Temporary use authorization permits have been requested for the site at 10 South Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco’s Market & Octavia area plan. The application seeks to bring community and private events to the space previously occupied by the Lighthouse ArtSpace gallery, which was recently approved for a 67-story mixed-use skyscraper. NPU Inc., a San Francisco-based event management company, filed the application.
10 South Van Ness establishing view, rendering via Arcadis
Crescent Heights is the property owner and sponsor for the approved 1,019-unit skyscraper development. The 820-foot-tall structure is expected to produce over 1.6 million square feet, including 1.56 million square feet of housing, 59,010 square feet for parking, and 11,820 square feet of ground-floor retail. The two-level basement garage will have capacity for 255 cars, with ground-floor space dedicated to 388 bicycles. Los Angeles-based architecture firm Arcadis is listed as responsible for the design.
Previous reporting by Douglas Sams for the San Francisco Business Times shared that the developer looked to start construction as early as next year. Now, the temporary use permits seek authorization to operate the event space for a three-year window, ending in mid-May of 2029. The applicant expects to book four to six events per month.
10 South Van Ness area context, illustration via Arcadis
YIMBY has reached out to Crescent Heights and NPU Inc. for comment on the latest application, and we have yet to receive a response as of the time of publication.
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We have a housing shortage and right now. An event space is not the best use of the lot. It’s time to build, and they should not be allowed to delay any longer. That lot, and the empty one diagonal from it are ruining the intersection of Van Ness & Market. Time to start building or face very high property taxes for failure to utilize the lot properly.
Are you willing to step up and fund the construction?
This is a ridiculous response. The city spends BILLIONS of dollars a year on “homeless”, ransom payments to unions, and payoffs to so-called non-profits. Any funding gap for these projects could come from the government instead of where they are spending now.
Indeed. ‘Funding’. LOL. As if SF has never built skyscrapers before.
NIMBYs like Ed always have the least intelligent arguments.
I find it strange that I’ve always wanted to see SF get built up more like Manhattan, but yet I’m considered a NIMBY…?
I 100% agree with Pean here except the rents are getting so high, private investors should be able to fund and profit from this if it weren’t for union ransom. I’d love to get a piece of the action but it’s likely a private PE fund that would do this.
“best use of the lot” ??? Are you the owner? An aspiring socialist?
Where do you live so I can assess your property and tell you what to do with it. Post it here for us to look at, thanks.
“failure to utilize the lot properly” Hello, Mamdani? is this you?
Perhaps Crescent Heights would “donate” the lot to the city for homeless housing like they did with the 16th St/Mission site.
Do you really have to spread your NIMBY tears all over the place? This article has Zero to do with the much-needed housing being built at 16/Mission. Why don’t you and Marc Solomon just leave and start your own replica of SF preserved in amber?
I’ve been missing your scathing contempt, Glen, but have vicariously enjoyed the scorn you all heap on others whose opinions differ from yours. Here’s the connection: Crescent Heights purchased the 16th/Mission lot and donated it to the city to offset their affordable housing obligations at 10 Van Ness. It was a win-win for Crescent Heights and for the anti-market-rate housing Mission crowd that prefers homeless housing. I have had some dealings with one of the Crescent Heights principals in the past. They are nobody’s fool(s) and won’t be building at Van Ness in the current climate.
You say “affordable housing”like it’s not a good thing. “Anti-market-rate” is a tortured locution that reeks of contempt for the “poors” – an attitude you’d get from an Uber engineer circa 2012, and just as dated, obsolete, and laughable today. Developers who dodge the BMR requirements and City officials who let them are making it less possible for lifelong residents who have paid taxes and invested their lives here to be able to stay here when “market rate” means an eight-figure income.
I’d argue the ‘contempt’ that you’re trying to sniff out is directed toward the bureaucracy and the gangs of activists who extort the city, communities, developers for often delayed, downgraded and subpar outcomes.
We’ve all seen it time and time again. There’s no way in hell that a BMR project would be a better outcome here (in terms of density or timing).
While I agree that we can always benefit from more affordable housing, portraying it as a plot to eliminate the ‘poors’ or suggesting that developers are not contributing to the city’s recovery from the crisis is entirely baseless.
For context, SF has added ~23K units of deed restricted BMR housing over the last ten years (according to SF Planning).
I’m not talking about “the poors,” as you put it. I’m talking about the severely addicted crowd and their pushers, many of whom have gathered in the Mission after being run out of the TL. I’m talking about the folks who rob our stores, and defecate on the street; about the stolen-goods gangs and the open drug use that I walk through every day. Moving these folks into subsidized housing under the “Housing First” (no restrictions) model only serves to anchor their problems in the Mission and solidify the “containment zone.” By contrast, I would welcome the working poor.
R u a real person with genuine feelings and connection to humanity or just another misguided sel serving tech bot pretending to be a part of humanity?
Not sure I understand any of these comments. The skyscraper is a great project, both of the Van Ness lots function as gaping wounds in the neighborhood, but the financial environment is horrendous at the moment. Nothing is going to happen at either of these sites until interest rates come down.
10 Van Ness is an existing structure, formerly a convert venue known as “Fillmore West.” Do the commenters here actually live in SF? This is *very* common knowledge.
I think *some* of these comments are construing the temporary use as a replacement for starting construction—not realizing the temp use is intended to activate an otherwise empty structure.