Brookfield enters into contract with city for 3,500 units at Stonestown Galleria.
Brookfield has reached an agreement with the city government on a megaproject to build 3,500 residential units at the 40-acre Stonestown Galleria in San Francisco.
Under the agreement, the mall owner will make 20% of the units — about 700 apartments — affordable. According to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle, the new housing will include a retirement village and a senior center.
The deal still needs to be approved by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which recently reduced the amount of affordable housing that developers must include in their projects from 23.5% to 12% to 16%, depending on the size of the project.
Supervisor Myrna Melgar, who represents the area including Stonestown, said the project's 20 percent affordable housing commitment is the best the city can do in the current economic environment.
“I would have liked to have done more, but given the circumstances — and the fact that it's more than what's asked of them — it's good,” Melgar told the Chronicle. “Plus, it’s great considering there hasn’t been any construction on the west side in a long time.”
The New York arm of the Toronto-based real estate giant first proposed a $2 billion redevelopment of the vast parking area surrounding the 775K SF shopping center more than two years ago. The original plans, which called for preserving the 70-year-old shopping center, also included a hotel, but this was abandoned as the number of apartments in the project increased.
The facility will include a town square with outdoor dining areas, recreational areas and a plaza that will host a farmers market. Brookfield plans to create a new “Main Street” with 150,000 square feet of retailers, restaurants and an entertainment corridor along 20th Avenue.
The project will include six acres of parks and a daycare center, the report said. Parking spaces will be built underground and next to the retailers.
Brookfield will contribute $1 million toward playground improvements in the area and make a $2.7 million donation toward Fire Station No. 19, which will serve the new neighborhood. The developer will also pay more than $50 million in development impact fees to the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency, the report said.
The Stonestown Galleria is thriving in stark contrast to downtown San Francisco's largest mall, formerly known as the Westfield Center.
Last year, Brookfield Properties and Paris-based Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield stopped payments on a $558 million loan tied to Westfield Center and turned over the keys to the half-empty mall to their lenders.
The name of the downtown mall, now in receivership, was changed to “Emporium Center San Francisco,” a reference to the Emporium department store that opened there in 1896.
