Another Ugly Building Headed for Valencia

I was walking past 18th and Valencia yesterday and thought to myself, “man, this street could really use another bland tall building with plastic siding!”  Then as I came to the intersection of 20th, I saw a notice for a public hearing about a new building.  Dream come true!

Okay, sarcasm aside, this is pretty much an empty lot and its only redeeming qualities is the rad Hugh Leeman wheatpaste that Dan Plasma sidebusted and some people sell cool VHS tapes there on the weekend.  And yeah, no one is going spend the cash to build something brick or Victorian that actually fits the neighborhood's aesthetic.  But still, that's some ugly shit!

(photos via SocketSite)

Comments (19)

It’s not really an empty lot, it’s mainly a storage/parking area for Zip/City Car Shares. Fuck this.

I’d say the ugly building is in the photo to the left.

YES! Let’s make Valencia into an automobile slum! BANKERS DEMAND IT!

If there’s still parking for shared cars and some housing gets built on an underused lot, then I hope this project goes through. And San Francisco has so many rules on buildings (planning dept., public input, permit fees, etc) that a lot of the costs of building go to this stuff rather than quality materials. Design by committee = ugly.

dan plasma is a fag

Nice. Does anyone comment on this blog anymore who isn’t a 14 year old loser from Walnut Creek?

There is another condo project going up at the corner of 19th and Valencia in the parking lot there, so get used to it…

Hideous. If these morons built something that looked good maybe there wouldn’t be so much opposition. Why do these places all look the same? Seriously, are they all designed by the same people? Gough and Page, Franklin and Hayes, both so ugly. This one looks similar.

Go to Curbed SF and read all the comments about how people just LOOOVE these generic condos that are slowly filling up the city.

Pretty soon, the entire city will be as ugly as South Beach.

Anybody know how many market-rate or - GASP - below market-rate units this neighborhood character-killing beast will offer?

A new housing project at that location sounds great, but Jesus that’s ugly.

God that’s horrible.

Not even the tiniest attempt to blend in with the neighborhood and not stick out like a sore thumb. Trying to turn the Mission into Mission Bay. barf.

On the bright side, these things are built like crap and will need to be replaced in 30 years.

It looks better than the Cherin’s building, the Z-Barn, Bombay Bazaar, the Rhea’s deli building, Spork… Not sure where this unified “neighborhood aesthetic” idea comes from.

So yeah, like 5% of the buildings in the neighborhood don’t have the same aesthetic. That doesn’t invalidate the argument.

The problem is that no real architect wants to touch coming up with plans for a condo as about 90% of the time the HOA ends up suing the architect.

What if we told all of the people of the Mission they needed to ‘fit in’ and ‘blend’? The building may be ugly but at least it’s different from what’s around it.

Please tell me this is sarcasm.

I like that the artist’s rendering depicts Bobby’s infamous truck parked in front.