The Potrero Power Station Redevelopment project, now six years in the making, may have an anchor tenant for its life sciences building, and it's none other than UCSF.
As the Chronicle reports today, the University of California Regents are in talks to lease a nine-story, 300,000-square-foot building on what's now known as Block 2, in the Potrero Power Station project area. Designated originally for office, laboratory, or life science use, the building would become a clinic, precision cancer center, and health tech incubator.
Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, who designed the deYoung Museum, would design the new UCSF building, and they are also designing several other structures in the redevelopment project.
It's the latest development in a project that saw its first plans drafted in 2018 to reuse a 29-acre central waterfront property that housed a defunct power plant, next door to Pier 70. The plans also include residential, hotel, retail, and possible PDR (production, distribution, and repair) space. The project got its approvals in early 2020, and work began at the site almost two years ago.
The only big piece of the project to break ground so far is a 105-unit affordable housing project called the Sophie Maxwell Building. The foundation on that has been poured, per the Chronicle, and sidewalks in the neighborhood have also begun construction.
UCSF Real Estate's senior associate vice chancellor, Brian Newman, confirmed that negotiations were ongoing for the new addition to UCSF Medical Center's ever-growing footprint in the city. "There is more due diligence to complete and approvals from the UC regents to obtain, but we are hopeful that we can move forward with this unique opportunity at Power Station,” Newman tells the Chronicle.
Mayor London Breed was already celebrating the possibility of UCSF's expansion, saying in a statement, "I am especially excited about expanding health care in this part of the city. UCSF has played a huge role in San Francisco’s public health care and as a leader in innovation for more than a century and I can’t think of a better fit."
The Power Station project will ultimately add 2,600 new housing units to the city, as well as 1.6 million square feet of commercial space, and a 250-room hotel.
Enrique Landa, the project lead for developer Associate Capital, tells the Chronicle that they're glad to see some movement on the tenant front, as they try to keep the momentum going on the project. "These large projects are kind of like sharks: if they don’t keep moving they die," Landa tells the paper.
If the deal moves forward, construction on the new UCSF building would begin next year.
Construction also may begin soon on the first public park in the project area, which can be seen in the green area by the Bay in the above illustration. The pink circle in the green is the historic smokestack on the property, which is set to be preserved along with a couple of other historic structures from the power plant.
In renderings, the bottom of the smokestack is envisioned as a cafe or restaurant.
See that and a few other renderings below.
