Update: Representatives for the property owner have shared with YIMBY that the team is now planning a full demolition of the existing brick structure.
Emergency demolition permits have been filed for a portion of the Verdi Building, located across from Washington Square in North Beach, San Francisco. The brick structure standing at 659 Union Street has been left vacant after being ravaged by fire in 2013 and 2018. The application states that 50 feet of brick wall at the rear of the building will be removed.
The partial demolition permit is not related to redevelopment plans. The city’s deputy director of historic preservation signed off on the demolition permit and emergency order, describing the scope of work as “an approximately 50’ section of brick wall at the rear (south) of the building.”
659 Union Street redevelopment plans, rendering by Powell Partners
Last October, the San Francisco Standard reported that Red Bridge Partners, led by Jeff Jurow, planned to submit preliminary permits for an eight-story development at 659 Union Street, with 89 apartments, a rooftop restaurant, and 5,700 square feet of ground-level retail. This would include 15 affordable housing units. SFYIMBY has not been able to independently verify the pre-application.
Red Bridge Partners purchased the property in 2017 for over $2 million. The latest permit is not for full demolition of the damaged brick structure, and there does not appear to be any planning progress for a potential eight-story replacement at the corner lot. The developer has yet to reply to a request for comment.
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Is it really, “emergency” demolition when it’s 8 years after the fire?
There should be a Muni station on this site with housing on top. Anything else is a waste.
Oh Lordie yes – didn’t the tunnel borer end up about a block north of there? So the tunnel is already dug?
Only in SF could a burned-out hulk of a building in a prominent location stand unused for over ten years before somebody gets around to maybe, possibly, perhaps doing something useful with it. Hope this moves forward in my lifetime…
It’s not the City’s fault this time; it’s the property owner.
By my most optimistic projection, we’re 15yrs out from any Muni subway extension work happening. Hoping I’m wrong, but no way this project should sit half-burnt down in order to one day become a MUNI station.
That’s the dumbest thing I’ll read on this site repeatedly all day.
Fully agree!
Please do something. This is ridiculous. A world class prime real estate spot and it has been sitting there as a burnt dilapidated husk. Tear it down and start anew ASAP. Leaving the facade was the worst thing because it gave NIMBYs and preservationists hope that it could be restored. Even if it could have been restored, it’s been sitting there for 8 years, that luxury has been forfeited. Let’s move on and build some much needed housing in North Beach.
These projects literally take more than 8 years no matter what. You must be new here.
“NIMBY” is an invented term for real estate shills to call opponents of any and all development.
Get smarter please.
Please for the love of God use at least part of the ground floor as an entrance to a North Beach MUNI subway station. The tunnels are already built right there.
MUNI station please 🙏
100%
Where is the entrance to the future subway station?
So a property in the most prime location you could want, wastes 13 years doing nothing, only to then approve a plan that is little net new sqft addition relative to the pre-fire structure?
That is about as San Francisco as San Francisco gets.
That rendering is about as Dallas as it gets.
Whatever is done there has to be better than what it was or what it is.
Nobody said it was a great liquor store.
Architecture from an architect is not very common these days. What you get is a box or a flat wall with leaky windows. Its north facing so never gets sun.
Theres zero privacy there.
Is that little bit of brick really so precious? Do others really think these build9ngs are historic? They arent. Thryre junk. Theyre boxes. I can see why north beach never got registered as a historic place. Because the architecture is boxes. What so great about boxes they sell liquor out of?
Whats so great about a hole in the ground you go in for a subway to miss China town?
Whats so great about the rents? Can’t anyone see?
You guys really don’t get it do you?
San Francisco is pearls before you YIMBY swine. Why did you even move here? If you want sterile anywhere USA, there are so many other places you could live.
North Beach will become a historic district once we get Scott Wiener’s cold dead hands off it. He is deliberately obstructing it in Sacramento by threatening the jobs of the reviewers. He is a real nasty piece of work.
I really wish someone would start an architecture/construction firm that could build new buildings in the original san francisco idiom. I know it would cost tons of money, but it seems like such an obvious compromise for locations like this one.
Anyway, I will 100% support turning North Beach into a historic district if we just make this an innocuous muni metro stop. Deal? 🤝
Deal! I would love a Muni stop in North Beach. And for that matter, Fisherman’s Wharf, Ft. Mason, the Marina, and the Presidio.
Fun fact, years ago I worked on a project that would have extended the F line to the Presidio, but it was killed off by the Marina NIMBYs, because “Public transportation, ewww.” Build it!
As a North Beach local, I’m concerned about the transparency of the current owners, Red Bridge Partners. Given how long this site has been sitting vacant, I’ve been trying to dig into the background of their parent company’s international investments to see if they actually have the liquidity to finish an 8-story project. While researching some of their offshore financial links, I stumbled across some documentation on GuiadeLeoVegasargentina.com regarding their verification and licensing protocols. Does anyone know if the San Francisco Planning Department actually vets the financial stability of developers before granting these “emergency” permits, or are we just looking at another decade of a “full demolition” hole in the ground?
Blaming Scott Weiner for this delay is missing the finger pointing. When I met with the then-owner for potential financing, after the fire (latest fire), it was clear a certain not-to-be-named predicatable NB politician was in the wings making it his personal opportunity to Lord over this future site. Leaving it at that. Folks should be grateful for this project.