One Man's Superfund Site Is Another's Techie "Innovation Center"
With all the tech money being flung around the Bay Area, everyone is grabbing for a piece—especially real estate developers. In San Francisco's south-east corner, a Miami-based development company is looking to reinvent a government Superfund site into a techie "innovation center," complete with usual Silicon Valley amenities.
Plans to develop the former San Francisco Naval Shipyard have been in the works since at least 2009, when Fortune 500 developer Lennar begun planning to build a sizable "housing development" in the predominantly African-American Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood. Now, via Re/code, we get a look at what is planned for the poisoned property: 12,000 housing units surrounded by retail spaces, large swaths of parks, and 3.2 million square feet of "high-density, tech-centric [office] space for startups and tech workers."
Those office workers will find themselves right at home at "The Shipyard":
When Lennar representatives lead tours for buyers, they bring along wine and cheese and have a jazz band come out to play.
It's not too far from San Francisco, really (about a six-mile bike ride to the Financial District). Bonner said Lennar had tried to work with public transportation (the current route is two buses, which takes about an hour), but found it too annoying, so the developers are thinking about a private ferry operation and a private shuttle system. One major advantage is that the development is closer to Silicon Valley, so daily commuters in tech shuttles won't have to cut through San Francisco.
Emphasis added. Lennar said that they have everything for both "young tech and the old hipsters," noting to Re/code that "homes start at around $450,000." That price tag is still out of reach for the most of the local African-American population, 72 percent of whom live below the federal poverty line. And, presumably, those locals will have to keep riding those "annoying" public buses.
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