Book Concern Building plan, floors 2-5
Props to Socketsite today for pointing out 83 McAllister, a project of developer Joy O and her firm Group I. Having learned what a huge profit center dormitories had become for the Academy of Art University where studio apartments now rent for $5500 a month, she originally purchased the building to develop as student housing in 2003. The Scientology Center was then the current tenant; they eventually relocated to North Beach. Three years ago the neighborhood was loud, smelly and dangerous, and the building was in what is best described as "original condition", mostly a warren of small high-ceilinged rooms arranged around light wells and, with the exception of the front, facing brick walls.
That plan's essentially unchanged, except for the addition of a lot of bathrooms in what had once been book distributor's offices.
Looks like it's still student housing, or at least looking at the low-budget pied-a-terre market, and working the location location location angle. The neighborhood's gotten cleaner and safer. The project is across the street from Hastings Law School and a stroll to the Opera House and Davies Hall. UN Plaza around the corner gets hosed down on a more regular basis now and the farmer's market has gotten better as well. SF State (or was that City College?) is about to open a major new campus on the upper levels of the Westfield Center a few blocks away. So it may make sense for students, if sense still involves $1K per square foot. Sixty units, plus six or seven at below market, but Book Concern Building does not exactly trip off the tongue. No matter how awkward to pronounce, it may make financial sense to parents or graduate students facing difficult-to-swallow rents in buildings owned by their educational institution.
· Book Concern Building [Socketsite]
· 83 McAllister/Book Concern Building [Group I]
· Campus Housing [Academy of Art University]
· Group I
· Endorsed Projects[SF Housing Action Coalition]
· What brand of mall do you like? [Curbed]
[We Erred: Academy of Art studio apartments are $5500 a semester, which averages to $1375 a month. Except you still have to go home for the holidays and there's that $16.5K a year you'll never see again. (Thanks, Harry!) -Ed.]