Another mega-project in San Francisco is inching its way toward final approvals, and this one would transform the 29-acre, waterfront Potrero Power Station site into a mixed use complex of 2,600 residential units and 1.8 million square feet of new commercial space.

The project, in the works since 2018, has been revised in its height limits and the amount of office space proposed in recent months. And as Socketsite reports, its final EIR and development agreement could be approved by Planning as soon as two weeks from now.

The latest version of the development plan includes 100,000 square feet of retail with along Humboldt Street; 800,000 square feet of office space (up from 600,000 originally planned); 650,000 square feet of Research & Development (R&D) space; 35,000 square feet of Production, Distribution and Repair (PDR) space; and a 240,000-square-foot, 250-room waterfront hotel. The complex will also have open space, a 25,000-square-foot "entertainment/assembly space," a 1.2-acre Power Station Park, and a 3-acre waterfront park that connects to the neighboring Pier 70 Shoreline Park.

And while such a huge development with 2,600 new housing units is promising for San Francisco's future housing inventory, an article in the Chronicle on Thursday questions whether so many hopes should be pinned to these mega-projects that often take over a decade to build. The Power Station project, case in point, will be phased over 16 years. Similarly, a 10-acre project in Laurel Heights that some neighbors are suing over — with far fewer units — is phased over 15 years.

As the Chron notes, three developments totaling 25,700 units — the Hunters Point Shipyard/Candlestick Point, Parkmerced, and Treasure Island — have all been in the works for a decade and have so far yielded 350 units, 1.3% of the total.