Organized Labor

Work on a new apartment complex at Sutter St. and Van Ness Ave. has begun after several years of delays. Howard S. Wright is the general contractor for the 13-story apartment building at 1285 Sutter, which will also have 10,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor. The concrete-frame building will house 107 apartment units for rent and two levels of underground parking.

A crew of Operating Engineers and Laborers from union contractor Evans Brothers, Inc. began demolition of the old Galaxy Theater at the site in late August. The theater closed in 2005 and a previous developer in 2007 planned to build condominiums with first floor retail at the site. A Trader Joe’s store was planned, but the grocer’s lease expired; a new grocer may still become the retail tenant.

The San Francisco Business Times reported that Gerding Edlen, a developer based in Portland, Oregon, purchased the property in November 2010 for just under $9 million. Gerding Edlen purchased the property through a new $400 million private equity fund that “combines the firm’s green building expertise with opportunities created by the distressed real estate market, and is focused on downtown, transit-oriented properties in Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Denver,” the Business Times reported.

San Francisco-based Christiani Johnson Architects designed the 240,000 square foot, $40 million project, which is seeking LEED Gold certification. H.S. Wright worked on the renovation of the historic Mark Hopkins and Sir Francis Drake hotels.

Work on 1285 Sutter t is scheduled to be completed by Feb. 2013.