HPC urges larger full‑preservation option, tweaks to partial plan for 550 O'Farrell

The San Francisco Historic Preservation Commission on April 3 reviewed preservation alternatives for a proposed 113‑unit development at 550 O'Farrell Street and offered guidance to planning staff and the project team ahead of the draft environmental impact report.

Justin Greving of the Planning Department told commissioners the site—a 1924 Gothic Revival two‑story parking garage by William Krim Jr.—is individually eligible for listing in the California Register and contributes to the Uptown Tenderloin National Register Historic District. Planning staff said demolition of the existing building would cause a significant adverse impact and that alternatives must be analyzed in the draft EIR.

Steve Vettel, speaking for the project sponsor, said the sponsor’s objective is "to maximize housing development on this site," and confirmed the proposal would deliver 113 units under existing zoning with 25 percent on‑site affordable housing (about 28 units). Architect Matt Combrink described the proposal as a 130‑foot building with limited ground‑floor retail and 23 parking spaces and outlined three preservation alternatives: a full preservation option retaining the front half of the garage with a set‑back addition, and two partial alternatives that would retain the historic facade but differ in tower placement and rear‑yard setbacks.

Catherine Wallace of Page & Turnbull presented the preservation matrix. She described the full preservation alternative as retaining roughly 16,200 square feet of the existing building and noted that the two partial alternatives would accommodate substantially more affordable units than the full preservation option. Wallace told the commission the partial alternatives would alter spatial relationships with adjacent buildings and would not fully retain the building’s arched wood truss system.

Commission discussion focused on tradeoffs between preservation and housing yield. Several commissioners said they favored either enlarging the full preservation alternative (by adding set‑back stories that would be largely invisible from the street) or retaining partial preservation alternative 1 with sculpting to address neighboring light wells. Commissioner Wolfram said the commission should weigh the building’s contribution to the district ‘‘as a background building’’ and avoid treating all historic resources identically. Multiple commissioners criticized partial preservation alternative 2 as ‘‘facadism’’ and questioned its preservation value.

Planning staff summarized the commission’s guidance: the HPC regards the resource as a contributor to the district, would like to see the full preservation alternative considered with greater height where feasible, supports refining partial alternative 1 to resolve light and air impacts, and found mixed merit in partial alternative 2. Staff said the item will return after publication of the draft EIR for full commission review.

Next steps: planning staff will publish the draft EIR with the alternatives evaluated in detail; the full HPC will review that draft EIR and provide further comments before any final decisions.