Candlestick Park – the former home of the Giants and 49ers – will eventually give way to Candlestick Point, with thousands of homes, hundreds of acres of new parks, and office and retail space.
Massive 20-year, $8 Billion Redevelopment Project
By Paul Burton, Contributing Writer
The San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council recently finalized a Project Labor Agreement with Five Point Holdings, LLC (FivePoint), the Lennar Corporation entity that is the master developer of The Shipyard and Candlestick Point.
The Hunters Point Shipyard and the nearby Candlestick Point will be the largest redevelopment effort in San Francisco since the 1906 earthquake. The nearly $8 billion, 750-acre development will include 300 acres of parks and new retail and cultural centers and more than 12,000 new residential units – with more than one-third of those affordable to low-income households. The projects are expected to create several thousand construction jobs over the next 20 years. The Shipyard project broke ground in June of 2013, and the first 88 homes completed last year sold quickly.
Even before the PLA was completed, The Shipyard’s contractors were all union signatories, with Roberts-Obayashi and Cahill as general contractors for different blocks. Union subcontractors on the project include San Francisco-based African-American owned contractors Presidio Builders and Hercules Builders doing the framing on the wood frame structures. Other contractors include Reed Brothers Electric, E.W. Scott Electric, Allied Framers, Blue Roofing, Monarch Mechanical, Anvil Builders, Custom Drywall, and USGA Glazing. The PLA ensures that union building trades members and union apprentices will continue to be employed on the project.
“We are committed to our partnership with the building trades in San Francisco,” said Kofi Bonner, President/Northern California for FivePoint. “We value the skilled workforce the unions provide and the quality workmanship we receive. We are proud to provide jobs with excellent pay and fringes, which benefit the communities in which we build. We appreciate the uninterrupted, on-time results we get from our signatory contractors and their union workforce. We look forward to our continuing relationship with the building trades as we work to make San Francisco a better place to live, work and raise a family.”
Candlestick Park, the former home of the Giants and 49ers, was demolished last year. Site preparation work is ongoing. It will eventually be the site of the Candlestick Point development – with thousands of homes, hundreds of acres of new parks, and office and retail space. Lennar announced in January 2015 that it would join with retail developer Macerich to build a 500,000-square-foot “urban outlet” featuring major retailers.
The city’s Commission on Community Investment and Infrastructure and the Planning Commission approved the amended development plans for the first phase of project in March 2016.
The San Francisco Business Journal reported that, “Lennar plans to break ground on the first structure, a 500,000-square-foot shopping center, by 2017. The amended plans also include building a 1,200-seat arts venue and 4,400-seat performance center instead of a 10,000-seat arena, which was part of a proposal approved in 2010. The first phase is expected to cost $2 billion to $3 billion, said a Lennar spokesman.”
The SFBCTC now has PLAs in place with Lennar for the Treasure Island development, with Forest City for the 5M project, with Bayside Development for construction work on the mixed-use development at the former Schlage Lock Factory site in Visitacion Valley, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission for the City’s Sewer System Improvement Program, and the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART).
Executive Secretary-Treasurer Mike Theriault said the PLAs are an absolute guarantee that work will be performed union or under union terms.
