Shrinking Mission development back up for sale, teases housing again

Once upon a time in 2014, a Texas developer hoped to demolish a Mission auto shop in favor of 20-plus units of housing on 16th Street.

Nearly three years later, the garage is still there, the housing plans are gone, and so too, apparently, is the developer’s appetite for the project.

3140 16th Street went back on the market last week for an unspecified price. The city previously put a stop to plans to get rid of the old 1926 auto shop currently on the site between Valencia and Guerrero, ruling that it was historically significant and that new development should take steps to preserve it.

Developer Mx3 decided to split the difference between new and old by turning the garage into a restaurant that preserved the bulk of the existing structure and building condos on top.

Back in November, a neighbor noticed that developers had jettisoned all housing plans on the site, but were pressing ahead with the restaurant idea.

Now comes the new listing, which resurrects the suggestion of housing:

20,418 square foot automotive retail building situated on 0.23 acres. [...] This investment opportunity is an excellent opportunity for an investor to re-purpose the existing building to retail plus office or residential, and the possibility to add two or three more levels of residential above.

The site sold in 2014 for a whopping $8.7 million, which SocketSite claims is a record in San Francisco at $350,000/planned unit.

Realtor Camilla Moshayedi declined to comment on why Mx3 is in the market for a new buyer now, but told Curbed SF that they’re still moving forward with the development plans even while the offer stands. No permits have yet been issued.

Despite the building’s historicity, Mission Local reported in 2016 that demolition and a significant number of new homes are still possible on the site if the owner wants to put up with additional red tape.

“If they wanted to demolish the building, it would require a more detailed environmental review,” a city planner said at the time.

Rather than go through the extra work and then try to incorporate the old facade into a more ambitious design, Mx3 opted to give up on all but 15 percent of the originally planned housing stock, and eventually on all of it.

• Mission Development Boots Housing [Curbed SF]
• 3140 16th Street [LoopNet]
• Record Setting Mission Building Back [SocketSite]
• Project Slashes Units For Historic Preservation [Mission Local]