Big news for Hayes Valley-ans: A big new condo project with an as-yet-unidentified big grocery tenant on the ground floor is headed for the vicinity of Fulton and Octavia. It's a handsome, glass-clad structure, too, from noted local architect Stanley Saitowitz (who's also the man behind the pretty Yerba Buena Lofts on Folsom, and the upcoming, awesome 8 Octavia project).

The project is big, with five stories and 139 units, and is a whole/half city block bounded by Fulton, Birch Alley, Laguna and Octavia. The ground-floor retail will be 30,000 square feet, enough for a good-sized market, and something this part of town sorely needs.

As Socketsite reports, the whole block is getting demolished with the exception of The Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses at the corner of Octavia and Fulton, and the project will wrap around that shorter structure.

And as sometimes happens, a smaller firm was called in to revise Saitowitz's design in response to some neighborhood concerns, and that firm is Ian Birchall + Associates.

The revised design is headed for planning, and construction is slate to start next year.

[Socketsite via Hayeswire]