Tall, dark look proposed for Seventh Street

Local developer Workshop1 wants to build 17 new condos in a six-story building at 280 Seventh Street. And their vision for the site is tall, dark, and possibly handsome, depending on your tastes.

Construction watching site BuzzBuzzHome noticed that Workshop1 recently added a few renderings suggesting of new look for their SoMa property, with a dramatic black facade facing Seventh, merging into a series of irregular black and white boxes behind it and terminating in a shorter rear facade on Langton.

Previously, architect Alan K Toma had pitched a shorter, four-story building with a restaurant and dance club. But those plans fell through, possibly because of zoning troubles.

Right now, new “nighttime entertainment use” isn’t permitted on these blocks. Since the new club would have replaced an existing one, city planners said it would be possible to roll that exception over into a new club in a new building, but it’s a bit complicated.

(The fact that the original building design looked a bit like an AMC movie theater maybe didn’t help either.)

For years, 280 Seventh Street was the home to a dance club with a rotating series of names on a similar motif, including the Rawhide, Rawhide II, and Club Hide.

Despite the suggestive overtones, the place was actually just a country-western bar and club.

The new Workshop1 plan calls for 6 single bedroom homes, eight two bedroom units, and three larger, three-bedroom places, and 6,000-plus feet of retail and PDR space on the site.

Workshop1

• 280 7th Street [Workshop1]
• 280 7th [BuzzBuzzHome]
• 280 7th Preliminary Assessment [SF Planning]