Proposed Condo Tower in San Francisco’s Transit Center District Moves to Environmental Review

After completing the City/County of San Francisco’s Preliminary Project Assessment (PPA) in early May, a new plan to build a 32-story glass residential tower at the northeast corner of Hawthorne and Folsom streets in the Transit Center District is now progressing through the planning process.

Owned by the John Hancock Life Insurance Co., the site at 95 Hawthorne St. currently houses an 84,000-square-foot, five-story, circa-1908 office building (and former site of the San Francisco Passport Agency) that will be demolished, making way for an 330-unit high-rise with terraces on the first and second floors, a roof deck, 250 underground parking spaces and 8,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space facing Folsom St.

The site is located at the corner of Hawthorne and Folsom, between 2nd and 3rd streets, one block northeast of Moscone Center.

Representing the owner on the project is the San Francisco law firm of Reuben, Junius & Rose LLP. The developer at this stage is Trammel Crow Residential, based in Dallas with a Northern California office in Mill Valley, and the architect is Skidmore Owings & Merrill of San Francisco.

According to Tina Chang, planner for the city, following the PPA, the project now must go through environmental review. “In other words, the project is in the very beginning of the planning process,” she said.

The project also lies within the proposed Central SoMa Plan area, which is the focus of an ongoing community planning process initiated in 2011. The Central SoMa plan is expected to be approved by the Planning Commission later this year, which would open up rezoning opportunities that this new project would require. Under the plan’s building heights requirements, the project plan’s 320-foot measurement would be consistent with the new height designations.

The number of parking spaces could also change since the planning code currently allows for 165 spaces for residential buildings with 330 units. The Planning Department also reported that the existing building on the 16,875-square-foot subject lot is not considered a historic resource.

Representatives of John Hancock Life and Trammel Crow Residential did not respond to requests for comment on the project.