Help Wanted: Become the Talk of the Town as a Curbed SF Contributor!

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Monday, November 26, 2012, by Sally Kuchar

Do you read EIRs for fun? Do you have strong feelings about the proposed Golden State Warriors waterfront arena on Piers 30-32? Have you ever had a nightmare about the Central Subway Project? Oh, and are you looking for work? Curbed SF is hiring part-time contributors who love keeping up with all the neighborhood happenings in San Francisco. The very part-time/freelance job would require you to come up with features that are in line with our categories, like breaking down what's on the agenda for this week's Board of Supervisors meeting and writing about houses in San Francisco that are on the market. We're looking for 3 - 5 posts per week. Extra points if you enjoy the drama of a good NIMBY fight. You must absolutely be based in the Bay Area (and love it), preferably San Francisco proper. We're closed on weekends, so this would be a Monday through Friday job.

Interested? No need to dust off the resume. Just send an email to sf@curbed.com with a paragraph about yourself, a paragraph about why you'd like the job, and anything else you think would grab our interest. If we're into it, we'll respond quickly with more details. (If you're employed in the real estate industry, alas, we can't hire you. But we still love you.) Thank you!

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Ask Curbed: Is West Portal About to Become the Next Noe Valley?

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Friday, July 20, 2012, by Philip Ferrato

A curious reader posed this question via email:

Guys- This closed at $700/sf? Is this the first sub-1500sf sale to close above $900k? Am I going crazy here?

While we're not qualified to make a diagnosis regarding his mental state, the answer is "No." Our reader was inquiring about 15 Forest Side Drive, a 2-bed, 1-bath house built in 1951 that closed yesterday for $905,000, or $700 per square foot. We can argue all we like about neighborhood boundaries, but the San Francisco Association of Realtors does not. In the past six months, three houses have sold in the West Portal neighborhood (as defined by the SFAR) and 243 Vicente Street, a 3-bed, 2-bath, 1,320-sq-ft (per public records) house tops the trio with $837 per square. Our friend at 15 Forest Side Avenue comes in at second with $700 and $106,000 over the original asking price. In answer to the next question, broker Leon De-Levi confirmed there was a bidding war.

Meanwhile, not far away, 260 Claremont Boulevard sold for $691 per square. As far as we could find, there are currently no houses under 1,500-sq-ft on the market in West Portal, and in the rest of 94127 close to West Portal, most houses this size have closed for under $700-psf. Which may soon change.

While our reader may be crazed (or thrilled- hard to say) we can come up with two solid reasons for the price. The first is that while the house is apparently well-maintained, it's never been renovated, so you're not paying for and demolishing someone else's c.1995 Tuscan kitchen. The second is that the MUNI West Portal station is within a few minutes walk, making Mid-Market an easy commute while being in a stroller-friendly neighborhood, and challenging buyers' assumptions about where they have to live.
· 15 Forest Side Avenue [Redfin]
· 15 Forest Side Drive [Leon De-Levi/PacUnion]
· 243 Vicente Street [Redfin]
· 260 Claremont Boulevard [Redfin]

15 Froest Side Drive, San Francisco, CA

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AM Linkage: Greening Our Streets; Berkeley Students Want Change on Telegraph; Become a Blue Man!; More!

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Development Watch: The Fillmore: MUNI Sub-station to Become Grad School Project

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Monday, May 2, 2011, by Philip Ferrato

[Photo Credit: Sf Redevelopment Agency]

Yet another plot twist in The Chronicles of Adaptive Re-use, with the announcement that graduate students at USF would undertake an assessment of the vintage MUNI sub-station at Fillmore and Turk Streets. The Redevelopment Agency bought it in 2003 but was unable to find a deal or developer. Meanwhile, they apparently shifted funds earmarked for the building to subsidize the long-suffering reincarnation of Yoshi's. The city bought the building back in 2009. No report is expected from the students until next year, but they're working with Brothers for Change. And there's more housing happening a block away. Baby steps, people.
· Brothers for Change [Brothers for Change]
· USF to Tackle Future of Old Muni Substation [SF Examiner]
· The Fillmore: Affordable Housing on the Way [Curbed SF Archives]

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Conversions: With Some Elbow Grease, Garages Become Stylish Small Spaces

× Like us and you'll find top breaking news in your Facebook newsfeed. Sign up for our daily email newsletter and get top stories and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Friday, March 18, 2011, by Rob Bear Photo: Dwell

For some time, people have been trying to eek some rent out of an apartment over the garage, but those spaces were rarely fit for glossy shelter-mag stardom. In the past few years, with small-space living hip again thanks to dedicated sites like Apartment Therapy's Re-Nest, design-minded folks with some extra space have produced some stunning renovations of otherwise forgotten structures. Take this 1908 carriage house/pigeon coop in Oakland, Calif. It must have taken some serious vision to get past the putrid yellow color, unhinged door, and chicken wire window, but architect Christi Azevedo enlisted a friend—and future renter—to convert the former bird's nest in the attic into a stylish single's 360-square-foot crash pad. They did such a snazzy job with the place that San Francisco-based arbiter of taste Dwell stopped by to check out the final product.

? Even more petite than the Oakland overhaul is this 250-square-foot Seattle garage conversion. Using finds from local salvage yards—including a metal ship's ladder and tall silver lockers that used to belong in a United Airlines maintenance building—homeowner Michelle de la Vega outfitted the tiny structure as her own private sanctuary for just $32K, thanks in part to some help from a contractor who's now her husband.

? Seattle is apparently a hot spot for garage renos, as this conversion by the architecture firm Shed can attest. The before-and-after photos reveal one sleek transformation, from a rustic garden shed into a stark space. The large wooden doors now let light in rather than cars, and a modern gray-and-white color scheme blends with classic beadboard on the ceiling and refinished flooring so as not to stray too far from the turn-of-the-century roots.

? Not all such conversions are modestly-sized—or priced. 11 Leroy Street, a turn-of-the-century carriage house in the NYC neighborhood of Greenwich Village, was recently listed at almost $10M and measures some 4,800 square feet. Renovated in the 90s by former PanAm Airlines CEO Peter McHugh and his wife Louise McNamee, the retired head of ad agency Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer, what the home lacks in quaint charm it certainly makes up for with practicality: this former garage still has space for two cars.

? The theme of adaptive reuse doesn't seem to have made it to larger parking structures. In 2006, NYC's Tunnel Garage—which had been serving as a home for cars since 1922—was demolished to make way for a new residential building known as 55 Thompson. To add insult to preservationist injury, the terra cotta Model T imagery that once graced the garage facade is now featured as an ornament on the new building's roof, as our colleagues at Curbed NY described it, "like a stuffed moose head in a hunter's cabin." Still, hard to argue with the new glassy environs.
· Re-Nest [official site]
· Living in a Mini-House [Dwell]
· Converting a Garage Outside Seattle Into a Tiny Home [NYT]
· Projects - Garage Conversion [Shed Architects]
· The West Village Carriage House Turned PanAm Exec's Hangar [NYO]
· Taking Soho's Newest Luxury Rentals Out for a Test Drive [Curbed NY]
· All Tunnel Garage coverage [Curbed NY]

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