The pretty new glass tower going in at 181 Fremont, in the Transbay Redevelopment District, looks like it's going to get away without including any units for non-rich people as Socketsite puts it, it will be "poor door"-free and prices for the luxury condos with ultra-premium views are likely to top $2,000/square foot.
Designed by local architects Heller Manus, the 52-story mixed-use tower will have 400,000 square feet of office space in its bottom half, and the upper stories will have 74 luxury condos that will be selling in the millions of dollars.
As Socketsite reports, the developer, the Jay Paul Company, appears to have negotiated an exception to the Transbay District's rule that all residential development include 15 percent below-market units. In other parts of the city, developers have been able to pay a fee in order to develop the affordable units off-site, however that exception wasn't allowed in the Transbay Redevelopment Plan, and the Board of Supervisors will now have to weigh in on whether to allow this developer will have to pay a steep fee into the city's affordable housing fund in lieu of building 11 below-market units. The developer is proposing to pay $13.85 million, or $1.26 million per affordable unit, into the fund.
While the city could probably use that money to help accomplish the Mayor's affordable-housing goals, it doesn't do anything to address the goal of making sure that half of all new residential development be non-luxury, i.e. affordable to middle-income residents.
The Transbay Citizens Advisory Committee was set to weigh in on the proposal this week as well.
