Madrone
 

according to this and this, Radiance II is now called 'Madrone', and there is no indication there of phases.

ah, and there is this: http://www.madronebybosa.com/ (nothing interesting there yet, just a registration form)

^^^Interesting. I wonder if it was always intended to be marketed as a separate property (they are essentially independent) or if this was a new decision to change the positioning of it...seems like the latter as I've seen it referred to as "Radiance West" by Bosa before.

Bosa just filed for a trademark on the Madrone name in early February and registered the madronebybosa.com domain a couple of weeks later, so it seems like at least the name decision has been rather recent.

A lack of phasing would be great and would obviously explain the construction we've seen so far. But it's interesting that Bosa hasn't made any public statements about going forward with the whole thing at once...they've been pretty public about all of their plans so far. But maybe nothing has changed...the phases were supposed to overlap anyway, with construction on "Phase IIb" said to begin late this year while "Phase IIa" wasn't scheduled to open until summer 2012.

That is odd because when I toured Radiance several years ago, they made it very clear that these were really one big development. In fact many amenities that were promoted to would-be Radiance owners wouldn't be available until phase 2 was finished (pool, most of the common areas). Though I suppose the name change could just be marketing ploy and wouldn't necessarily affect that.

On the medical center, I'm a little surprised there will be no underground levels. Looking at timbad's photos (thanks timbad!) they don't seem to be doing much excavation and if they have the tower crane base in place, they must have gone as deep as they plan to. Don't hospitals usually have a couple of basement levels?

Basements are incredibly expensive in Mission Bay because the water table is so high, so not really surprising that they're going without. Cheaper, simpler, and faster to use aboveground space instead.

Thanks Cowboy. I probably should have realized the water table would be rather high in this location.

It's not an ideal situation, and it's part of what has led to so much dead space on the first floors of UCSF's buildings at Mission Bay. All that equipment that usually goes in a basement is instead on the first floor of the building, leading to views of blank walls and ventilation grating from the outside.

That isn't to say that activation of the pedestrian environment would be much greater with basements, as they're still large-floorplate buildings with very limited numbers of public access points due to security needs, but the constraint certainly isn't helping things.

The Fibrogen complex on Illinois has a parking garage underneath that is partially underground, and they obviously had to a great deal of work at great expense to make it waterproof.

The real question - without basement floors in the hospital buildings, where are the secret dungeons, psych wards, and crazy-illegal research areas of the hospital going to be? I'd shutter to think that we're facing the prospect of having horror movies being forced to be set in the suburbs.

I know, where will the survivors go after the zombie outbreaks?

500 Terry Francois is changing hands yet again, this time apparently going to Sobrato for $91 million.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci...ssion-bay.html

I don't care who owns it...we just need some tenants in there!

Just got an email saying that the tower crane for the UCSF hospital will be going up beginning on Monday. Should be completed by Friday and will top out at 187 feet. It'll be in place until August 2012.

Good to see multiple tower cranes in MB again. Looking forward to seeing more around Rincon Hill and maybe even on Mission in the not-too-distant future.

Some more info about Madrone aka Radiance West:

Source: www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco

Since we've been putting Pier 70 stuff here in this thread, I'll add this: Forest City selected as the developer for the project.

Will be interesting to see what they do with it and how quickly they can get things going. With Salesforce snapping up most of what was left in Mission Bay, I imagine there will be demand not too far down the road.

Remember that the VA was one of the contenders early on...I suppose they could still end up there if they are able to work with Forest City on a deal. They need a substantial amount of space and would love to be there. Not a whole lot of other options for them either.

from my view from the train in the morning, I can confirm the crane is on its way up! (as is probably visible on the webcam too)

in other news from my wanderings this past weekend...

they're still working away in the northwest corner... here looking down what will be the inbound road from Seventh toward the future roundabout:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5149/...2150e933_b.jpg

and here at our old friend the former intersection of Sixth and Channel, looking south:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5188/...d292a667_b.jpg

Long Bridge is starting to take concrete form, literally, with its sidewalks coming into existence:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5142/...3648feff_b.jpg

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5184/...2d61028d_b.jpg

... and on the other side of block 13, they've finally starting progressing on the sidewalk along the south side of Channel after leaving it half dug-up for months. here looking east:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5230/...65f65ee1_b.jpg

and over at Radi-I-mean-Madrone, here is the south side:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5184/...203b3af3_b.jpg

and the southwest corner:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5066/...96a91d71_b.jpg

Good photos. I can't help but think how much the Mission Bay developments remind me of the Southwest waterfront area in DC by the Nationals stadium, another large-scale redevelopment of an entire neighborhood.

http://www.capitolriverfront.org/

http://www.jdland.com/dc/index.cfm

Yep, here is the UCSF webcam...crane looks to be just about done.

Nice shots of Madrone...coming along nicely. Will be good to have the streetwall along Third start to fill in north of Mission Bay. I believe the new police HQ could break ground before the end of the year if design work keeps moving smoothly, so that'll be another big one there.

BRE Properties Announces Acquisition of Development Sites in MB
 

Not sure where these parcels are but the good news is that they expect start of construction middle of next year. Development is definitely accelerating.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/hom...ment-Sites-San

Here are the details...it's blocks 5 and 11. Looks like construction to run from August 2012 through August 2015.

For reference, here is a map from an earlier report to remind people where 5 and 11 are:

http://www.cfdarchitecture.com/CFD_A...apeimage_3.png

Block 5 is one of the blocks that had been shaded in red in that earlier report...note that it's just the eastern portion of that block bordering Fourth Street. The triangle on the western side is Block P6 destined to be a public playground.

Interestingly, we talked about Block 5 a bit here a couple of months ago and had some renderings from CFD Architecture. But the architect on the new RFQ from BRE is listed as MVE. So I don't know what's going on...no mention of the projects on MVE's site.

Block 11 faces The Commons along its southern edge, which should be a nice setting...love to get that Commons framed out as quickly as possible, as that should also drive completion of the Commons itself.

I'm pretty sure this also implies demolition of at least one, maybe both, of the existing buildings in that area, including the Visitor Center. I had been wondering how long they would be hanging around. the current infrastructure work around the roundabout hasn't touched them (yet).

Based on this overlay map, Block 11 does overlap the rear portion of the building housing the MB visitor center. It doesn't quite touch the other building, but that will still have to come down if they want to connect The Commons to the roundabout, which only seems logical.

The BRE press release talks about phasing, and it seems like Block 11 would be Phase II of the plan. So construction there likely won't kick off until after the August 2012 start that will presumably be just Block 5. Based on an August 2015 completion for the entire project, perhaps we can expect Block 11 to get underway in mid-2013-ish or soon thereafter.