Preliminary plans have been filed for an eight-story apartment complex at 5420 Geary Boulevard in San Francisco’s Richmond District. The proposal is a dramatic increase from the previous plans for the site, now planning 42 apartments above the ground-floor retail next to the currently vacant Alexandria Theater. Kerman Morris Architects is listed as responsible for the application.
The preliminary filing shows plans for an eight-story mixed-use complex containing around 33,000 square feet, including 30,740 square feet of housing and 2,210 square feet for ground-level retail.
The application states that the development will use “either the State Density Bonus or the SF Family Zoning Plan program to waive the height limit, waive/relax the rear yard requirement, and increase the allowable gross residential area by 50%.” The document adds that the team will “look to maximize housing and provide the required inclusionary housing on-site or a fee under the Family Zoning Plan.” Further information about the potential design has not yet been shared.
5420 Geary Boulevard, image via Google Street View
The roughly 0.16-acre property is located along Geary Boulevard between 18th Avenue and 19th Avenue. The site is next door to the Alexandria Theater, a vacant century-old theater that developer Timespace Group plans to redevelop into an eight-story apartment complex. New building permits were filed for that project earlier this month.
The estimated cost and timeline for construction at 5420 Geary Boulevard have not yet been established. Kieran Woods Construction is listed as the property owner.
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Heck ya. Hope this happens!
Fantastic snowball effect of increased density! Geary should be lined with 6-8 story buildings from Masonic at least to 25th Ave or more. Residential on top, retail or professional on the ground floor. Let’s get building!
Really? Does everything have to be a plywood and foam stackashack? Certainly plenty of room for density on Geary, but what you guys all want would be extremely monotonous and monochrome.
Loser mentality.
Auslander ignorance. You should really just go home.
Loser mentality.
Build density, but pair it with adequate, realistic parking. For a significant portion of our taxpayers, a vehicle is not a choice it is a necessity for survival and self-sufficiency.
Cars are our livelihood. For Seniors and the Disabled: Relying on public transit isn’t ideal it’s often physically impossible. Expecting a senior to lug groceries or medical supplies on and off a bus is a barrier to independent living.
For Families: Parents taking kids to school while balancing work and errands cannot operate on a ‘transit-only’ timeline. Without parking, we are effectively telling families they can no longer live in this city.
Parking is essential infrastructure, not a lifestyle accessory. When many of these buildings build density without parking, we aren’t ‘removing cars’—we are increasing street congestion and forcing our most vulnerable residents to circle blocks, wasting time and increasing emissions.
We need to build roads to support the taxpayers who work to pay for them. We need realistic resident parking, and or parking permits, increased ADA access, and infrastructure that honors the daily reality of every resident from the student to the retiree. Please make sure every single new construction that goes up has parking.
Adding parking to a building like this would increase the cost by about 30% per unit. Eliminating parking dramatically lowers building costs and over time the cost of housing. Your comment makes it sound like people would be required to live here, but they aren’t. They could spend more money to live in a similar building with parking if they chose to do so. But if a building without parking fits their lifestyle they can opt to live in one. I don’t know why you are as upset about some people choosing a car free lifestyle. Finally, this article doesn’t say the building doesn’t include parking, this sounds like a preliminary proposal that doesn’t include all building details, so it may include a parking garage anyway but that just wasn’t listed in this permit application.
Also, Geary is one of the most transit friendly boulevards in the entire western US. It would not be hard to live car free in this location.
The idea that seniors *need* to be able drive to age in place is laughable. Building dense housing in transit- and amenity-rich neighborhoods so that everyone, older adults included, lets more people walk or transit to their daily activities (which this project enables). Have we not seen the externalities of impaired driving (at any age)? It just results in senseless, preventable pedestrian deaths, and requiring parking from housing projects just makes the housing more expensive. Instead, improvements SFMTA’s paratransit, subsidized Clipper, and the occasional rideshare to supplement a walking lifestyle is good for everyone, especially the youngest and oldest in society.
It’ll be ‘fun’ moving in the shiny new place and then enduring the demo and rebuild of the old theater. A couple of ‘special’ years…