April 3, 2023 (SFChronicle.com)
When new housing arises in the Tenderloin, it is typically either subsidized low-income complexes built by nonprofits or the sort of full-service rental communities targeting young professionals that have popped up in recent years along the north side of Market Street.
But these days the only housing under construction in the neighborhood is catering to a different group: students.
UC College of the Law San Francisco — formerly UC Hastings — is quietly developing a pioneering multi-institution “academic village” that the school is betting will provide living spaces for its students while also enhancing the safety of the streets that were so disorderly during the pandemic. At one point, the law school and four other community groups filed a lawsuit to force the city to remove tents from the sidewalks.
This summer, UC Law SF will open Academe at 198, a 14-story, 656-unit student-housing complex at 198 McAllister St. One-third of the apartments — about 230 — will be master-leased by UCSF. The rest of them will be available not only to UC Law SF students, but also to students from UC Berkeley, San Francisco State University, University of San Francisco and the University of the Pacific Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry.
“The students who reside here, regardless of where they are from, will have the run of the campus,” said Chief Financial Officer David Seward. “The academic village is a big-tent approach.”
The academic village is a multiphased reimagining of the campus that could eventually result in over 1,300 units — including some that could potentially house San Francisco public school teachers. As a state agency, the law school is exempt from local zoning controls and the city approval process, meaning that it could be approved much faster than a typical San Francisco project. The project would be financed with tax-exempt bonds.
In addition to Academe at 198, as it’s been branded, UC Law SF has reached an agreement with Unite Here Local 2, which represents hotel and restaurant workers, to build 250-400 workforce housing units on parcels the union owns at 201-247 Golden Gate Ave.
Kim Jackson, research director at Unite Here Local 2 said the union is “very hopeful the project will move forward.” As part of the deal, Local 2 would get a new union hall free of charge and continue to own the land the project is built on.
“We love our union hall, we’ve been here 50 years, but it is falling down around us,” she said.
In addition to a new union hall, Local 2 workers will benefit from the infusion of new residents and the resulting increase in foot traffic in a high-crime neighborhood.
“We do our best to be good neighbors and keep things calm on our block. Our members need that,” she said. “The last few years have been very tough in the Tenderloin, including on our block. A lot of disorder and chaos and sadness.”
For the law school, the opening of Academe at 198 is the second installment of a four-part campus redo. Phase one was the construction of the Cotchett Law Center, an academic building, on a former parking lot at 333 Golden Gate Ave. That structure cleared the way for the law school to tear down the old 198 McAllister, an outdated classroom building, and replace it with the new housing complex.
The new housing will allow the law school to temporarily move students out of its current 252-unit residential tower at 200 McAllister St., which will undergo a $90 million restoration as the third phase. The redevelopment of the Local 2 property will complete the project.
The opening comes three years after the law school and five Tenderloin-based co-plaintiffs sued the city and county of San Francisco over “the dangerous conditions on the sidewalks and in the doorways of our neighborhood,” as UC Law SF Chancellor and Dean David Faigman wrote at the time.
“Conditions had gotten to a point where nobody could argue that the status quo was healthy for anyone in the neighborhood,” he said.
Eventually, a settlement was reached, and the city cleared more than 200 tents from the sidewalks in the neighborhood, relocating most of the unhoused people to hotels or safe sleeping sites. The law school has also received $6 million in state funding to hire the nonprofit Urban Alchemy to provide security.
The new residential building will bring positive activity to the street, according to UC Law SF leaders. It includes 8,000 square feet of retail and 50,000 square feet of academic space, including classrooms, a 400-seat auditorium, and trial and appellate courtrooms for the school.
The old building at 198 McAllister was a “concrete box” with one entrance on McAllister and an exit on Hyde Street. The new building will have several entrances on McAllister and public retail spaces along Golden Gate Avenue.
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“The design was very intentional about activation,” said Seward. “It’s transparent. It’s visible. There is light. You’ve got that activity on the sidewalk at all times. That will make a huge difference.”
It will also take pressure off the city’s housing market, Seward said. The days when students could get together and afford a flat in a neighborhood like the Haight or the Mission are mostly gone. And to the extent that students have the financial resources needed to compete for market-rate housing, it comes at a cost, said Seward.
“Landlords love renting to students because they can jack up the rent to market when the students finish their studies and move on,” said Seward. “It’s destabilizing for a rent-controlled market.”
Rhiannon Bailard, chief operating officer of UC Law SF, said having law students living alongside others studying nursing, business or education would benefit everyone.
“Graduate students tend to be siloed in their own field of study,” she said. “Part of the idea behind the academic village is to bring together students from multiple fields of study, creating a holistic learning community in a campus environment.”
Rents will start at $1,850. The units, mostly studios, will have full-size refrigerators and two-burner stoves. The building will have a fitness center, dog park, study rooms, lounges, communal kitchens and bike storage. “That is the lowest we could make the rent and have the project be economically feasible,” Seward said.
Bailard said that the first leases would be issued starting next week, with the first students moving in this summer.
“We have a few hundred applications already,” she said. “There is definitely a lot of interest.”
Reach J.K. Dineen: jdineen@sfchronicle.com
Written By J.K. Dineen
J.K. Dineen covers housing and real estate development. He joined The Chronicle in 2014 covering San Francisco land use politics for the City Hall team. He has since expanded his focus to explore housing and development issues throughout Northern California. He is the author of two books: “Here Tomorrow” (Heyday, 2013) and “High Spirits” (Heyday, 2015).
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