Category Archives: community services

March 19, 2012 · 10:17 am

Western SoMa alley improvements coming up for final approval

Update: The Western SoMa Neighborhood Transportation Plan was approved unanimously by the full Transportation Authority on March 27.

Our friends at the Transportation Authority are preparing to take the Western SoMa Neighborhood Transportation Plan through the board approval process. The report recommends traffic calming and pedestrian improvements to the alleys of Minna, Natoma, and Ringold Streets and signalized mid-block crossings of Seventh and Eighth Streets. You can read the complete plan by following this link.

Continue reading →

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March 16, 2012 · 11:37 am

Lights and Sirens!

Plans are moving ahead to relocate Fire Station 1 from 676 Howard to 935 Folsom Street. Expansion of the SFMOMA museum in Yerba Buena Center necessitated the move. Everyone welcomed the “gift” of a new fire station except the neighbors who will be affected, of course. Station 1 moves from an area with very few residential buildings to a neighborhood with senior housing, new condos and several residential enclave districts.  Continue reading →

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January 28, 2012 · 8:27 am

SoMa-based architects honored for affordable housing design

Bob Herman and Susie Coliver, principals of Herman Coliver Locus Architecture, will be honored at Episcopal Community Services’ Annual Awards Luncheon for their work designing affordable housing which contributes to the health and humanity of our community.   Continue reading →

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January 11, 2012 · 4:15 pm

St. Joseph’s renovation faces Historic Preservation hearing on February 1

Chris Foley and the Polaris Group will be going before the Historic Preservation Commission on February 1 to present their plans for the renovation and adaptive reuse of St. Joseph’s Church. The landmark South of Market structure at 10th and Howard Street has sat empty since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and Foley bought it from the Archdiocese for a dollar after assuming all the seismic obligations attached to the beautiful old building.  Continue reading →

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December 15, 2011 · 8:32 am

Progress Report on the Food Park

Artist's rendering of the SoMa "Streat" Food Park

Got a note the other day from the architect for the project: “Despite everyday being another day in the Continuing Education of Bureaucracy, we are not going to be dissuaded form completing this project. We are months behind our original schedule, who would think parking trucks in a parking lot could require so much Municipal oversight?  Continue reading →

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Filed under community services, entertainment, quality of life

October 14, 2011 · 5:28 am

Revisiting entertainment: new nightclubs, okay … new housing, not?

At this afternoon’s Planning Commission presentation of the Western SoMa Community Plan, it was suggested during public comment that the light  industrial zoning south of Harrison Street be extended into the 11th Street area because, under that new zoning category, entertainment would become a permitted use. The Task Force liberalized the zoning because new housing in the SALI (Service, Arts and Light Industrial) district would not be allowed.

That would be an interesting switcheroo. Housing, currently as-of-right, would suddenly find itself a non-permitted use and entertainment, grandfathered in as a legal, nonconforming use, would become a fully permitted use. The Planning Commissioners, often sympathetic to fun sounding notions — particularly if they are not personally impacted — might very well consider making the swap. Continue reading →

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September 28, 2011 · 10:47 am

Skate park under freeway undergoes environmental review

The long awaited skate park under the Central Freeway touch-down ramp is one step closer to reality. The Planning Department recently issued a “Notification of Project Receiving Environmental Review” for the proposal, which includes the skate park and a mini-park, with basketball courts, play areas, a dog run, lighting, plantings and a pedestrian walkway. The construction is being managed by the Department of Public Works (Frank Filice, 558-4011, is the project manager), with funding coming from the sale of parcels along Octavia Boulevard. South of Market is finally getting something positive out of all those years of demolition and freeway construction.

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August 24, 2011 · 10:49 am

Who tagged the Children’s mural?

One remnant of the Children’s Village at St. Joseph’s that’s been preserved is the mural on the side of the building facing Tenth Street. The mural was recently defaced with graffiti. Presidio Knolls Schools currently runs a Mardarin immersion program at the site. School officials have tried all the usual remedies to remove the tag but it’s a metallic paint which resists most solvents. Continue reading →

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August 18, 2011 · 10:01 am

Office project proposed for St. Joseph’s church site

The beautiful St. Joseph’s church at 10th and Howard Streets has sat vacant since the Archdiocese abandoned it after the 1989 earthquake. The stained glass has been stripped from the windows and a population of pigeons numbering in the tens of thousands has called the place home for much of the time since then. Continue reading →

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August 10, 2011 · 10:12 am

Building a brand new neighborhood?

How much housing can we build and how many jobs will we lose in the process? That was always the guiding principle behind the Eastern Neighborhoods rezoning process and it’s about to be manifest in the first mega-project to be approved under the recently adopted Eastern Neighborhoods Plan. It remains to be seen whether the Project Sponsors are building an actual neighborhood or just another bedroom community. Continue reading →

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