This is another one of the things that I feel strongly about: building new housing close to major transit lines! And it appears that at least one part of San Francisco is heading in the right direction to that end, Balboa Park.

Where, you ask?

Balboa Park. [Google Map]

For those of you who ride BART, but have never been past 24th & Mission, you would continue on to Glen Park, then one more stop to Balboa Park. This is also the end of the line for multiple MUNI lines, including the J-Church, K-Ingleside, and M-Oceanview.

There are still many folks who refuse to consider Glen Park, no matter how quickly you can get downtown. I know, you have renter-friends who still live in the Marina. I get it. But now you’ll start hearing people talking about neighborhoods like Mission Terrace, the Excelsior, and Ingleside. Many parts of these neighborhoods are walking distance to Balboa Park BART, and have all of your favorite amenities like coffee shops, family-owned restaurants, and a sense of community.

And the city actually has a long-range plan for the area (imagine that!!), which includes higher-density housing along the corridor streets like Ocean Avenue.

Now AvalonBay Housing (the same people who run the all-rental building across from the Beacon, which is also next to AT&T Park) has bought up a site which is now a Kragen Auto Parts, and will be building 160 units and a large grocery store space on the site. The housing will be rental, and will likely include the current requirement of 15% affordable units.

From this week’s San Francisco Business Times,

Rental housing giant AvalonBay has snapped up a development site near City College of San Francisco and will build a 160-unit mixed-use project.

AvalonBay, which owns 47,445 apartments in 10 states and has a $4 billion pipeline, would transform the Kragen Auto Parts store at 1150 Ocean Ave. into a mixed-use development with housing above a 30,000-square-foot grocery store.

City planning officials call it a vital part of efforts to create a transit-oriented village near the Balboa BART station.

“It’s definitely one of the central proposals in the Balboa Park plan,” said Ken Rich, manager of plans and programs for the city’s Planning Department.

The Balboa Park Station Area Plan calls for 1,780 new apartments and 104,680 square feet of commercial development clustered around the station and along the Ocean Avenue commercial district.

[...]

The Balboa station is one of the busiest in the BART system, and the city would love to see more development proposals to get more residents living within walking distance to the station, Rich said. In addition to the Kragen site, a mixed-use affordable housing development and new community park is planned for the so-called Phelan Loop, on the north side of Ocean Avenue between Phelan and Plymouth streets.

While AvalonBay would not comment on the retail portion of the project, the plan clearly calls for a grocery store on the Kragen site.

“That is the No. 1 desire of the community and the developer is designing the project exactly as the plan asks,” said Rich. [more...]

So, not only do they have a plan, but so far it appears that there are developers who can make the numbers work. At least until Supervisor Maxwell gets her hands on the project in committee or in front of the full board…

Now if we could only get this kind of planning and progress at sites like the Schlage Lock Factory near the Cow Palace! Problem is, that’s in Maxwell’s district. Our grandchildren have a better shot of seeing that one get built than we ever will.

AvalonBay snags Balboa Park site for housing, stores [SF Business Times]
Balboa Park Station [BART.gov]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 at 2:45 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.