New hotel on its way to Mission Bay

A rendering of Mission Bay where the hotel will be built.

San Francisco could finally be getting its first new, ground-up luxury hotel in six years.
Private development group SOMA Hotel has purchased a portion of the Block 1 Mission Bay development from Strada Investment group to build out the hotel portion of the property, which is fully entitled and includes plans for 350 residential units and 25,000 square feet of retail.
Construction on the 15-story, 250-room hotel is slated to begin at the end of this year, with an anticipated opening in the fourth quarter of 2016.
While an operator has not yet been chosen, plans call for a four-star hotel with meeting space as well as a restaurant and a bar.
The 23,000-square-foot site is on Channel Street, between Third and Fourth Streets—a block from AT&T Park and near the upcoming UCSF hospital—and is part of the Mission Bay Redevelopment plan.
“Downtown San Francisco is one of the most difficult cities for new construction, due to scarcity of land and high barriers to new construction,” said Will Gibbs, senior vice president of SOMA Hotel. “This will be the first four-star, new-build hotel in the city’s urban core since 2008. The South of Market district is the city’s most dynamic location and there is a minimal presence of hotels there.”
SOMA Hotel is an affiliate of the Stanford Hotels Group, which owns and operates 13 hotels and has five properties under development in cities around the country.
Renée Frojo covers hospitality, restaurants, retail and nonprofits for the San Francisco Business Times.

Renée Frojo
Reporter-
San Francisco Business Times