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- July 7, 2011
Could Mid-Market Become SF's Next Hot Neighborhood?
By Sarah Karlinsky, Deputy Director
There's been a lot of hullabaloo about San Francisco's Mid-Market area lately, mostly focused on the new payroll tax exemption for businesses that locate in the neighborhood and the planned CityPlace Project, a major retail development, both approved by the city last September. But a gaggle of planners and economic development experts are already working hard to transform this area into an arts district anchored by a redesigned Market Street.The Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD) has recently launched the Central Market Economic Strategy to bring new life to the Mid-Market area. One of the key thrusts of this effort is the creation of an arts district that builds on some of the existing cultural institutions, including the American Conservatory Theater, Alonzo King Lines Ballet, the SF Film Society and Intersection for the Arts. The Black Rock Foundation, the organizer of the annual Burning Man event, is also slated to move to the area. What if the proximity of all of these arts institutions, in either new or rehabilitated buildings, led to a complete reconceptualization of Mid-Market? Could it become a premier West Coast arts district, a place to come see a play, watch modern dance and walk a few feet to eat at a great restaurant? Such a district could be an incredible benefit to San Francisco as a whole, increasing sales tax revenue and creating new local jobs.
Representatives of OEWD are quick to point out that such a change does not happen over night — and it doesn’t happen without significant investment. There's also a lot of work to be done to attract small businesses, larger employers and housing for families with a mix of incomes. OEWD staffers are currently seeking public input on their draft objectives for the Central Market Economic Strategy (PDF download). Once you’ve had a cup of coffee and reviewed the document, email your thoughts to jordan.klein@sfgov.org.
Meanwhile, representatives of the SF Planning Department, the Municipal Transportation Agency and the Department of Public Works are in the process of developing a new vision for Market Street. The Better Market Street Plan will make Market Street a better place to walk, bike and take transit. The hope is that this work will make Market Street so much “sweeter for people” (to use the phrase of Danish urbanist Jan Gehl) that it will also become a much better place to stop, sit with friends and people watch.
Attend our forum on the Better Market Street Plan July 12 >>
Tags: community planning - March 2, 2011
Treasure Island Moves Forward to Planning Commission
Plans for Treasure Island are moving forward to the Planning Commission in March. SPUR is a big supporter of this plan, which will create 8,000 units of housing, 30 percent of which will be affordable, and 450,000 square feet of retail space; rehabilitate historic structures; create 300 acres of open space; and add new ferry service. We especially like the way in which the proposed new development is clustered around the new ferry terminal, as opposed to dispersed across the island. Interested in lending your support to this important project? Contact Sarah Karlinsky at skarlinsky@spur.org. More information is available here.
- March 2, 2011
Ocean Beach Master Plan- we want to hear from you!
SPUR continues to lead an interagency effort to create a Master Plan for the future of Ocean Beach. In January, we held our first public meeting, which drew nearly 200 people to provide input on everything from trails to wastewater treatment. See public feedback collected so far here. It's not too late to add your thoughts to the conversation! There are two upcoming opportunities:
1. Visit SPUR's current exhibition, Ocean Beach In Context: Work in Progress from the Ocean Beach Master Plan, which includes several ways to weigh in with your perspective. Act quickly, the exhibition closes March 8th.
2. Attend an Ocean Beach open house hosted by SAND/OB, at the Park Chalet from 10 AM to 1 PM. Weigh in on the future of Ocean Beach and record a video about what Ocean Beach means to you for SAND/OB's youtube documentary project.
As always, you can check our website at spur.org/oceanbeach for the latest updates, join our mailing list or follow us on twitter: @planoceanbeach
Tags: community planning - November 18, 2010
Are Smaller Homes Here to Stay?
BY FABIANA MEACHAM
[Photo Credit: flickr user Dean Terry]
The post-recession trend toward smaller homes in suburban communities has grown over the past few years – and as the economy continues to lag, it’s likely these more modest homes will only rise in popularity. It remains unclear, however, if Americans have really begun to reevaluate the excesses of 6.5 bathrooms and a “celebrity-style media and screening room,” or whether they’re just putting those dreams on hold for the time being.
The building industry has certainly reacted to the American home-buyer’s current need for a more affordable, pared down lifestyle. A recent New York Times article featured Builder magazine’s 2010 “concept home,” a 1,700 square foot “Home for the New Economy.” A virtual tour of the house emphasizes the house's “roominess and livability,” low energy load and flexible interior spaces.
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) has also released a report on the changing housing industry, focusing on consumers’ new demands for single-family homes. According to the study, “characteristics of homes started in 2009 reveal a marketplace adapting to tougher economic times with fewer luxuries, but also point to a few amenities that have been on the upswing despite the general retrenchment of consumers.” While new houses are getting smaller and cheaper, the number of bedrooms and bathrooms showed little change. The study also found that while amenities like three-car garages, fireplaces and patios have declined, porches have shown an increase in popularity. (The Home for the New Economy features front and back porches.) One luxury feature that persists in new home construction is the two-story foyer – 30% of homes started in 2009 had one. It appears American homebuyers are willing to give up almost anything before a grand entrance.
But perhaps it is more important to consider whether new communities of smaller homes can make up for the decreased square footage of the houses themselves. In the same New York Times article, New Urbanist founding father Andres Duany posits that “the sprawling homes of the last decade met a need, albeit imperfectly, by reproducing internally what suburban communities lacked: an exercise room substitutes for a park, a home theater for the Main Street cinema.” Regardless of your take on Duany’s special brand of small-town American urbanism, it’s comforting to think that an increased demand for porches (and their tendency to foster social interaction), is the first manifestation of Americans’ newfound desire to reengage with their communities. It remains to be seen whether Americans will continue to appreciate them when they can once again afford larger, more isolated properties.
To better visualize the changing features of new single-family homes, The Wall Street Journal has created an interactive floor plan comparison of boom-era and post-recession luxury homes. Read the accompanying article, “Builders Downsize the Dream Home.”Tags: community planning, housing - November 2, 2010
Exploring Future Job Centers of the Bay Area: Hacienda Park, a Midpoint for the Megaregion
BY POONAM NARKARAcross the Bay Area, only one in 10 commuters takes transit work each day. And half of those transit commuters go to one job center: downtown San Francisco. But since most work is outside of downtowns, SPUR is trying to understand a little more about emerging suburban and non-downtown job centers. This series will look at the Bay Area's evolving and emerging business districts. For each district, we will ask four main questions:
The Location: Where is this place located? How far or near to major transit? And how large from one end to the other?
The Plan: What was the planning vision for this place? Was it master-planned? Did it grow up organically?
The Market: What kinds of jobs and companies are located there?
The Commute: How are workers getting to their jobs each day and why?
In the second edition of this series, we will explore Hacienda Park in Pleasanton, which has become a successful job center in eastern Alameda County over the past three decades. Our first post in this series, "Mission Bay as urban tech park," is here.
The Location:
Hacienda Park is located in the City of Pleasanton in the Tri-Valley area of the East Bay. It is situated near the intersection of Interstate highways I-580 and I-680, and is also served by BART and several regional bus lines. Hacienda's location puts it at a midpoint between multiple regional centers — Silicon Valley and San Jose to the south, the population centers of the East Bay to the west and north, and the exurban towns and agricultural centers of the Central Valley to the east.
The Plan:
Initially, Hacienda's master plan focused on commercial uses — low and mid-rise office space, retail mixed-use, and hotels. The collapse of the real estate market at the end of 1980s led to the introduction of residential uses, with both owner-occupied and rental units.
At 875 acres, Hacienda Park is the largest development of its kind in Northern California, with over 16,000 employees and 3,400 residents. The master plan, which is currently about 60% built, lays out maximum development figures as below:
"¢ 1530 residential units
"¢ 5.5 million square feet of office space
"¢ 1.8 million square feet of flex/R&D space
"¢ 900,000 square feet of retail/commercial
"¢ 335,000 square feet of hotel
"¢ 138,000 square feet of Public/Institutional uses
"¢ 535,000 square feet of warehouse uses
"¢ 53.5 acres of undeveloped land
The average FAR in Hacienda Park is 38% with a height limit of 85.5 feet.
The Market:
Hacienda Park was envisioned by Joe Callahan of Callahan Property Company and his development partner, Prudential, as an alternative to San Francisco and Silicon Valley, where the cost of doing business was rapidly rising. The project's attractiveness to both developers and local government was driven by two developments in the late 1970s:
"¢ Transportation improvements. Pleasanton became much more accessible by improvements to the I-580 and I-680 corridors and plans to extend BART along I-580 to Dublin. These changes gave Pleasanton better access to both workers in the East Bay and San Joaquin Valley, and businesses in Silicon Valley to the south.
"¢ The passing of Proposition 13 in 1978. Prop 13 lowered property taxes by rolling back property values to 1975 levels and restricting annual increases to an inflation factor, not to exceed 2%. California cities began to rethink their land use patterns in order to restructure their tax base. The Hacienda Park proposal was timely for the City of Pleasanton, which up until then was dependent largely on a residential tax base.
Hacienda Park did not focus on a specific market sector when it was conceived. The businesses range from small offices to regional centers to large campuses for company headquarters.
In the early 1980s, most of the buildings were single-story, tilt-up construction "back-office" buildings, until the first Class A office buildings were built for Prudential in 1984. By the mid 1980s, a variety of corporate offices were built, with the first large tenant being AT&T. By the mid 1990s, the dot com boom drove large scale commercial development by tenants in the technology sector, such as Cisco Systems and PeopleSoft, as well as other companies like Shaklee and Roche.
Today, the Park continues to benefit from its location between economic clusters: technology in Silicon Valley, research in Livermore (which draws biotechnology business), and agriculture in the Central Valley (which brings in food brokers and tenants like SunMaid).
The Commute:
The Park's northern edge is adjacent to the Dublin/Pleasanton BART station, which provides a direct connection to the East Bay and San Francisco. ACE service is available in downtown Pleasanton, about 3.5 miles from the Park, which provides access to the Central Valley. Additionally, the Park is served by a number of regional bus lines (MAX, SMART) and private employer shuttles.
While the Park is relatively well served by transit for a suburban center, issues of streetscape and scale limit workers' ability to abandon their cars. In particular, the large amount of surface parking on the site, visible in the aerial below (the average Floor-Area Ratio on the site is 0.38), inflates walking distances and reduces the BART station's attractiveness.
These problems are tackled to some extent by buses and the WHEELS paratransit service, the latter of which is subsidized by Park tenants and connects riders from regional transit to office buildings. According to the 2009 Transportation Survey conducted by the City of Pleasanton, services like this have helped to push the percentage of workers driving alone down to 71%, compared to 77% in downtown Pleasanton. Between BART, ACE, and bus services, transit share is just under 15%.
Commute Mode
Hacienda Park
City of Pleasanton Total
Drive Alone
71%
77%
BART
9%
5%
Carpool/Vanpool
7%
7%
Telecommute
6%
3%
WHEELS/Bus
5%
2%
Motor Cycle
1%
1%
Bicycle
1%
1%
ACE
< 1%
1%
Walk
< 1%
1%
Other
1%
1%
Total
100%
100%
[Source: City of Pleasanton, Hacienda Business Park — 2009 Employee Transportation Survey]
When commuters who drove alone were asked what changes would motivate a shift in commute mode, greater transit fare subsidies and compressed work schedules were the most popular options, followed by the Guaranteed Ride Home program. It should be noted, however, that only a minority of drivers considered switching to transit; when considering alternatives, a majority preferred either telecommuting (43% of respondents) or carpools and vanpools (30%).
Conclusion:
Over the past three decades, Hacienda Park has successfully combined a central and easily accessed location with cost advantages to attract business. The Park is also poised for growth, with available capacity for office space under planning guidelines. However, especially as land costs increase and the surrounding freeways become more congested, Hacienda Park will need to consider encouraging a higher percentage of its workers to arrive on transit. Services like WHEELS and Guaranteed Ride Home have started this process, but the Park should also seek to get more out of the BART access at its northern end. This will mean less surface parking, increasing density, and retrofitting sites to improve walkability, in addition to improving links to ACE and other regional agencies. Whether this will be supported by tenants, or by local officials is the key question.
- October 20, 2010
Brian O'Neill's Legacy Ensures a Bright Future for the GGNRA
BY HEATHER MACK
[Photos: left: flickr user armstrks, right: via SF Chronicle]
"Nothing big happens in less than a decade," the late Brian O'Neill was quoted as saying. Those words from the ambitious superintendent of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (and longtime SPUR board member) who worked to transform one of the largest urban park districts in the country, still serve as a reminder when tackling giant projects, putting into perspective all that was accomplished during his tenure.
During an evening symposium at SPUR on the future of the park, GGNRA Executive Director Greg Moore emphasized the importance of community partnerships and local stewardships to carry on O'Neill's legacy.
When placed at the head of the 75,500- acre GGNRA — which encompasses San Francisco's Presidio, the Marin Headlands and portions of San Mateo County — in 1986, O'Neill's vision was "audaciously vast," said Moore. This was exemplified with the transformation of military posts to national parks over a span of several decades.
As San Francisco finally sees headway on massive projects such as the seismic and structurally unsafe Doyle Drive replacement, the giant swaths of green along the Northwestern portion of the city are also seeing progress once unthinkable.The 1,492-acre Presidio has been a monumental demonstration of what collaboration between multiple agencies such as the California Coastal Conservancy and a dedicated community can achieve, albeit one fraught with difficulties including legislative holdups and funding shortfalls.
Building on the legacy already established by early park advocates such as Philip Burton and John F. Kennedy, O'Neill went on to spearhead many projects whose success is visible today. The replanting of over 150,000 native plant species, construction of several impressive overlook sites, rehabilitation of more than 100 historic structures and major improvements to the GGNRA's 196 miles of trails have all been made possible through multi-agency collaboration and local involvement.
The Trails Forever Initiative, launched in 2003, aims to link the massive greenbelt north and south of the Golden Gate through an extensive network of trails. Signature trail projects include Land's End, Marin Parklands and Mori Point in San Mateo, which focus on making the trails more accessible and sustainable while encouraging citizens' responsibility to the parks.
Crissy Field [Photo: flickr user Mel1st]
Among the most noticeable projects — and a popular favorite — was the overhaul of Crissy Field. Once used as a backyard dumpsite for the military, it had all the hallmarks of a toxic, forgotten port with piles of buckled concrete, discarded tires and mechanical parts. The $34 million campaign spearheaded by O'Neill resulted in a beautiful space now regarded as the front yard of San Francisco with a velvety lawn, walking and biking paths, public art installations and education centers for urban youth. More than 500,000 school kids participate in the Parks as Classrooms programs, fostering future generations of park enthusiasts and preservationists.
And the projects keep growing and evolving, thanks to the strong sense of stewardship fostered by trailblazers like O'Neill. On any given day of the year, volunteers including anyone from school children to corporate employees can be seen continuously working on the park. While the accomplishments have already been great, it is the ongoing stewardship from the people of the Bay Area that will keep the parks forever thriving.
- September 21, 2010
Parklet Request for Proposals Announced by SF Planning Department
BY KIT HODGE
The Divisadero Street parklet in front of Mojo Cafe.
Last Friday at a noontime forum at SPUR, the San Francisco Planning Department announced the release of a Request For Proposals for parklets, due October 18. Anyone interested in installing a parklet in front of your business or institution should download the application and program overview here. Pass along the information to businesses and other institutions that you think could be good parklet hosts. October 18th is right around the corner!
Spearheaded by the Planning Department's Pavement to Parks Program, parklets offer a unique opportunity to widen a sidewalk, providing public space for people to sit and relax. The SPUR forum was designed to help business owners and other potential applicants learn more about the parklet RFP.- To learn more about existing parklets, click here.
- To learn more about the impact of parklets, click here.
For any questions or information, e-mail Kit Hodge at kit AT sfgreatstreets DOT org. The SF Great Streets Project is a collaboration between SPUR and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.
If a parklet isn't the right fit for you, consider a bike parking corral, which provides on-street bike parking in front of businesses and organizations that expect significant bike traffic. The City installs corrals at no cost to the applicant, but you are expected to provide ongoing maintenance. Download the simple application here. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency accepts applications on a rolling basis.
- September 15, 2010
Crosstown Bicycling Could Become Realistic Option for San Francisco Residents Aged "8 to 80"
BY FABIANA MEACHAM
What would it take to transform San Francisco into a world-class bicycling city? More bike racks? More designated green lanes? Fewer hills? San Francisco is already one of the premiere biking cities in the country: bicycling has increased over 50% since 2006, and last year saw over 8,000 bicyclists on the city's streets. San Francisco was recently ranked the sixth most bike-friendly city in America.
But most San Francisco residents are not riding their bicycles. Last week's lunch forum, "Crosstown bikeways," hosted by Andy Thornley and Renee Rivera of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, posed the question: "What is it going to take to get your neighbors, boss, coworkers and in-laws to ride bikes?"
The SF Bicycle Coalition publicly debuted its "Connecting the City" campaign at SPUR last week, featuring routes that would allow residents to cross the entire city by bike. Borrowing a slogan from Gil Peñalosa, the visionary livable city advocate (as well as former Parks Commissioner of Bogotá, Colombia), Rivera and Thornley spoke of improving the city's bike network to make bicycling across town a real possibility for citizens aged "eight to 80."Appealing to families, senior citizens and children, (not necessarily the dominant demographic in urban bicycling), the SF Bicycle Coalition made a strong case for creating new bikeways and elevating the existing routes with improvements like green paint and soft barriers against traffic. As Thornley pointed out regarding the overwhelming enthusiasm for Market Street's new experimental green lanes, "a little bit of space designation goes a long way."
Among the proposed priority bikeways are the "Bay to the Beach" route, extending from the Ferry Building, continuing down Market Street, through Golden Gate Park to the coast, and the "Bay Trail," which extends around the entire shoreline from Hunters Point to the Presidio.
A suggested improvement of the Valencia Street bike lane would move the lanes from the curbsides to the middle of the street, allowing bicyclists to avoid idling vehicles and other obstacles. The Coalition also proposed a bridge extending around Black Point in Fort Mason, so that bicyclists and pedestrians alike could avoid climbing the steep hills there.
But perhaps most essential to the Connecting the City campaign is its vision of a bike network as a multi-layered system that includes transit, pedestrians, and even cars. A representative from the SFMTA cited the need to "get out of the bikes versus cars talk" and "reframe the debate" as necessary for pushing through a city-spanning bike network. Most car advocates probably haven't considered that more bicycling means fewer cars on the road — and less traffic.
Although the SFMTA voted to adopt the 2009 San Francisco Bike Plan, a five-year master plan adding 34 miles of new lanes and 60 overall improvement projects, the Connecting the City campaign focuses on routes that would allow San Franciscans to bike from one end of the city to the other.By next year the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition hopes to make three miles of "eight to 80" bike lanes available to the citizens of San Francisco, with the entire crosstown route completed by 2012, and 10% of trips in the city made by bicycle.
A rendering of proposed bike lanes down the middle of Valencia Street.
A bridge for bicyclists and pedestrians around Black Point.
[All images via San Francisco Bicycle Coalition]
- September 14, 2010
San Jose Then and Now
BY TIMOTHEA TWAYMany who joined the latest SPUR study trip to San Jose were impressed to see how much the city has changed physically in the past few decades. These changes have helped accommodate considerable population growth - San Jose grew from under 100,000 residents in 1950 to 460,000 in 1970 to nearly 800,000 today. According to the Association of Bay Area Governments, San Jose will add approximately 400,000 more people from now until 2035, which will no doubt result in even more dramatic physical changes in the city. Many of these changes also reflect the city's attempts to transform itself from a suburban auto-oriented place to a vibrant, dense, transit rich city.
Santa Clara Street at Fourth looking East, 1975 and 2006. [All photos via Buena Vista Neighborhood Association]
Market Street at San Fernando looking southeast, 1975 and 2006. The Circle of Palms and the Fairmont Hotel are in the background.
Market Street between San Carlos and San Fernando looking east down the Paseo de San Antonio, 1975 and 2006.
For those of us who can't make it to San Jose or don't remember what it used to look like, The Buena Vista Neighborhood Association has compiled side by side "then and now" photographs from 1975 and 2006. This is a great website to explore for anyone interested in San Jose, transportation infrastructure, or historic preservation. There are links to other websites which show then and now photographs of aerial views of the city, its homes, and public buildings. Also be sure to check out the City of San Jose Planning Division Envision San Jose 2040 website to see how they are planning to address future growth.
And of course, check out "Retrofitting suburbia -- San Jose style," written for the August Urbanist about lessons learned from the San Jose Study trip!
- September 14, 2010
Exploring future job centers of the Bay Area: Mission Bay as urban tech park
- posted by Ed ParillonAcross the Bay Area, only one in 10 commuters takes transit to work each day. And half of those transit commuters go to one job center: downtown San Francisco. But since most work is outside of downtowns, SPUR is trying to understand a little more about emerging suburban and non-downtown job centers. This post is the first in an occasional series that will look at the Bay Area's evolving and emerging business districts. For each employment district, we will ask four main questions:
The Location: Where is this place located? How far or near to major transit? And how large from one end to the other?
The Plan: What was the planning vision for this place? Was it master-planned? Did it grow up organically?
The Market: What kinds of jobs and companies are located there?
The Commute: How are workers getting to their jobs each day and why?In this first edition, we will take a closer look at San Francisco's Mission Bay, an emerging neighborhood and job center surrounding a new UCSF campus.
[Photo Credit: Colleen McHugh]
The Location: Mission Bay takes up about 303 acres of land along San Francisco's eastern waterfront just south of AT&T Park. Most of the jobs are about half a mile or more from the 4th and King Caltrain station and over a mile and a half from the Powell Street BART station in downtown. The neighborhood is being built on former Southern Pacific rail yards, and is bounded by the I-280 freeway on the west, King Street on the north, Mariposa Street on the south, and the San Francisco Bay on the east.
[This post will focus largely on the neighborhood's job center, which is located in the southern part of Mission Bay]
This area is served by Muni's T light-rail line, which connects it to Bayview in one direction, and the Market Street Corridor (and BART) in the other. There is also access to Caltrain, with the 4th and King terminus about a half-mile away from the center of the development.
The Plan: Mission Bay is a master-planned development. The site's design, zoning, and layout are detailed in plans approved by the City's Redevelopment Agency, and the private developer, Catellus Development.* Over the 303 acres, the plan lays out the maximum development figures:
- 6,000 residential units
- 4.4 million square feet of office space
- 2.6 million square foot UCSF campus
- 500,000 square feet of retail, and a 500-room hotel
- 41 acres of public open space, both along Mission Creek and along a boulevard in the development's center
In all, current plans for office space in the area should accommodate about 14,000 jobs, in addition to 9,100 expected at the UCSF campus. This means that the entire development will house about 76 jobs per acre.
The Market: The ability to design and implement a master plan also allows the Redevelopment Agency to influence the types of jobs brought to Mission Bay. Many planned job centers target a variety of industries, but Mission Bay's focus is very clear: biotech. In fact, 92% of the office space in the area is planned to be used by biotechnology companies, though there are other large tenants, such as Gap Inc., (whose Old Navy subsidiary has made 285,000 square feet in Mission Bay its headquarters).The biotech sector got its start in the Bay Area, largely due to UCSF's presence, but South San Francisco, home to Genentech, had long been the dominant location for firms and jobs. The sector has begun to grow in the city, however, and San Francisco is hoping that offering its amenities along with access to the region's three large research centers (UCSF, UC Berkeley, and Stanford) will build on this growth.
[Photo Credit: Colleen McHugh]
There are two main factors leading to the emergence of biotech in San Francisco, and Mission Bay specifically:
- Having the UCSF Mission Bay campus as an anchor tenant: UCSF has long acted as a biotech magnet for the region, and the new campus puts the university's research activities within walking distance of firms moving into Mission Bay, a level of access that is difficult to replicate elsewhere. The UCSF presence also has the advantage of giving the neighborhood a substantial population and public center early in its development.
- Passing a biotech tax incentive: In order to compete with other centers like South San Francisco and Emeryville, San Francisco passed a seven and a half year payroll tax exemption for biotech firms in 2004, and this year modified the legislation to allow firms to qualify for the exemption regardless of when they apply for it. This exemption is relatively cheap, costing just under $1 million in foregone taxes between 2004 and 2008, compared to total payroll tax receipts of $1.63 billion.
The City's strategy has met with some success, as noted in a December 2009 report from San Francisco's Office of the Controller:
In 2000, San Francisco had only 1.3% of the total life sciences occupied building base in the Bay Area. The figure declined during the recession in the early part of this decade, but did not begin to rise until 2005, after the exclusion went into effect in September 2004. Subsequently, the percentage has risen each year, peaking in 2009 at 6.1% of the regional total, approximately a five-fold increase over the city's share in 2004. Estimates suggest there could be 2,750 life science jobs in San Francisco, up from only 500 in 2004.The Commute: As discussed above, Mission Bay has direct access to Muni's T-Third light rail, which runs through the center of the development. Additionally, workers in the neighborhood have access to Caltrain at the development's northwestern edge (the 4th and King station can also be accessed via Muni). While the 280 freeway acts as a barrier to walkability, the area is connected to the rest of the city via the street grid, allowing some commuting via walking and cycling.
But as in most job centers, many workers arrive via car. Parking allowances are higher than those in the downtown core; for example, a 250,000 sqft office building in downtown would have about 100 spaces, compared to 250 for a similar office building in Mission Bay, or 500 spaces for a biotech office building.
Precise commute data for Mission Bay is not available yet. But projections from UCSF for its campus indicate a possible mix of modes, with about half of faculty, staff, and students expected to arrive via auto, compared to 32% on transit, and 14% walking or biking. While the driving rates are higher than downtown San Francisco, they are lower than many other job centers in the region.
As we continue this occasional blog series on Bay Area job centers, we'll see how those other places stack up.
*Catellus Development is a real-estate spinoff of the Santa Fe Pacific Corporation, the railroad company that owned the railyards that now comprise Mission Bay.
[Photo Credit: Colleen McHugh]
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