A city commission has approved the start of construction on a new Alice Griffith public housing complex and other development at Candlestick Point in San Francisco’s Bayview District, Mayor Ed Lee and Supervisor Malia Cohen announced today.
The city’s Commission on Community Investment and Infrastructure, which oversees San Francisco’s assets from its former Redevelopment Agency, approved construction plans by the company Lennar Urban on the site, which also includes the Candlestick Park stadium.
The project’s plans includes the rebuild of Alice Griffith on a site adjacent to its current 256 dilapidated public housing units, with no displacement of the current residents during construction.
After preparatory work in the coming months, vertical construction on the new units is expected to start in January 2015, said Cohen, who represents the Bayview and other neighborhoods in the southeastern part of the city.
She said the approval of construction on the project “is a huge deal, not just for the residents but for the entire city.”
The redevelopment of the neighborhood comes with the assistance of a $30.5 million grant San Francisco received in 2011 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Lennar spokesman Dave Satterfield said one of the conditions of the HUD grant is that people will have to reside in the new units by September 2016.
Current Alice Griffith residents will have the right to move into the new units once they’re built, San Francisco Housing Authority spokeswoman Rose Dennis said.
“Nobody will be displaced who is on a lease at Alice Griffith,” Dennis said.
She said the housing authority late last year stopped transferring residents into the old buildings in advance of the planned move.
Along with the public housing complex, the commission approved Lennar’s plans for a 1.1 million-square-foot development at the site of Candlestick Park, the 49ers’ stadium that is being demolished later this year or in early 2015 after the team moves to a new home in Santa Clara.
The stadium will be replaced by a mixed-use site with retail, entertainment and housing, according to the mayor’s office.
Lennar also plans to build 478 affordable homes and up to 755 market-rate homes as part of the Candlestick Point development.
“This milestone in the important revitalization effort in the Bayview community will bring housing, jobs, parks, open space and economic growth through a public-private partnership with Lennar and helps us lay the groundwork for more middle class, affordable homes in the future,” Mayor Lee said in a statement.
Dan McMenamin, Bay City News
