Thanks to Kevin from NOPNA for the tip on this one…

Late last fall, the DMV put out a press release about how they were exploring the opportunities available to them in leasing out the airspace above two of their urban locations in San Francisco and San Diego for mixed-use housing development.

…while the state would retain ownership of the two parcels of land, it would make the “airspace” above it available for lease by private developers who would then construct mid-to high-rise buildings on the two sites and then rent space to tenants.

“It’s an idea that just makes too much sense not to pursue,” said Business, Transportation and Housing Agency Secretary Sunne Wright McPeak, who oversees the DMV. “The DMV is participating in helping realign the job-housing balance while it benefits by getting new, expanded facilities to replace offices that no longer meet customer needs. We foresee that the new buildings, both in San Francisco and San Diego, would be ‘mixed-use’– in other words, space would be made available to residential, commercial and retail tenants as well as for enlarged DMV offices that will substantially improve the customer service in both areas for many years to come.”

[...]

The two sites in question are 2.45 acres at 1377 Fell Street in San Francisco and 2.48 acres at 3960 Normal Street in San Diego. While both DMV and DGS officials acknowledge that the land in both locations is extremely valuable, the existing DMV office buildings on the sites have almost no value; and while the properties could be sold at significant profits in the current market, the department would still have to buy or lease other office facilities in the same general areas (perhaps at even higher costs) to continue servicing the high volume of customers who now use the existing locations. [more...]

Unfortunately, Ms. McPeak left her position with the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency (the day before the above press release was issued) to take over the helm at the California Emerging Technology Fund. That means we have a new ‘acting’ secretary of the BTH (Barry R. Sedlik of Pasadena), and this housing initiative might get lost in the shuffle.

The reason we in the surrounding neighborhoods pay attention to the DMV site is that the large outdoor lot was previously available (5+ years ago) for overnight parking. Unfortunately, as is the case with so many things these days it seems, a few bad apples didn’t move their cars by the early-morning deadline, and the DMV decided to just shut the lot altogether outside of business hours.

So last fall’s announcement about the potential development, in addition to potentially providing more housing to the neighborhood and the city (likely in the form of rental housing stock), it is also possible that additional spaces could be made available for overnight parking for the general public.

DMV Proposes New “Green” Mixed-Use Buildings For Current Office Sites In San Francisco, San Diego [DMV]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 13th, 2007 at 6:31 pm 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.