Previous plans for a project site at 1035 Howard Street in SoMa, San Francisco would have expanded the building size. Now, new plans have been filed to convert the industrial Art Deco building into a self-storage complex. The storage facility will rise four stories high.
Embarcadero Capital Partners is the project developer. Lundberg Design is responsible for the project’s architecture.
The project site spans an area of 28,000 square feet. The scope of work includes the conversion of approximately 17,549 gross square feet of existing laboratory and office space to self-storage and convert approximately 43,996 gross square feet of existing PDR (manufacturing/warehouse) to commercial storage. Self-storage is a retail use permitted on the property with no maximum use size. Commercial Storage is a form of PDR use.
The proposed 43,996 gross square feet of commercial storage area will replace 100% of the property’s existing PDR use area, satisfying the requirements of Planning Code Section 202.8. No expansion to the existing building envelope is proposed. However, the following alterations are proposed: a first-floor mezzanine would expand from 2,628 gross square feet to 10,530 gross square feet; a first floor mechanical room at the rear of the building would be removed; the surface area at the rear of the site would be re-striped for accessory parking and loading to be accessed via an existing curb cut along Russ Street; and a second exit stair would be added at the southeast corner of the building, where an existing floor opening at level 3 exiting through the rear yard exists.
The project would also entail exterior modifications in keeping with the character of the existing historic building and district to renovate, repair, and rehabilitate the existing façade. This would include replacement of existing skylights with new roofing but maintaining existing skylight curbs and outlines, allowing them to be returned to skylights in the future if needed.
Previously, the scope of work included two storage buildings on the south side of the lot to be demolished to make way for the five floors of new office space, adding nearly 25,000 square feet of new commercial real estate.
The project site is a twelve-minute walk from the Powell Street BART station and just around the corner from the Victoria Manalo Draves Park. The lot was purchased in September of 2018 for $25.3 million, while the projected cost for new construction permits is not yet released.
