The city is preparing to sell off its fire station in Jackson Square to a residential developer, but it won’t be at a fire-sale price.
Fire Station No. 13 at 530 Sansome St. is zoned for a 200-foot tower and is expected to fetch upward of $20 million. Proceeds from the sale will pay for a new firehouse on the same location, topped with luxury housing.
Whatever money is left after construction will be used to develop affordable housing at 772 Pacific Ave., a city-owned property that is home to the New Asia restaurant in nearby Chinatown. The $10 million in affordable housing fees the firehouse project is expected to generate will also be spent on the 80-unit Pacific Avenue development, which will also include a new dim sum banquet hall on the lower levels.
On Wednesday, the brokerage firm Colliers International will begin soliciting offers from builders interested in acquiring and developing the roughly 9,000-square-foot property in Jackson Square, one of San Francisco’s most historic and sought-after neighborhoods. About 100 family-sized units would be built above a new 22,000-square-foot fire station, a mix of uses that has been successfully combined in projects in Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Wilmington, Del.
The firehouse would have to be temporarily relocated while the new building is constructed. The fire station is 45 years old.
