Organized Labor

$4 Billion in Construction Projects will be Ongoing for 30 Years

by Paul Burton
Contributing Writer

A number of construction projects in the Mission Bay Redevelopment Area are nearing completion, while others are beginning construction. Mission Bay is a 303-acre neighborhood on the central bayshore south of AT&T Park, bounded on the west by I-280, east to the San Francisco Bay, the Caltrain tracks and station to the north, and south to Mariposa Street.

Mission Bay is expected to create over 31,000 new permanent jobs, plus hundreds of ongoing construction jobs. Development will take place over 20 to 30 years. The total development cost for Mission Bay is expected to exceed $4 billion.

The area was designated as a redevelopment project area in 1998 by the Board of Supervisors. Most of the land had been a railyard of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. Writing in the Urbanist newsletter for SPUR in 2005, former Planning Commissioner and then-City Project Manager for Mission Bay, David Prowler, noted, "What we see on the ground today was a long time coming: after World War II, the flight of jobs and housing to the suburbs, the movement of industry to cheaper locations, the replacement of train traffic by truck and air, left San Francisco and virtually every other North American city, with underutilized railyards. … The Santa Fe Pacific Realty, an offshoot of the railroad, was formed to develop [the] parcels."

Prowler described how a series of proposals were presented and refined since 1981, including mid-rise buildings, high-rise buildings set on lagoons, and single-family houses. "The planning of Mission Bay was handled by four mayors, three planning directors, and successive corporate incarnations and leadership on the ownership side. … Plans have featured high-rise office buildings, a Home Depot, canals, a domed stadium, a Metreon clone, and a rented wetlands with a full-time staff. And finally it's happening."

What's happening now is development of the area with a mix of housing, in the form of about 6,000 condos and apartments, several new office buildings occupied by biotech firms, new facilities for the University of California at San Francisco focused on the biotech and medical fields, a new cancer research facility, new waterfront parks and open space, and possibly a new hospital and hotel. About 23 of the new buildings have been completed in the last five years since 2002.

Much of the land was owned by the Catellus Development Corporation, a spinoff from Santa Fe Pacific Realty, and subsequently sold in parcels to other developers and investors like Farallon Capital Improvements. About $200 million in public infrastructure improvements were made by Catellus.

When completed Mission Bay will include:

* 6,000 housing units, with 28 percent, or 1,700 set aside as affordable to moderate, low, and very low-income households.

* 6 million sq. ft. of office/life science/technology commercial space.

* A new UCSF research campus containing 2.65 million sq. ft. of building space on 43 acres of land donated by Catellus and the City.

* 800,000 sq. ft. of city and neighborhood-serving retail space.

* A 500-room hotel with up to 50,000 sq. ft. of retail entertainment uses.

* 49 acres of public open space, including parks along Mission Creek and along the bay, plus 8 acres of open space within the UCSF campus.

* A new 500-student public school.

• A new fire and police station.

Some of the projects currently under construction include the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center Research Building, Radiance San Francisco, 500 Terry Francois, 555 Mission Rock, and 409 & 499 Illinois (see Organized Labor, Feb. 2008),

555 Mission Rock

Nibbi Brothers construction broke ground at the 555 Mission Rock Street project in April 2007. The $63.4 million development owned by Urban Housing Group is an eight-story, 192-unit market rate rental housing project in Mission Bay, designed by SB Architects. Nibbi also built the $44.1 million apartment complex at 355 Berry Street on the north side of the Mission Bay Redevelopment Area (MBRA) for Urban Housing Group.

Joe Olla of Nibbi said that they were pouring concrete for the columns and walls at the fourth floor level in early March. The project is scheduled to be completed in February 2009. The project will be an eight-story concrete building with 130 one-bedroom units, 62 two-bedroom units, ground floor commercial space, parking and a fitness center on the third floor. The new apartment complex is located on 4th Street and Mission Rock Street, just north of the UCSF Mission Bay campus and new cancer research facility. Olla said the company was close to meeting the goals for local and minority hiring required for projects in the MBRA. The SFRA requires that 50 percent of hires are local individuals, 6.9 percent are women, and 25 percent minority. Olla said the project is an all-union job and that Nibbi typically works with union subcontractors on all its projects in the city.

While the project isn't required to contain "sustainable" building elements, Nibbi's Marketing Director Karen Robeson said that the company does recycle debris from the site through NorCal Waste so that various types of debris are separated out for recycling.

Olla said that, as in all projects in the MBRA, there was some abatement done to clean up the site. Debris dumped in the area after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake needed to be removed, as well as old foundations. Another issue is outgassing of methane from underground, which is common in the MBRA. After the sites are excavated and piles drive, a barrier is made to cap ant underground gasses to prevent seepage. The company has specialized in working in the often challenging Bay Area soil conditions, Olla said.

Nibbi is an all-union contractor and a signatory to the Laborers and Carpenters unions' master agreements and has a positive relationship with the unions that allows it to quickly resolve potential problems. Nibbi's on site Project Manager Axel Boren said between 40 and 50 construction workers are on the job on any given day, including 12 to 15 carpenters, as well as laborers, iron workers and cement masons. Various subcontractors provide plumbers, pipefitters and electricians. Boren said that the job is going well. He said the building will have different types of exterior fishes including glass, plaster and metal panels. The first floor will include about 10,000 square feet of retail space; the interiors will be finished based on what types of businesses lease the space.

• 500 Terry Francois at Mission Bay

500 Terry Francois is a 300,000 square foot office and retail project on the western edge of Mission Bay just north of 16th Street. The general contractor Swinerton broke ground on the project in August, 2006. Swinerton's Marketing Director Will Cannell said that the all-union job is pretty much done, except for interior finish work which will be determined by who leases the building owned by Lowe Enterprises Real Estate Group, based in San Francisco.

The developer said that the six-story project was built to green building standards using state of the art building construction and systems. The concrete framed building features floor to ceiling glass, 12 foot high ceilings, and a flexible raised floor system with below floor HVAC. Total rentable office space is 268,000 square feet, with 11,000 square feet of first floor retail space.

• Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center Research Building

Hunt Construction is the general contractor for UCSF's new Comprehensive Cancer Center Research Building at UCSF Mission Bay. The new facility, named for philanthropist Helen Diller, who donated $35 million to the project, will house UCSF investigators working in the areas of basic cancer research, brain tumor research, and urologic oncology research, focusing on prostate, kidney, bladder and testicular cancers.

The five-story building designed by architect Rafael Viñoly features more than 160,000 square feet of space including full- and half-floor research pavilions, faculty suites, a technology center, conference facilities, meeting rooms, research equipment, and 46 laboratories. About 414 researchers will work at the Center.

The building will more than double the existing space dedicated to cancer research at UCSF, according to the university, which touts their collaborations with private biotech firms setting up offices in Mission Bay. The building, just north of the UCSF housing complex on Third Street, will be a prominent feature of the new, 43-acre campus that will add 2.65-million square feet of new research and teaching space. It is expected to be ready for occupancy in the fall of 2008.

• 1500 Owens

DPR Inc is currently erecting the steel frame for a new building at 1500 Owens, just north of the UCSF campus. The 85,000 square foot building is part of a Life Science Campus being developed by Alexandria Real Estate Equities just north of the UCSF campus.

Becky Stine, DPR's Project Engineer, said that about 30 construction workers were currently on the job, which broke ground in August 2007. She said DPR will complete the cold shell of the new building in September of 2008.