AC Hotels by Marriott | July 20, 2017

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – JULY 20, 2017 – AC Hotel San Francisco Airport/Oyster Point Waterfront – the newest property within the AC Hotels by Marriott brand – will open in September 2017. Conveniently located just 10 miles from downtown San Francisco and 10 minutes from San Francisco International Airport, this brand-new 187-room property is the perfect addition to South San Francisco’s growing biotech hub, providing the area with an upscale experience in a waterfront hotel that’s already being called a work of art. The architectural touch point is a wall of glass facing the San Francisco Bay, while the rest of the European-style structure surrounds a central al fresco courtyard.

AC Hotel San Francisco Airport/Oyster Point Waterfront is designed for entrepreneurial and innovative travelers who frequent the Bay Area. Featuring AC Hotels by Marriott’s signature open-concept spaces, modern furnishings, and sleek lines, this hotel will appeal to style-savvy business travelers and vacation-goers seeking a sophisticated European-inspired experience.

Calming neutral color palettes create a modern oasis for busy travelers. Guestrooms and suites feature crisp white linens, open closet systems, and furniture elevated from the ground that gives way to sleek hardwood floors.

The beverage and food program provides flexible options for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even just a quick snack. The AC Kitchen serves both a “Grab-n-Go” and buffet breakfast with flaky croissants, savory egg tarts and freshly sliced Iberico prosciutto.

Serving lunch and dinner, the AC Lounge offers travelers a chic space to connect or conduct business meetings by day and a hub of social buzz by night. The extensive beverage program highlights local craft beers, specialty wines by the bottle and on tap, and expertly made drinks including the hotel’s signature “Karl the Fog” cocktail. Guests can indulge in tapas-style bites and snacks such as charcuterie and cheeses, as well as a Spanish-inspired menu for lunch and dinner. Weekly “lounge activations,” in collaboration with Bay Area artists, musicians and culinary experts, provide an authentic and local cultural experience.

Hotel amenities include a 24-hour fitness center with an indoor heated pool, a library featuring an array of inspiring titles, complimentary airport shuttle, complimentary parking, complimentary WiFi throughout the hotel, and hydration stations on each floor. The AC Store, open 24 hours, offers a selection of locally sourced beverages and snacks for purchase including Blue Bottle Coffee, IT’S-IT Ice Cream Sandwiches, and Dandelion chocolates.

With the opening of this vibrant new property, South San Francisco’s growing business community gains state-of-the-art space for meetings, events, and presentations. AC Hotel San Francisco Airport/Oyster Point Waterfront features five meeting rooms, totaling more than 8,000 square feet of flexible space with the latest high-tech equipment; catering is available as well. For those in need of a spot for a quick meeting, this AC Hotel in the Cove at Oyster Point offers a media salon that is rentable by the hour. Wireless service buttons are provided in the public and meeting spaces, enabling guests to immediately request a staff member’s attention.

Conveniently located just one mile from a Caltrain station, guests can easily take public transportation directly to San Francisco and arrive just steps from AT&T Park, located along the Embarcadero. The hotel is nestled on the edge of Oyster Cove, a calm inlet along the San Francisco Bay Trail. On this four-mile stretch of the San Francisco Bay Trail that runs between two marinas, guests will be brought back in time to a place where oysters were farmed and ships were built. This area is perfect for running, biking, and fishing.

AC Hotel San Francisco Airport/Oyster Point Waterfront is located at 1333 Veterans Boulevard, South San Francisco, CA 94080. To learn more and to make a reservation, call (650) 742-9211 or visit www.achotelsfo.com. Follow the hotel on Facebook at www.facebook.com/achotelsfo and Instagram & Twitter @achotelsfo.

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The Shiloh wind farm in Solano County. Photo: Paul Thomas Curry / Shutterstock

“California Forever” is a pet project of some Silicon Valley billionaires to build “a new walkable city of 50,000 people” on a traunch of agricultural land in Solano County, located in the northeastern region of the San Francisco Bay. While there is no shortage of billionaires in California, water rights (amongst other things) are essential, and these guys seem to have none.

California Forever is starting a PR campaign and opening up offices to sell the idea to people who already live in the region’s established cities of allowing them to go forward. I am entertained by the idea that “walkability” is what these Solanao residents are looking for, rather than access to the former cattle and grazing land the company has taken away from them. Disrupting the economy rarely ingratiates one with the locals. CF will be dead without locals voting to allow this farmland to be used to build another city.

ABC7:

“I know that there’s been a sense of mystery about it going back a number of years and a lot of people still have questions,” said Sramek. “And so that’s what it’s for, to come in and get your questions answered. Hear more about the project here, about why we believe that this would be a really good thing for all of Solano County.”

Inside the offices are posters of renderings of what the city could look like – people fishing, riding bikes, and lots of walking. Sramek told the I-Team in September, the city’s affordability and walkability will make it stand out.

“Many cities in California are not walkable and there’s a lot of people that really like that lifestyle,” Sramek told ABC7’s Stephanie Sierra.

There is no power, water, or waste infrastructure. No public transit. No schools. No fire or police. This is a major undertaking to build a new city where there are plenty of existing ones. I would not want to move to a community where the developers forgot to secure water rights before buying the land, that kind of attention to detail signals disasters to come.

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27 February 2022

Image source, Joanna Hudson

Image caption,

Joanna Hudson said she wants to remind people of the sacrifice and extreme working conditions Victorian children endured

A blue plaque to commemorate the short life of a Victorian chimney sweep is set to be placed on the building where he died.

George Brewster was 11-years-old when he became trapped in a former Victorian asylum in Fulbourn, Cambridgeshire.

Amateur historian Joanna Hudson said he deserved the recognition as his death was the catalyst that stopped children from going up chimneys.

She said he was the last “climbing boy” to die in England in 1875.

Image source, Joanna Hudson

Image caption,

A volunteer tending the unmarked grave of George Brewster at Mill Road cemetery in Cambridge

The mother of two, from Pampisford, said George was “forced by his master” to climb and clean the narrow chimney of the building, which was since been turned into offices.

He was unable to get out and 15 minutes later a wall was pulled down to get to him but he died shortly after.

The 7th Earl of Shaftesbury read about his death and pushed a bill through Parliament putting an end to children being used as chimney sweeps.

Image source, Joanna Hudson

Image caption,

The former Victorian asylum in Fulbourn has since been turned into offices

It’s chief executive officer, James Littlewood said: “This is the first blue plaque application we have received for a child”. His story was “different and special”, he added.

Joanna Hudson said: “George Brewster died not knowing that he changed the lives of thousands of children across the land – a story of huge historical significance, for not only Cambridgeshire, but the whole country.

“A blue plaque and commemorative statue would be a powerful reminder of how far we have come since those dark days and that we shouldn’t take our child labour rights for granted.”

She said the group was currently in negotiations with Capital Park, who own the building, about where it will be located.

A fundraising page set up to pay for the plaque and to place a marker on his unmarked grave in Mill Road Cemetery, Cambridge, has been created.

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An eight-story office building formerly owned by the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia will be converted into a 120-unit residential complex.

The property at 2100-12 Arch Street, formerly Building of the Jewish Community Services, was sold for $12 million last month to MM Partners, a developer specializing in adaptive reuse projects. A building permit Approval was granted this week for the planned residential conversion, which will also include commercial space on the ground floor. A schedule for the project is not yet known.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic drastically changed commercial real estate markets, proponents of office-to-residential conversions have argued that aging, vacant office buildings should be repurposed for residential use.

Property records indicate the building was constructed in 1913. The Jewish Union sold the 121,500 square meter property because it was not there optimized spatial; The organization had rented space to non-profit organizations, but didn’t want to be a long-term landlord. The company has since moved its offices to 23,000 square feet on a single floor of a building at 20th and Market Streets.

MM Partners has completed more than a dozen adaptive reuse projects in Philadelphia over the years, including the conversion of Fairmount’s AF Bornot Dye Works building into a mixed-use facility; the Waterworks Apartments, built in a former industrial warehouse in Manayunk; and the former FA Poth Brewing Co. building in Brewerytown, now housing apartments and commercial space.

Although such projects are touted as office vacancy solutions, especially in light of the ongoing work-from-home world, adaptive repurposing is required projects are difficult to complete technically and financially. Office buildings are built to restrict the entry of natural light, and their centralized utilities make it difficult to connect heating, ventilation and plumbing to homes.

Office space is also scattered around. Difficult buildings do not necessarily lack tenants and the combination of offices and new housing on multiple floors is not ideal for adapting an older building versus building a new co-living area (where people rent and work). .

Although apartment rents have risen in line with inflation in recent years, office rents remain more expensive per square foot, so developers and building owners may hold back on new leases rather than investing in residential conversions. And even if they move to residential areas, the adapted properties would not be an automatic solution for the people most affected by housing shortages. With no subsidies or other incentives for affordable housing, the economy suggests that the housing is being offered at or above market prices. That’s a tough sell for downtown renters in places like Philly, where nearly half of the city’s newbuild homes are in Center City.

Source/Google EarthAn aerial view of 2100-12 Arch St. in Center City.

Some states and localities have been looking for ways to encourage office-to-residential conversion projects. In March, Chicago city leaders took up the idea, investing $550 million to convert three office buildings — with about 5 million square feet of vacant office space — into more than 1,000 mixed-income housing units. And in San Francisco, where the office vacancy rate hit 29.5% in the first quarter of this year, city officials moved to cut costs and remove roadblocks to projects.

So far, however, results have been limited. A report released last December by Coldwell banker Richard Ellis, the world’s largest commercial real estate firm, found that despite the hype surrounding office-to-residential conversions, there were only 42 completed conversions in the US last year. Between 2017 and 2021, an average of 39 conversions were completed each year, the report said.

In Philadelphia, CBRE reported that the downtown office vacancy rate was about 19.2% in the first quarter of 2023 and nearly 44 million square feet were vacant. The office vacancy rate across the suburb was 23.5%, with more than 62 million square meters available. Those numbers followed a period of apparent recovery in mid-last year, offset by staff cuts and tenant subletting of excess space.

During the COVID era, office occupancy in Philly fell by more than 9.7 million square feet, which is about the size of eight Comcast centers, according to the Inquirer.

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By: YIMBY Team 4:30 a.m on May 15, 2023

New plans have been proposed for the restoration of the Sierra Madre Apartments at 421 Leavenworth Street in Tenderloin, San Francisco. The project proposal involves the restoration and rehabilitation of the six-story apartment building that caught fire in 2021.

Levy Design Partners is the architect of the project.

421 Leavenworth Street Elevation via Levy Design Partners

The project site is a 5,777 square foot lot. The scope of the project includes the restoration and refurbishment of 47 social housing units and a common room. The proposed works include stair repairs in kind and window repairs. Replacement work includes replacing doors, electrical feeds, damaged galvanized sewer pipes and water supply lines. New interior finishes are proposed, as well as new plumbing and lighting fixtures. Also proposed are gas line removal and repair, voluntary earthquakes, ground floor reorganization, a new fire safety system, new fire alarm system, new exhaust and HVAC system, and new mobility and communications units.

421 Leavenworth Street rear view via Levy Design Partners

The building will have 20,187 square meters of living space. In addition, an open space of 80 square meters will be available. The six-storey building will have 42 studio apartments and 5 one-bedroom apartments.

The Sierra Madre Apartments were built in 1913 and the historical street facade is preserved. The proposed project will create new fire water supply, service water and sanitation connections.

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421 Leavenworth Street Levy Design Partners

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A new seven-story, 99-unit residential building with ground-floor restaurant space is planned for a building at 421 Cypress Ave. in South San Francisco, which is home to the closed Bertolucci’s restaurant.

Peter Sodini, the owner of Bertolucci’s, applied for the project last year, according to the city. The Planning Commission will review the project during a meeting at 7 p.m. on August 18.

Bertolucci’s, an Italian landmark that opened as a boarding house in 1928, was purchased by Sodini in 2005 after the Bertoluccis retired. The restaurant has been closed during the pandemic and will reportedly reopen in the new building, which may be called Sodini’s, according to renderings.

Plans include 1,500 square feet for the corner restaurant and outdoor seating. The first floor would also include 99 parking spaces made possible by mechanical forklifts.

The existing two-storey building with a restaurant and five apartments would be demolished.

According to a city report, the architecture of the planned building “reflects on the historical character of the city with its brick base”. “A faithful reproduction of the original Bertolucci character” would also be included, it says.

Sodini, a Burlingame resident, also owns Golden Boy Pizza with its original location in San Francisco and a newer location in San Mateo.

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A parking lot in South San Francisco’s Old Town neighborhood could be the city’s next park, with the City Council last month signing off on the purchase of property at 616 and 700 Linden Ave. in hopes of providing the developing area with more green space.

The city expects to pay roughly $1.3 million for the two parcels, and will host public outreach events to decide on the park’s design.

“This is such a win for our community,” Mayor Mark Nagales said. “We’ve heard it from residents in Old Town, they’ve been asking for a park, asking for some open space.”

The lot at 616 Linden Ave., currently a public parking lot with 18 metered spaces, was previously an automotive repair shop with underground petroleum tanks that contaminated the soil, so the construction will include cleanup efforts. The lot across the street at 700 Linden Ave. is a grassy field bisected by a pedestrian path.

According to a city report, the sites had been examined for housing, which would have required a more extensive and expensive cleanup estimated to cost nearly $800,000. City staff also noted the need for open space as the neighborhood has already been seeing increasing amounts of new residential construction.

The land is former redevelopment agency property, meaning the city will need to pay out various taxing entities to acquire the property. The city plans to pay out of its park acquisition fund, which currently has a $2 million balance thanks to fees paid by residential developers. Apart from the land acquisition, construction of the park is estimated to cost $3.1 million.

Nagales noted the park was one of the benefits of allowing new developments and allowed the city to “reinvest back into the community.”

“I know that when other neighborhoods hear about [the park] there might be some jealousy, but I want folks to know this isn’t the last park we’re taking a look at,” he said. “We’re looking at other locations throughout South San Francisco.”

Councilmember Mark Addiego said he envisioned the park with a gazebo modeled after one that sits in a plaza in Atotonilco El Alto, Jalisco, Mexico, one of the cities South San Francisco exchanges cultural, educational and economic information with as part of its “sister cities ” initiative.

“It made me smile when I heard some of the comments that were encouraging us to do a gazebo, which is very common in a lot of Latin American cities,” he said.

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A new seven story, 99 unit residential building with restaurant space on the ground floor has been proposed to replace a building at 421 Cypress Ave. in South San Francisco, home to the shuttered Bertolucci’s restaurant.

Peter Sodini, the owner of Bertolucci’s, submitted an application for the project last year, according to the city. The Planning Commission will review the project Aug. 18 during a 7 pm meeting.

Bertolucci’s, a landmark Italian eatery — opened in 1928 as a boarding house — and was purchased by Sodini in 2005 after the Bertoluccis retired. The restaurant closed amid the pandemic, and will reportedly reopen in the new building, potentially called Sodini’s, by renderings.

Plans indicate 1,500 square feet of space for the restaurant at the corner of the building, plus outdoor seating space. The first floor would also include 99 parking spots, made possible with mechanical stackers.

The existing two-story building including the restaurant and five apartments would be demolished.

The planned building’s architecture “harkens back to the historic character of the city with its brick base” according to a city report. “A faithful reproduction of the original Bertolucci’s sign” would also be included, it states.

Sodini, a Burlingame resident, also owns Golden Boy Pizza, with its original San Francisco location and newer location in San Mateo.

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ONTARIO, Ore. (AP) — Planned Parenthood is renting medical office space in the town of Ontario on the Oregon-Idaho border.

Planned Parenthood has not confirmed its plans for the space, but has said it’s preparing for an influx of out-of-state patients seeking abortions in Oregon because of multiple legal challenges to abortion rights, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.

Earlier this year they successfully lobbied the Oregon legislature to set aside $15 million in an unrestricted fund for reproductive health equity.

“No matter what happens we will be there for our in-state and out-of-state neighbors, and continue to meet the needs of our patients,” said Kenji Nozaki, the chief of affiliate operations at Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette. “We are prepared to support anyone who seeks their legal right to decide whether and when to become pregnant.”

The office space Planned Parenthood is renting in Ontario was previously home to the Four Rivers Health Clinic, a nonprofit serving people without health insurance.

Joe Recla, the group’s executive director, said Four Rivers will use the rental income to continue to support uninsured patients.

A Planned Parenthood clinic in Ontario could be a significant high desert outpost for access to abortion and other reproductive health care services, in advance of a US Supreme Court decision anticipated this summer that could overturn Roe v. Wade, the nearly 50-year-old landmark abortion ruling.

The small town of Ontario is about an hour’s drive from Boise, Idaho.

Idaho has two trigger laws criminalizing abortion at all stages of pregnancy that would take effect in the event of a successful legal challenge to Roe v. Calf.

Oregon has no legal restrictions on abortion, but the state has one clinic that performs abortion east of the Cascade Mountains, in Bend. For those seeking abortions in eastern and northeastern parts of the state, the closest clinics are out of state, in Boise or Walla Walla, Washington.

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SAN FRANCISCO, CA — United Playaz will host its annual gun buyback event in San Francisco this Saturday.

The event will run from 8 am to noon at 1038 Howard St.

Representatives from the mayor’s office, the San Francisco Police Department and community organizations will safely accept guns from people who no longer need them, according to the state Attorney General’s Office.

People turning in guns will be offered $100 cash for handguns, rifles and shotguns, as well as $200 cash for automatic weapons.

United Playaz is a San Francisco-based violence prevention and youth development organization, according to its website.

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