October 6, 2024

Tricia Oak

Business & Finance Excellency

Substantial monument to e-commerce proposed for the Bayview

Substantial monument to e-commerce proposed for the Bayview

The southeastern corner of San Francisco could be destined for a new landmark: a mammoth monument to our e-commerce habit.

The world wide warehouse developer Prologis is requesting approvals for the San Francisco Gateway, a two-building, 2.16 million square foot industrial facility bracketing Interstate 280 in the Bayview. The 3-story buildings would increase about 100 feet tall, in buy to accommodate trucks on every single stage of the making. The properties, which would involve more than 1,000 parking areas shrouded by rooftop solar panels, would tower about the freeway and nearby grocery wholesalers.

Just times soon after Amazon put its San Francisco success middle proposal on ice pursuing a chilly reception at the Board of Supervisors, Prologis’ strategy demonstrates the continued urge for food for storage and logistics place in The City. When this undertaking has however to bring in considerably focus from neighborhood and environmental teams, these types of developments have grow to be political lightning rods somewhere else in the region.

The venture, which has been in the works considering that 2016, even now has a lot of hurdles to distinct. The environmental review procedure is predicted to last into the next 50 % of 2023, with several options for general public enter together the way. Soon after environmental clearance, the undertaking will require a number of discretionary approvals from metropolis companies. Construction will just take an further two and a fifty percent several years.

On Wednesday night, the Organizing Division hosted a virtual information session as the kickoff to the project’s environmental evaluate method. The forthcoming environmental evaluate will specially target on air top quality, site visitors, and sound, department consultants stated. The presentation went on to explain how the undertaking intends to transform the four 1940s-era warehouses on the web page into a present day logistics behemoth.

The most conspicuous aspect of the venture is its dimensions. At just about 2.2 million sq. ft, San Francisco Gateway would be triple the sizing of Amazon’s controversial Showplace Square proposal. (For context, Salesforce tower clocks in at 1.6 million square feet.) Amazon hit pause on its project earlier this thirty day period after the Board of Supervisors, pressured by arranged labor, handed an 18 month moratorium on new parcel delivery expert services in San Francisco.

Prologis’ two, in the vicinity of-similar buildings would be built for flexible use, most likely hosting multiple tenants with extremely different businesses. The place could be configured for truck or bus storage, a merchandise warehouse, a final-mile shipping center, or even a investigation lab. Each and every flooring would have direct motor vehicle access via truck ramps at the southern finish of each and every construction. The facility would accommodate an common of virtually 2,000 workers every single day.

Prologis is also proposing considerable improvements at the avenue degree, building new sidewalks and introducing avenue trees, and earning adjacent McKinnon and Kirkwood streets just one-way to make improvements to truck circulation. The ground amount of the structures would involve retail and business room.

Irrespective of calls for comments at Wednesday’s conference, no users of the general public spoke up.

More than the past decade, and even extra so because the pandemic-induced e-commerce boom, warehouses have emerged as a single of the most beneficial true estate types. In the New York location and Southern California’s Inland Empire, warehouse tasks have activated fiery improvement battles, pitting environmentalists and locals from economic progress officers and people demanding at any time faster delivery expert services.

Because previous 12 months, the Sierra Club and structured labor corporations have been battling numerous proposed Amazon warehouses across the Bay Region, highlighting the environmental toll of vehicles heading to and from warehouses, generally via very low-earnings Black and Latino regions.

With its Bayview locale, the SF Gateway venture is sited in a traditionally marginalized community, though it’s reasonably distant from household areas, not like Amazon’s proposed facility in Showplace Sq..

When it’s far too early to assess the project’s environmental impact, the developer claims that the rooftop solar panels could be used for electrical car charging. California regulations involve truck suppliers to step by step phase out gasoline-run truck profits amongst 2024 and 2045.

Existing warehouse buildings on McKinnon Avenue where the proposed development would take place. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)

Current warehouse structures on McKinnon Avenue wherever the proposed development would consider area. (Craig Lee/The Examiner)