Oct. 25–It's been nearly a decade in the making, but the hospitality and condominium project next to the Warfield Theatre on Market Street is finally taking shape. And it has a new Taiwanese financial partner and a splashy hotel brand to help make it happen.
The old buildings on the site were razed a few months ago, and construction crews are starting excavation at 950 Market St. The project, which was approved two years ago, will include a 236-room hotel from the Sydell Group, the company behind the NoMad, LINE and Freehand hotel brands. The project is being financed by the Continental Development Corp., a Taiwanese real estate developer.
Sydell will open a LINE hotel on the site. Joy Ou, president of developer Group I, said LINE is "very location-based," tapping into neighborhood culture in ways most hotels do not. There are LINE hotels on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles' Koreatown and in Washington, D.C.'s, nightlife-heavy Adams Morgan neighborhood, as well as in Austin, Texas.
"They really integrate the local theme into everything they do," Ou said.
The new hotel will open with a bar and restaurant at the ground level, a nightclub and a rooftop bar. Ou said no restaurants have signed leases yet, but she has been talking to the owners of local operators State Bird Provisions, in which she is an investor. Sydell has been in discussions with several other restaurant groups.
The deals come about seven months after Group I lost both its investor and hotel tenant. The original Chinese financial partner had to back out because of new restrictions on Chinese investing in the United States. The Sydell Group replaces Standard Hotels.
The LINE hotel announcement comes more than a year after the Kor Group opened SF Proper a block away at Seventh and Market streets. The hotel chain Yotel is close to opening across the street from the Proper at 1095 Market St.
"Every hotel is a lifestyle hotel these days," said hotel consultant Rick Swig. "That is the fad. They are all targeting Millennials, and we have quite a few Millennials living and working in San Francisco."
Swig said the LINE hotel would do well.
"There is a shortage of hotels in San Francisco, and there has been for a while," he said. "If tomorrow, a 1,500-room convention hotel popped up, it would be absorbed in a minute."
In addition to the hotel, the flatiron building will have 242 condos and a space for the Magic Theatre. Additionally, the project is supporting the development of 60 to 70 affordable homes at 180 Jones St. They are to be priced for San Franciscans making as little as $30,000 annually.
Ou said the project would bring "new energy and vibrancy" to a block of Market Street that is home to the historic Warfield, but has struggled with trash, drug dealing and property crime.
The newly constructed $150 million 6X6 mall across the street has yet to sign any tenants, and a 186-unit residential project a block away at 1028 Market St., has been delayed for about a year. Other projects are going forward, including Shorenstein's 304-unit apartment complex at 1066 Market St.
"We are going to change this neighborhood," Ou said. "We are going to activate the street and make it a destination for people who want to explore the area and see what a cool hotel is like."
The hotel and condo building will take two years to build and will open in the fall of 2020, she said.
J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfjkdineen
