Preliminary permits have been filed for a 24-story mixed-use tower at 924 3rd Street in Downtown San Rafael, Marin County. The application is now the tallest proposal in the county, looking to add several hundred apartments and a market hall in the heart of the city. Berkeley-based Goldstone Management is responsible for the development as the property owner.
The 260-foot-tall structure is expected to yield just over half a million square feet of housing, 24,950 square feet of commercial retail space in the market hall, and a 350-car garage. The development is expected to produce 345 dwelling units. The application also calls for 52 affordable housing units, half for very-low-income households and half for moderate-income households.
924 3rd Street east elevation, illustration by Studio KDA
924 3rd Street site map, illustration by Studio KDA
The affordable housing inclusion allows the developer to invoke Assembly Bill 1287 and the State Density Bonus law to achieve a 100% bonus above base zoning. The developer is also seeking to use Assembly Bill 130 to receive an exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act.
Studio KDA is responsible for the design. Vertical elevations provide insight into the potential project, including different exterior styles for the 3rd Street and 4th Street facades. The building will be clad with metal panels, brick veneer, and ornamental tiles. The 4th Street streetwall will be articulated to appear like several smaller buildings built above the uniform ground-floor retail glass wall.
924 3rd Street overlooking 4th Street, illustration by Studio KDA
The southern podium facade overlooking 4th Street resembles the front of a movie theater, though there are no plans for a theater on-site. The ground floor includes a double-height glass lobby entrance capped by a thirty-foot-high kinetic wall. The residential tower is wrapped in glass-railing balconies and a copper-clad Art Deco feature.
The structure will be carved by various setbacks to complement neighboring buildings, with the 4th Street component rising 10 floors with a sixth-floor setback, and the tower rising 24 stories above 3rd Street with a 10th-floor setback. The tower will also include a 10th-floor cantilever over the podium annex.
924 3rd Street west elevation, illustration by Studio KDA
924 3rd Street site plan, illustration by Studio KDA
Demolition is required for the six existing low-slung commercial structures and surface parking. The new structure will include 345 apartment units and around 25,000 square feet of commercial space. The roughly 1.4-acre property extends from 3rd Street to 4th Street on a block bound by A Street and Lootens Place.
Rhoades Planning Group is the planning consultant responsible for the application. The estimated cost and timeline for construction have not yet been shared.
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Lol this is awesome. The Zoning board meetings will be comedy
I’ll bring the popcorn
“How could this happen?!?!” screech the people who spent decades vetoing anything over 2 levels.
This. 😅
We love this for San Rafael
Soooo what happens to third street??? How the hell is this ever going to happen I like the 4th street idea but had no idea about third street OMG
This is awesome. Marin needs this housing!
We LOVE this for San Rafael.
24 stories. Too much for Marin and bad precedent
I did not move here to live in a concrete jungle
If several dozen towers like this start popping up in your neighborhood I’d understand the discomfort of living in a concrete jungle you didn’t choose. But this is one of only a few taller proposals around downtown San Rafael. Assuming you don’t live in downtown San Rafael (based on you saying it’s too much for Marin), I’m not sure how significantly this proposal will alter your experience of Marin County as a whole. Not to mention, 24 stories would not be considered tall in most major ‘concrete jungles.’
It’s right downtown three blocks from an eight lane freeway. It’s not the middle of the countryside or even suburbia, or probably within miles of where you live. Grow up.
If not downtown San Rafael, where in Marin County would a building of this scale be acceptable? Marin County is losing population and people who provide your services have to commute in from Stockton. San Rafael is the county seat and the most urban community in the county. It also has good freeway and transit access.
If you are going to go up in Marin County, this is the place to do it.
But could we get a better design please?
Tallest and ugliest! Lol
That is an understatement.
The design is really ugly and not in keeping with the San Rafael vibe. The traffic is going to get even worse than it is a,ready.
If you think this is ugly for the area, you aren’t considering the buildings it is replacing. Downtown San Rafael isn’t the most attractive and everybody thinks new buildings are going to look ugly until they’ve been there for 10 years or so
Totally inappropriate for a town this size and the affect on traffic will be terrible. Besides the fact that it is UGLY.
The caption for the views overlooking 3rd and 4th streets are reversed. The tower will overlook 3rd St, which is the reason I assume they are using that address rather than 4th. I think that layout makes sense as 3rd is a traffic sewer and the proposed design for 4th is a much better fit.
Agreed that the tower needs work, but I think the 4th St facade is pretty good. Honestly, it looks like they put some thought into the 4th St building and then just threw a massing diagram in for the tower. Weird that they would give the most prominent part of the proposal almost zero thought so far. Hopefully, the tower design changes considerably.
I think they’re putting the design effort into the next iteration. Similar to the tower over in Sunset.
Everyone is going to jumpscare at the design, but more so at the height. If they can get the height moving forward, then comes a stroke of reality and maybe a redesign to calm the masses. That also assumes the developer may have another trick up their sleeve. Here’s hoping they are only testing the waters before the next render gets established.
I see this mostly as a density/program diagram with a little lipstick for a schematic design. Step above napkin sketch, realistic step below design development.
Loser mentality.
The child’s feelings were hurt. Mother would be proud that you can spell mentality. Bravo! 😊
High point of your day, Drewl? I still think you’re 12.
Making sales in the millions on projects all across the Bay Area was more of today’s highlight.
Packing for a trip tomorrow. Had a pretty good lunch.
Making fun of pearl-clutching posers, like yourself, teeters around 6. Sometimes 5 when you expel some really dumb nonsense and others are quicker to call out your fatuousness.
You make that much as a lot lizard out there at the truck stop in Tracy? Soy mucho impresado!
By San Rafael Vibe do you mean the aging strip commercial along Red Hill? The mediocre 1960s snout houses? The collection of ugly auto-oriented commercial near the freeway? The ridiculous mega mansions tucked away in the hills. Come on…San Rafael is NOT Paris or Florence. Or even Berkeley
San Rafael actually has a lot going for it. It has a solid downtown with room for expansion/densification, lots of open space/beautiful parks, and many historic neighborhoods like Gerstle Park, or the Eichler stuff over the hill in Terra Linda. A few of those midcentury buildings on Red Hill are pretty rad too. No need to outlaw the funk, eh? Millennials are so uptight and fussy. I would much rather live in San Rafael than Berkeley.
I’m usually an arch design-complainer, but I actually think this looks pretty good as far as new age box buildings go. The brown/beige/burgundy color scheme is such a relief after so much white and gray.
Nice group of bots and pinheads that back any crappy building
When I bought my house near downtown San Rafael it was lovely suburban neighborhood. It’s a shame that it’s soon to be the Projects. The plan seems to be to make SR less desirable to live in so lower income people can afford it. I don’t get why. It was a nice place, why ruin it?
I think what you wrote is despicable, but I guess it’s better to be openly classist than obscuring it with other talking points.
Amazing project that will never happen. NIMBY’s will never allow this.
I live in downtown San Rafael and I love it!
Let’s make Marin a proper place to live!
obviously people for this do not live in San Rafael. Traffic is bad enough now. Impact report has not been fone since before covid 2021, it is much worse now than then. We have no businesses here anymore that pay the high taxes, that means us long time retired seniors get to foot the bill. This over building is criminal.
Why not take SMART? Or the bus? Or walk? What do you think people did before cars?
Lets be real, long time retired seniors aren’t footing the bill for anything. Your Prop 13 tax shelter assures that. You pay $1,200 annually for the same house your new neighbor pays 20k plus for down the street. The same NIMBY policies against this proposal drove out all those tax paying businesses you mention. This development would be a huge net positive for the tax base. It’s also hope for the younger generations to be able to live in the same area they grew up in, rather than having to move to Texas.
This is absolutely wrong. There is too much traffic in downtown San Rafael as it is. This will create even more congestion and discourage shoppers from doing business in downtown San Rafael. I am completely against it.
This is great and exactly where it should go. NIMBYs will cry about “character” while forcing their servants to commute from Vallejo.
5/6ths if football field high when the tallest buliding in the city and across the street is 1/3 the height. Located in downtown a few blocks down the street from an 8 story resi buildung next to the freeway and a few blocks on that street, Irwin, a 17 story is being proposed. That building will be arevuces only from 2nd street whuch at the point if enrty mid street will hold about ten cars deep and is the mani acceas to the high school. Nit sure what is being planned otber than gridlock so we won’t drive anywhere.
Maybe it is good to drive less. There are alternatives…it’s like boomers don’t know they have legs.
Where is the parking? I saw in the IJ that they got some release of parking requirments. Do they excpect to prohibit car owners from living there? All in all a bad idea.
Easy there, Scotty. There are several people on my block, myself included, not a boomer, who are unable to walk for various health reasons. It sounds like you are able-bodied and not able to fully understand the complexities of that much traffic.
Yes, we need more of housing, doesn’t matter if they need to be that tall.