It took 13 years, but 200 affordable homes are finally coming to SoMa

For TNDC executive director Don Falk, those were questions to be grappled with later. After all, how many chances do you get to buy a site smack in the middle of SoMa?

“The Mayor’s Office of Housing had virtually no money but they had the vision and understanding to realize how important this project was,” said Falk.

It took 13 years — and nearly as many false starts and dead ends — but on Thursday, Mayor London Breed joined developers and construction workers from Swinerton on the site to celebrate the start of construction of 203 apartments, which will be affordable to families earning between 75% and 120% of area median income, about $100,000 to $159,000 for a family of four people. The project is scheduled to open in the fall of 2023.

Breed emphasized that 40% of the residents would be picked from applicants living within one square mile of the site. She said she looked forward to welcoming the first residents to the building with a house key and gift basket.

“There is nothing like seeing kids walk into their own bedroom and seeing that little bed made up with Smurf bedding — or whatever the kids are into these days,” said Breed. “It’s going to put a smile on a lot of faces.”

Even by the glacial standards of housing development in San Francisco, TNDC’s efforts to build some affordable apartments at Fifth and Howard streets was excruciatingly slow. The project started when George W. Bush was president and Gov. Gavin Newsom was mayor of San Francisco. The firm that TNDC originally partnered with, Citizens Housing, went belly up in the Great Recession.

TNDC brought in a new partner, Curtis Development, and spent years negotiating with four different market rate developers on a variety of mixed-income developments where high-end units would have subsidized the affordable ones. None of those deals came to fruition.

Meanwhile, South of Market transformed with an influx of tech workers and new offices and apartments to cater to them. Across Fifth Street street, an aqua-blue-and-white Intercontinental Hotel opened, lending the block a bit of a Miami vibe, while next door the Dugoni School of Dentistry built a campus. To the south, along the west side of Fifth Street, rose 463 swanky apartments with a French bakery and acai bowl spot downstairs, while to the north a new office building took shape.

The neighborhood building boom underscored the benefits of tying up land for future projects in a constrained market like San Francisco, according to Falk. The value of the Howard Street parking lot kept climbing — reaching $50 million at one point before the pandemic.

“It shows the power of landbanking,” said Falk. “People criticize the fact that it takes so long but the other side of that is, imagine if we were buying the property right now?”

Meanwhile, San Francisco voters passed a $600 million affordable housing bond, which will pay off the project along with money from an array of other sources, including Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the California Housing Finance Agency Middle Income Program, California Tax Credit Allocation Committee, and California Debt Limit Allocation Committee.

The long wait also paid off in other ways. The city upzoned the site from 80 feet to 300 feet, and it was also subdivided into two parcels, which will allow more housing. The 203-unit building will take up about 63% of the lot, leaving enough room for a second 30-story building with 240 units.

For Rudy Corpuz, who grew up near the site and runs the SoMa youth organization United Playaz, the 203 units will help preserve what’s left of what used to be a thriving neighborhood of predominantly Filipino immigrants.

“We don’t just want to have buildings named after Filipinos, we want the Filipino families to stay, be able to live and die in the community,” he said. “Over 200 units of affordable housing? Come on, man, you know that it’s needed here in San Francisco.”

J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com