SF Giants’ Mission Rock project faces 1st major hurdle

AT&T Park's Parking Lot A on Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2017, in San Francisco, Calif. AT&T Park's Parking Lot A on Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2017, in San Francisco, Calif. Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close SF Giants’ Mission Rock project faces 1st major hurdle 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

With the disastrous 2017 baseball season behind them, the San Francisco Giants will now face a squad the club hopes will prove friendlier than the Dodgers or Diamondbacks were this year: the San Francisco Planning Commission.

The Giants’ Mission Rock project, which has been a decade in the making, would turn a 28-acre parking lot south of AT&T Park into a new neighborhood of up to 1,500 housing units, 1.5 million square feet of retail and office space, and 8 acres of parks. Plus, the historic bulkhead and shed on Pier 48 would be rehabilitated.

The Planning Commission’s Thursday vote is the first in a series of approvals that will take the project to the Board of Supervisors, the Port Commission, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, and the State Lands Commission.

And unlike many major development proposals, which often involve last-minute deal-making over hot-button issues like affordable housing and parking ratios, the specifics of the Mission Rock plan have already been ratified by San Francisco voters.

In November 2015, 74 percent of voters cast ballots in favor of Proposition B, which laid out the plan for the project and granted permission for the Giants to build three buildings up to 240 feet. The ballot measure also ratified plans that 40 percent of the housing units be affordable to low- and moderate-income households.

“We got the voter support up front, so at this point it’s more about the implementation of the ballot measure,” said Giants General Counsel Jack Bair. “The big questions are already answered in terms of height limits and the policies and goals for the city.”

Giants CEO Larry Baer said that the Mission Rock process is similar to the one that was undertaken two decades ago for AT&T Park. That project also went to the voters before city approvals were sought.

“We ratified that we had the popular support of the voters — that obviously doesn’t hurt as you go through the process,” Baer said. “We continue to meet with neighbors. We continue to assess the markets.”

The Giants vision for Mission Rock is of a true, mixed-use neighborhood. Each of the project’s three phases include housing, office space, retail and parks. Unlike the Mission Bay neighborhood it is part of, the commercial and residential buildings would not be segregated. Also unlike the rest of Mission Bay, where housing structures are either all affordable or all market rate, the subsidized and market-rate housing units at Mission Rock will be mixed together in the same buildings.

While no organized opposition has emerged, the Giants will probably be pressured to commit to more housing and less office space. While the first two phases of the project — a total of eight buildings — calls for an even split between office and housing, the third and final phase of the development, a total of 500,000 square feet in three buildings, gives the Giants flexibility in terms of the mix of uses.

John Elberling, executive director of the affordable-housing group Todco, said he will ask the Giants to commit to making the final phase all residential. He said the final plan should reflect the reality that the balance of jobs and housing in the city has become more and more skewed toward jobs since the 2015 ballot measure.

“There has to be enough housing to meet 100 percent of the demand coming from all the commercial growth,” he said. “The jobs-housing balance debate wasn’t something people were focused on two years ago when the Giants went to the voters.”

But Bair said there is not much flexibility in the plan. The mix of housing and office in each phase is meant to create a vibrant, diverse neighborhood with street life day and night. In addition, revenues generated from the office space will help subsidize the affordable housing.

“This has always been planned as a mixed-use planned community that is interdependent between office and housing,” Bair said. “We needed to have each phase feel stand-alone.”

Todd David, executive director of the Housing Action Coalition, said the jobs-housing balance is something that should be discussed at the Planning Commission hearing. He said the city should look at incentives that include increased densities that might make it more economically compelling for the Giants to max out the number of housing units rather than the square footage of office.

Sunny Schwartz, a Mission Bay resident of 15 years, said that she can’t wait for the vast parking lot to be filled in with people and buildings instead of cars. She said Mission Bay feels like it’s missing a community hub, a place where neighbors can gather and socialize. Mission Rock, she said, will become that.

“It’ll feel like a town square, a place to foster community gatherings,” Schwartz said.

She is also looking forward to the 8 acres of open space. “We have been walking past this ugly parking lot for 15 years,” she said.

The final phase of the development will include the restoration of Pier 48. Anchor Steam had signed a deal to open a brewery there, but that deal is now on hold. Anchor Steam was recent bought by Sapporo, which has yet to say whether it is still interested in the pier.

Another change is that the team has beefed up its sea-level-rise plan. The entire site will be raised 66 inches, and all buildings and infrastructure — streets and sidewalks — will sit on piles driven into bedrock.

“We have been earnest throughout this process. That has been our M.O. — not to take anything for granted, to always have been respectful of the community and involve the community at every point along the way,” Bair said.

J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfjkdineen