San Francisco developer Robert Tillman has been trying to raze the laundromat he owns at 2918 Mission (a block from the 24th Street BART station) and build an eight story, 75-unit housing development since 2014, and the San Francisco Planning Department approved his project last December.

But in February of this year, the long-planned laundromat renovation washed out again when neighbors with Calle 24 challenged the development, alleging that the circa-1924 building might be a historic resource.

The notion of a “historic laundromat” in the Mission drew jeers, but the actual claim was that as the onetime offices of many local activists and non-profit groups in decades past the building contributed to the Mission’s community heritage, rather than anything to do with the laundromat itself.

Today the Planning Department released the results of its investigation into the building’s history. The verdict:

Although the 2918-2922 Mission Street building is significant under the California Register of Historical Resources (“California Register”) Criterion 1 for events, it lacks sufficient integrity to convey its identified historic significance under Criterion 1 and, therefore, is not eligible for listing in the California Register of Historical Resources. T The building is not eligible under any other criteria. As such, the Department has determined that the building is not a historic resource.

City planners even testified that the addition of new housing next to both the BART station and the Calle 24 Historic District is unlikely to spur gentrification in the neighborhood:

A recent study by researchers at UC Berkeley and UCLA commissioned by the California Air Resources Board9 found that, while gentrification and displacement was occurring in neighborhoods near transit stations, such displacement was largely taking place in areas that did not experience significant new residential development.

The cited study, which examined whether or not new development near major transit centers was likely to run people out of California neighborhoods, is a bit more nuanced.

The researchers reported, “[W]e find a significant and positive relationship between transit proximity and gentrification,” but also that “the timeframe of impacts, as well as the role of intervening variables, is less clear and warrants additional research.”

In any case, the last word on the alleged historicity of 2918 Mission appears to be no, although the sudsy soap opera around this property will probably continue.

On Friday, J Scott Weaver, attorney for Calle 24, sent a letter to the Board of Supervisors arguing that the 2918 Mission plan must be reevaluated in light of the present level of development rather than previous city planning schemata:

The [neighborhood plan] assumed construction of up to 2,054 new units in the Mission between 2008 and 2025. Currently, the number of Mission pipeline units built, entitled, and that are otherwise in the pipeline as of Q-4 2017 stands at no less than 3,409 units. This number is more than twice the ”preferred project” of 1,696 units for the Mission, and we are only half way through the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan.

The Board will take up the redevelopment and Calle 24’s appeal again June 19.

Supervisor Hillary Ronen introduced the February deferral that led to the delays and the historical review but told Curbed SF that it was a procedural move with few other options.

“It is standard practice for the Supervisor of the District to make a motion to continue an item when planning makes the request and both parties are in agreement,” said Ronen.

Developer and building owner Tillman did not object to the review at the time, saying that he was willing to exhaust all possible criticisms of the building plan.