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Marina luxury condos sought at site of former Chevron station

By Cory Weinberg

Oct 23, 2015, 1:22pm PDT UPDATED: Oct 26, 2015, 4:56pm PDT

The future has come into focus for a deserted Chevron station in San Francisco’s upscale Marina District and it looks familiar to many San Franciscans: luxury condominiums.

DM Development– the builder of boldly designed condo projects like Stanley Saitowitz’ 8 Octavia– filed a preliminary proposal this week for a seven-story, 41-unit condo building at 2465 Van Ness Ave. The gas station closed six years ago due to poor financial performance. It would be the largest multifamily project in the Marina in at least two decades, with about 50-percent more units than Trumark Urban’s high-profile Amero building. That building’s 27 units sold out in February after just five months on the market. (The penthouse hit an eye-popping $2,247 per square foot – $3.625 million overall.)

Those kind of values show why the San Francisco-based developer isn’t done in the neighborhood, where only about 13 percent of the housing is in buildings with 20 units or more. DM Development also proposed a four-story, 22-unit condo building at Pierce and Lombard Streets.

Pacific Coast Homes, a subsidiary of Chevron (NYSE: CVX), tapped DM Development to develop the chain-link-fence-enclosed site at Van Ness and Union after seeking proposals from a range of firms. Chevron still owns the property, according to the preliminary filing. Mark MacDonald, DM Development’s co-founding principal, declined to comment. The preliminary proposal for the $25 million Van Ness project lays out part of their vision. DM Development tapped Handel Architects for the project, which will rise 65 feet tall, if it can get a conditional use permit.

The 75,000-square-foot building would have about 3,000 square feet of ground-floor neighborhood retail space. The top two floors would be filled with two- and three-bedroom condos with plenty of private open space. It will also have a 2,315-square-foot common roof deck bound to have killer views.

The project follows the 1989 Van Ness Avenue area plan, which set a land-use strategy that looked to turn around the shabby auto-centric strip but has seen mixed success. Gas stations – old and existing, from the Sunset to the Mission– have been primed for residential redevelopment this market cycle. The gasoline tanks were removed from the property in 2010, according to the Planning Department.

DM Development’s focus on the Marina comes after a string of projects in Hayes Valley and Upper Market, including 8 Octavia, 450 Hayes and 400 Grove. The five-year-old company also recently capitalized a pair of projects in Dogpatch, 815 Tennessee Street and 2290 3rd Street.

Cory Weinberg Reporter San Francisco Business Times