Organized Labor

Plant Construction is in the midst of renovation and conversion of the historic Levi Strauss building at 250 Valencia Street. The existing building is a wood-frame structure with three floors above grade totaling about 87,000 square feet. The project is an adaptive re-use of the old Levi's manufacturing plant for new use as a school. It will be the new home for the San Francisco Friends School, a private independent co-educational K-8 school for 400 students based on the philosophy of the Society of Friends, or Quakers.

Plant's Project Manager for 250 Valencia, Nathan Dunn, said that the project was mostly a seismic upgrade. The wood frame building over a masonry foundation is getting retrofitted with steel bracing to reinforce the wood frame structure. Work also includes accessibility improvements, an interior build-out and gymnasium addition.

Dunn said the project is all union and that Plant always attempts to find union subcontractors. About six different trades are on the job. Subcontractors include Boyette Construction (framing), Delta Steel and dpw, inc. (plumbing).

Work began on the project with demolition work in March of 2007; the school is scheduled to open in its new facility in September 2008. The cost of the seismic upgrade and renovation is about $10 million.

Dunn said that there was some lead paint abatement done by Levi Strauss before Plant began work but otherwise there were no surprises or other hazardous materials removal. He said some rubble from the 1906 earthquake was found during excavation.

Construction of the factory had begun before the earthquake hit, and was completed in November 1906. The company's original plant on Fremont Street was destroyed by the earthquake and fire.

The company's corporate headquarters remain in the city, on Battery Street.

The 250 Valencia site served as a manufacturing plant from 1906 until 2002, when Levi Strauss closed six U.S. plants, leaving the company with only two U.S.-based manufacturing plants, in San Antonio, Texas. Most Levi's are now made in Asia or Latin America. The San Francisco facility offered tours of the factory from 1986 until 2002.When the plant closed in 2002, about 100 hourly workers represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 101 lost their jobs.

In a 2002 article on the plant closing, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that, "The plant is listed as a 'structure of merit' by the city. But extensive alterations to the facade in the 1970s probably kept it from serious consideration as a local or national landmark, said Tim Kelley, a historian and president of the San Francisco Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board. Regardless, it remains a valuable remnant of early-1900s industrial architecture, with generous windows designed for maximum natural light."

Those windows are preserved in the new use of the old building, as part of the sustainable design features promoted by the project's architect Peter Pfau. The architect said that, "Sustainable design will be implemented as well as sensitivity to the existing historical building, which contains features such as all-wood construction, oversized columns and trusses, high ceilings, openness and natural light-all features which are in harmony with the school's Quaker heritage." The school says it promotes the Quaker values of simplicity, integrity, mutual respect, and peaceful problem-solving.

Other school projects by Pfau Architects include Lick-Wilmerding High School, Berkeley Montessori School and UCSF Kickham Child Care Center.

In addition to classrooms, a dining area, gymnasium, student art gallery and small theater, the project will convert the 10,000 square feet of space in front of the building into a garden and play area. Other sustainable elements include use of natural light, natural ventilation, and a hydronic floor heating system.

The Friends School was started about six years ago by a group of parents and has outgrown its current space it rents from the San Francisco archdiocese in the Castro district. The group purchased the Levi Strauss building about two and a half years ago. The new location in the Mission District helps fulfill the school's goal to offer education to diverse populations, according to the school. The Friends School currently serves students in kindergarten through fifth grade and will add a new grade each year for the next three years, to grade eight. Classrooms will occupy the first two floors and expand to the third floor as grades are added.