SF Market's on the Mend: Condo sales, price chops, and "attractive...

October 21st, 2009

Condo sales, price chops, and "attractive incentives" are keeping San Francisco's housing market not only in decent shape, but haler and heartier by the day. By the end of last month, the city's home inventory was a svelte 3.6 months, versus 10.4 in November 2008. And "although consumers remain apprehensive, they have become less pessimistic in their views toward the economy and the housing market." Now, about that 10 percent unemployment... [CNBC]

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Rincon Hill's 333 Fremont Is a Go, Again

October 21st, 2009

[Click to embiggen.]

The prediction that expired projects would have to return to the city, hat in hand, to ask for permit extensions has come true, if ever so gradually. The latest is 333 Fremont, an 88-unit building in Rincon Hill that's been in the works for nine years now. The project was approved in 2005, but City-Core Development's entitlement expired in June 2008 with only demolition work done. Lucky for them, the city has no desire (consciously, at least) to hang on to its stubbornly empty lots, and the extension through June 2010 was approved yesterday. If and when construction starts next year, City-Core will be working amid the ghosts of the block's almost-rans: the massive Block 8 redevelopment across the street, and neighbor The Californian on Rincon Hill. There also continues to be lingering concern over the empty lots that the city does get stuck with as approved projects continue to hibernate. Planning Commissioners are focusing a keener eye on "interim maintenance strategies" for the empty lots, which means, if nothing else, some pretty fences.

[Just a taste of the whole forlorn block!]

· Oh What the Hell: City Goes Buck Wild With Empty Lots [Curbed SF]
· Transbay Block 8 Development Suspended [Curbed SF]
· Rincon Hill Aching for Extensions on Construction [Curbed SF]
· No Hurry: City Plans Grace Period for Iced Developments [Curbed SF]