce tower that was to be the Oceanwide tower, you start to get a sense of the huge scale of the endeavor and expense involved – before you even start to rise above ground with structure…
It’s going to take a long time, but I’m bullish on this area. Eventually 280 will come down north of Mariposa, the railyard will be replaced by mixed use, and the Creek will become a central gathering space. Great weather. People are realizing that the radius around the Tenderloin will always have problems, but if you go far enough south, you can create your own little ecosystem. Mission Rock is blowing up for this exact reason.
If this is built, then the “Manhattanization” of San Francisco will be proceeding in spite of what residents want, and only real estate capitalists like Alexandria Real Estate Equities can supposedly make money offering completely unnecessary luxury rental units. San Francisco’s population is contracting and will be for the forseeable future.
At least they didn’t build the originally-planned office space.
San Francisco is not some village. If they want small town, Mendocino needs more NIMBY residents
Who is fighting this? No one. But at the same time, it’s not a good idea to toss out the rules and let the developers do whatever the hell they want.
Frisky Mcwhiskers is a NIMBY
No, I am a thoughtful MIMBY.
Wow! This area is going to change a lot!
This is great news and ablsolutley needed, lets get the job done we need it SF is coming back where family can do more than just pay for housing.
Love IT
Yes in your backyard. Put highrises where they belong & quit picking on the Avenues
Make it 300 stories for all I care