Big Box Retail Owners Ask For Stacked Housing

The two owners of a traditional 8-acre strip, big box retail center in San Francisco have asked for an amendment to the neighborhood plan (undergoing revision) to allow them to add housing on top of their stores, thus doubling the height limit.

1 minute read

November 14, 2008, 12:00 PM PST

By Irvin Dawid

"...the SF Planning Commission will consider an amendment to the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan that will allow owners of the (8-acre Potrero) Shopping Center - home to Safeway, an Office Depot, a half-dozen other big-box stores and hundreds of parking spaces - to build several stories of housing units on top of the current retail buildings.

Owners proposed the amendment, which would more than double the shopping center's height limit from 40 to 85 feet and also includes an agreement to sell 22 percent of the housing built at below-market-rate prices.

Robert Lalanne, one of two principal owners, said he and his partners have no immediate plan to build up on the property."

"With home prices and credit markets where they are, it doesn't make much sense to build right now, but certainly I think someday it will," he said.

"Tony Kelly, president of the Potrero Boosters neighborhood association, said the group has no problem with the proposed project."

FULL STORY: Shopping center owners want to stack housing on reta

Thursday, November 13, 2008 in San Francisco Examiner

Community / Economic Development Housing Land Use Urban Development California Affordable Housing Mixed Use San Francisco Height Limit Big Box Retail Stacked Housing View More

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