Press Releases - 2003
Groundbreaking Ceremony for Mission & Steuart Hotel Project to Take Place This Thursday
Mayor Willie L. Brown, Jr., and Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) Executive Director Michael T. Burns will be featured speakers at the official groundbreaking ceremony for the Mission & Steuart Hotel Project, an innovative development of property owned by the MTA. The ceremony will take place at noon on Thursday, October 9th, at the corner of Mission & Steuart Streets, across The Embarcadero from the Ferry Building. The MTA oversees the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni) and the city's Department of Parking & Traffic.
Mission & Steuart Hotel Partners, LLC is the developer for the hotel project, and the firm of Heller Manus Architects is the architect. Mission & Steuart Hotel Partners is composed of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, a hotel operator, and Emerald Fund, a development firm, both of which are based in San Francisco. The developer will build a boutique hotel of about 200 rooms on the site, and will operate the hotel with a 51-year lease and an option for a 14-year extension. Under the lease, the developer will pay all costs of operating, maintaining, and repairing the hotel, and will pay rent to the MTA estimated to average about $4,790,000 a year over the lease's life, for a total of over $300 million.
The Mission & Steuart site, a former Muni bus layover yard, had been selected in the Municipal Railway Assets Development Study as a site for commercial development to increase Muni's revenues. The study concluded that a hotel had the best potential to provide Muni with substantial long-term revenues on the site, and would be the use that would be the most compatible with the surrounding area. The new revenue source for Muni is also a major step in complying with one of the mandates of Proposition E, approved by the voters in November 1999. That proposition authorized the creation of the MTA to provide for improved transit and transportation in San Francisco, and includes a mandate that additional sources of revenue be developed so that adequate and predictable levels of funding can be provided for the agency.
There are plans for a restaurant and retail development on the ground floor of the hotel. The retail space will include a rent-free location for a combination transit museum and retail shop to be operated by the Market Street Railway, a non-profit group that is dedicated to the acquisition, restoration, and operation of historic transit vehicles in San Francisco.
Both the staff and the guests at the hotel will get various incentives to use transit in San Francisco. The project will integrate stops and passenger shelters for Muni's F Market & Wharves historic streetcar line into the building, as well as restrooms for Muni operators. The F-line stops and passenger shelters at the site are located on Don Chee Way, named for the late Don Chee, Muni's senior project manager in charge of the construction for the F Market & Wharves line.
Land on the property next to The Embarcadero that is owned by the Port of San Francisco will be used for outdoor café seating and landscaping under an agreement between the port and the MTA.
