San Francisco’s newest homeless Navigation Center could come with one of the best views in the city.

City officials are hoping to persuade the Port Commission to bring what would be San Francisco’s largest Navigation Center to the Embarcadero, just south of the Bay Bridge.

Mayor London Breed has signed off on a plan to erect a 24-hour, 200-bed Navigation Center on Seawall Lot 330 — a 2.3-acre parcel across from Piers 30-32. It’s been a target for development for years.

Unlike traditional homeless shelters, Navigation Centers provide more intensive health and housing services, allow round-the-clock stays, and permit people to bring their pets and partners with them.

The parcel, which is now a parking lot, is port property, which means the Port Commission will have to sign off on the idea. The commissioners are expected to discuss the proposal and take suggestions from the community at their next meeting March 12. A vote to allow the city to build the center on the lot would probably come in April.

If the Port Commission signs off, the mayor wants to have the shelter open by the summer. Like most Navigation Centers, the facility will be temporary: Officials expect it to operate for four years. The hope is that by then the city will have gotten a handle on some of the systemic causes of homelessness in San Francisco.

The proposal at Seawall Lot 330 is largely designed to address the needs of the growing homeless population in waterfront neighborhoods such as Rincon Hill and South Beach.

“We all want to see homelessness addressed, and the only way we’re going to be able to address it is if we have places for people to go,” Breed said. “Here, we identified a viable location, and we need to move quickly. That means that every part of San Francisco has to share in really making sure that we are providing these spaces in places that make the most sense.”

Breed has set a goal of creating 1,000 new shelter beds by 2020. To help meet that objective, she introduced legislation in January that would allow the city to shave months off the time it takes to open a shelter. Two ordinances, which the Board of Supervisors could vote on this month, would exempt shelters and Navigation Centers from the building permitting process and expedite the hiring of contractors to manage the facilities.

It’s not the first time the Port Commission has considered a proposal to locate homeless services on its land. The commission voted in 2016 to lease a parcel on 25th Street to build the Dogpatch Navigation Center, which is widely considered to be a success. At the time, the commission received considerable resistance from some waterfront residents.

Elaine Forbes, the port’s executive director, said the Seawall Lot 330 Navigation Center plan would inspire another round of intense public discussion.

“The commission is likely to support the mayor’s proposal, but has a strong track record of engaging with the community,” she said. “We’ve seen more homeless folks on the waterfront, sleeping inside of pier sheds that are vacant. More people are showing signs of needing care and shelter. We, like the rest of the city, have been experiencing more homelessness issues, and we want to find real solutions to address this humanitarian crisis.”

Forbes said the lot was physically ready for a Navigation Center, apart from water and sewer hookups.

The center would reside within District Six, which is represented by Supervisor Matt Haney. He supports it but emphasized the need for other districts to host homeless shelters. To date, most homelessness services are clustered in Districts Six, Nine and 10, all in the southeastern quadrant of the city.

“This neighborhood needs this,” Haney said. “There’s an urgent and growing homeless challenge there, and I will work with the mayor and with neighbors to make this happen.

“But I really want to see other neighborhoods building shelters as well. What about the west side? What about the Castro and the Marina? If this is the most urgent priority our city is facing, we should see the entire city being part of the solution,” he said.

Breed’s proposal comes days after a bruising supervisors’ committee hearing Thursday that turned into a heated discussion on the city’s work around homelessness.

Several supervisors condemned what they saw as a chronic lack of progress in combatting the crisis. Supervisor Aaron Peskin said after the hearing that Jeff Kositsky, director of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, should step down. Peskin has no direct authority to force a department head to resign.

The derision for her staff rankled Breed, who said the city’s homelessness problem “is too important to play politics. There’s real work that needs to be done. These people are sleeping on the streets and suffering. They’re the ones we need to be focused on, not playing politics.”

Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa