S.F. takes control of controversial Monster in the Mission property, with plans for affordable housing

The city plans to build low-income apartments on the 16th Street BART station site.

Supervisor Hillary Ronen said the transaction closed Friday afternoon after several weeks of negotiations.

“It’s not only a material victory but a symbolic one as well,” Ronen said. “For better or worse that property became the symbol of the fight against gentrification in the Mission.”

With the property in city hands, the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development will now set out to find a nonprofit developer to build a mixed-use complex that will house approximately 330 low-income households.

“I think we have the opportunity to build one of the most exciting projects ever,” Ronen said.

While the deal would not have happened without the deep pockets of an international luxury developer, it also would not have been possible had it not been for the fierce resistance put up by activists from the Plaza 16 Coalition, TODCO Group, United to Save the Mission, the Tenderloin People’s Congress, and the South of Market Community Action Network, according to John Elberling of TODCO Group, who represented the neighborhood groups in negotiations along with attorney Julian Gross of Renne Public Law Group.

The key to the negotiations was that Crescent Heights agreed to fund the $42 million cost of the Monster site well in advance of starting its own South Van Ness project, at least a year earlier than required by city regulations, Elberling said.

“The key to equitable development in San Francisco is to fight until we can guarantee that every unit in the building will be affordable to residents who already live in the neighborhood, and that each new project serves as the foundation of a more just future,” said Elberling.

But beyond the property’s “forever use,” there is a pressing need to come up with interim uses that will activate a trash-strewn property that has become a magnet for drug dealing and the selling of stolen goods. The retailers on the property, which included a Walgreens, closed years ago.

Ronen said she would start working on interim uses immediately. “Now that the city owns the property we need to improve the situation,” said Ronen. “We need to enliven it and make it safer. We can’t start soon enough.”

She said the opportunity to build a major housing project at an intersection like 16th and Mission is rare.

“You only have a chance once in a lifetime to build a project on top of a BART station,” she said. “We have to get this right. It has to be visionary.”