By Jeremy Lybarger
In 2013, a San Francisco-based development company called Group I paid $16 million for a 25,000-square-foot lot in Mid-Market. Shortly after, they unveiled plans for 950 Market, a sleek mixed-used hotel and residential complex anchored by a much ballyhooed performing arts center. To quote Group I’s website, “The project represents the culmination of a long-held vision for a thriving creative community in the heart of San Francisco that brings together the arts, technology, tourism, local culture and mixed income housing.”
Sounds great, except it’s not going to happen.
Today the Chronicle reports that developers have scrapped plans for the arts center after a battle over funding. Group I insisted that the arts nonprofits involved in the project pay 50 percent of construction costs (or more than $15 million). The nonprofits balked, and the city, in an effort to sweeten the pot, lifted zoning restrictions that would have capped the building’s height at 120 feet. Still, developers were unwilling to foot the bill and nixed the proposal altogether.
Supervisor Jane Kim told the Chronicle, “The 950 arts center was something the community had been excited about for a long time, and something we always envisioned would play a central role in the Mid-Market arts corridor.”
What remains are plans for 300 housing units and a 250-room hotel. The building will occupy the beleaguered block across from 21 Club, which, as we reported yesterday, will close to make way for a new cocktail lounge. On the opposite corner, Loco’l, a high-concept fast food restaurant featuring chef-driven food and a commissary, is expected to open this summer. And just a few doors away is PianoFight, a theater-dinner venue occupying the former Original Joe’s space.
While 950 Market will be the cornerstone of the city’s Central Market renewal, it’s still just one piece of an ambitious strategy. As Inside Scoop notes, the city’s plan calls for 14,500 jobs, 18 tech companies, 22 new small businesses, 11 new arts venues, and more than 5,600 housing units (20 percent of them permanently affordable). Turk and Taylor is one of nine “action zones” the city is focused on rehabilitating.
Still, Tenderloin arts organizations are hopeful that 950 Market can revive. Carmela Gold, president of the Tenderloin Economic Development Project, told the Chronicle it’s “the key to survival” for many of these nonprofits.
[via SFGate; images courtesy of BIG]
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