Hacker News Reader

Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

Genuine question. Even if it could be built, is there a real market for a skyscraper that's mostly housing in that area of town? The Bay Area is a bit atypical but the "housing shortage" in a lot of places is mostly a shortage in the specific places where people prefer to live.

View on HN

Not currently, but the city is running the L Taraval muni improvement project concurrent with this development, and that line has a stop right next to the lot. That should give trains traffic priority and consolidate stops, reducing travel time to downtown. The reason people don't want to live in the Sunset is that it takes an hour to get to SoMa/downtown where the businesses are. You can get from the South Bay to SoMa faster than getting from the Sunset there.

If they fix the transit issues the Sunset could become a very desirable place to live - you have easy access to the beach, good restaurants, less crime, lots of parks, and generally higher quality of life than the eastern part of SF.

MUNI has never been efficient in the entirety of my lifetime. Its a corrupt organization and basically would need to be completely reborn.

Also look at the cost overruns for extending the underground trains, its massively inept at construction.

Yeah, there’s a market. The units would likely be nicer than the old houses people currently rent there for a lot money. Increased supply may make them cheaper too.

Sunset is pretty nice, especially now that most work remote and the downtown soma area is not a great place to be.

I’m in dogpatch because it’s one of the few neighborhoods that has a lot of condos that isn’t downtown soma.

Dogpatch is well situated for commuting, as is a fair amount of SOMA. The SFBOS is looking to change that because they want to take down the 280 connector that gets people in and out of SF quickly.

WFH is slowly going away so I wouldn't keep counting on that either.

The Dogpatch condos I'm familiar with though are pretty much midrise which are a lot different from living in a skyscraper though. And are pretty convenient to existing public transit and getting to FiDi/SoMa even if you don't want to live there.

An ocean-view apartment 2 blocks from the (admittedly very cold) beach is definitely rentable.

Will it rent for 10% more or 10% less than something comparable in inner sunset? That's the question.

No, there is no market for this.

And even if there was it'd be hamstrung by the lack of infrastructure (roads/parking) so it'd be a nightmare to live there.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com