Westside Court, 2501 Sutter St(Planning, Design or Conception) – San Francisco – 94115

Westside Court, 2501 Sutter St(Planning, Design or Conception) – San Francisco – 94115


Westside Court, 2501 Sutter St(Planning, Design or Conception) – San Francisco – 94115

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What It Is Today
While all HOPE SF sites are unique, Westside Courts (“Westside”) is distinctive. Built in 1943, Westside includes 136 units in six buildings that cover a full city block. It is the smallest of all HOPE SF sites, but is unusual because it is located in a thriving, mixed-income neighborhood. Another distinction is in its construction, which relied on heavy cement blocks, creating buildings that have suffered less from degradation over time than other HOPE SF sites built with less expensive materials.

Local Map

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Located at 2501 Sutter Street between Broderick and Baker Streets, Westside is close to a broad range of restaurants, stores, several medical institutions (Kaiser and UCSF), numerous entertainment venues, transit lines, and more. A weekly farmers market and large grocery store are located only a few blocks away. These features present a terrific opportunity to improve the housing and integrate the site into the fabric of the surrounding neighborhood.

Westside is a development that has exceeded its useful life. The development is more than 65 years old, and residents live with outdated appliances; unpredictable plumbing, mechanical, and electrical systems; extensive rodent problems; and other issues that affect their health and quality of life. HOPE SF will change this.

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What It Will Be
HOPE SF at Westside will include a mixture of housing types and income levels: public housing units, affordable rental units, a dedicated senior-housing building, and homeownership opportunities (including market rate and below market rate). Westside will become a neighborhood that preserves the cultural and economic diversity that makes San Francisco a great city, with expanded opportunities for residents.

Westside has the following goals:
• An economically integrated development with new public housing units, affordable rental apartments, senior building, and market-rate/below-market-rate homeownership. Current Westside residents will have opportunities to move up the “housing ladder” without leaving Westside.
• Physical and social connections between Westside and the nearby neighborhood.
• Extensive open space, including spaces for youth, seniors and the community—in fact, twice as much as what currently exists.
• Meeting space.
• Increased, safe parking spaces.
• Job opportunities for residents in the construction process as well as in property management upon completion.
• A comprehensive services plan that identifies the needs of Westside families, addresses gaps in services for families, and facilitates greater access to existing programs and resources.
• Green and Healthy development principles that include:
– Energy efficient housing units (appliances, utilities, windows)
– Green construction and healthy buildings

 

How We Will Get There
Extensive community building and master planning efforts began in Fall 2008, and construction could start as early as 2013. See the HOPE SF Timeline for key milestones.

HOPE SF principles ensure that the rebuilding of Westside takes place through the active participation and to the benefit of the existing Westside community. Below are some of the steps to meet HOPE SF goals:
• Working closely with the Tenant Association, the Development Team has hosted numerous resident and community meetings to develop plans for the new Westside.
• Westside residents took a bus tour of comparable mixed-income developments to discuss what they liked and disliked about those locations and used these same design and livability criteria to assess their current living conditions at Westside.
• The Development Team has conducted door-to-door resident surveys and focus groups with the diverse Westside community members to better understand the strengths and needs of each household and to better clarify the types of services residents want in their new community.
• As part of community building, residents attended social events and youth/young adults participated in a citywide basketball tournament.
• In the coming year, the Development Team will continue working with residents to refine site plans, expand community building and resident engagement, and to move Westside through the city planning process.

Development Team
The development of Westside Courts will occur through a public-private partnership. Key government partners are the Mayor’s Office of Housing and the San Francisco Housing Authority. The Development Team, Westside Housing Initiatives, LLC (a partnership between Em Johnson Interest and TMG Partners), will handle the day-to-day construction details of rebuilding Westside Courts. The Development Team was selected through a competitive application process.

Em Johnson Interest
Em Johnson Interest, Inc., founded as a minority business enterprise by Michael E. Johnson, began in Atlanta, Georgia in 1979. From its headquarters in San Francisco, Em Johnson Interest focuses on the development of mixed-income, mixed-use, and affordable housing projects working in urban communities.

TMG Partners
TMG Partners, a privately-held, California Corporation, is based in San Francisco. TMG is a full-service real estate development and management company. TMG is active throughout California, with a particular emphasis on San Francisco Bay markets, and specializes in urban infill developments.