New Affordable Community Opens in SF’s Largest Redevelopment

A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new affordable housing community Pacific Pointe attracted San Francisco dignitaries.

San Francisco–Affordable housing developer AMCAL Multi-Housing and the non-profit Young Community Development, co-developers of Pacific Pointe, joined a cadre of dignitaries for the recent grand opening of an affordable housing community.

Situated at 350 Friedell St., Pacific Pointe is part of the redevelopment of the 638-acre San Francisco Shipyard, the largest in the city’s history, which is being led by FivePoint (formerly Lennar Urban). It features 60 modern, fully equipped apartment homes, many of the units offering bay and city views. Pacific Pointe is 100 percent leased to households earning less than 51 percent of San Francisco median income.

The site is .51 acres, or 22,215 square feet. Construction cost was $22.525 million. MHN previously reported the plans for the development in 2013.

What made the development a desirable option for Agoura Hills, Calif.-based AmCal? “It was a great opportunity to build an affordable housing development in a master plan community to ensure that residents…could benefit from this new beautiful affordable housing in an area where the properties next door are selling at high market-rate prices,” AmCal Executive Vice President Maurice Ramirez told MHN.

AmCal typically handles its own construction, which greatly contributes to the company’s bottom line results, Ramirez reported. But in the Pacific Pointe development, “We knew we and the project would be better served by hiring a local, high-quality general contractor,” he said. “We are pleased to have brought the project [in] within time and on budget, so our projected developer fee was secured.”

Lennar provided a $10 million construction loan and the site infrastructure for the new community, while Bank of America is the lender and tax-credit investor for the project. The design for the communtiy is by David Baker Architects and INTERSTICE Architects.

Pacific Pointe features two four-story buildings standing atop a one-story garage providing 45 parking spaces and 44 bike spaces. Residents can choose from one-, two-and three-bedroom apartments. The array of on-site amenities includes four community rooms and lounges, laundry facilities, common-space kitchen and secured parking. Outdoor public spaces more commonly associated with market-rate apartment communities include a rooftop open-air deck and landscaped courtyards.

The master plan for the redevelopment of San Francisco Shipyard and nearby Candlestick Park calls for the creation of 12,000 residences.

In addition, the redevelopment will feature 3 million square feet of office space, an urban outlet center, local shopping, dining, theater and performing arts space. Interspersed will be more than 300 acres of parks and green space.

Ensuring the model would show the loans capable of being paid per the loan terms required some strategic thinking, including extending the loans to 100-year repayment terms, Ramirez said. “We were able to get a bump in basis by taking the infrastructure costs paid the master developer and rolling it as a cost of our development,” he noted. “It added $4 million in basis to our financing.”

AmCal was selected through an interview process that involved the master developer and the city, Ramirez said. “The big plus was that we had a fully entitled site that we did not have to purchase,” he added. “The challenge was ensuring the new development dovetailed as needed [with] the infrastructure built by the master developer.”

Images courtesy of AMCAL Multi-Housing and David Baker Architects.