Grace Evangelical Free Church of San Francisco, located at 4114 Judah St. at 46th Avenue, will ultimately become market-rate housing, its new owner hopes. But in the meantime, why not boba?\u00a0<\/p>\n
The deal to purchase the former church \u2014 a single-story building on a 8,250-square-foot lot \u2014 closed in January, according to a deed from the San Francisco Assessor-Recorder.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Its new owner, Avi Ron, founder of the Houston-based developer Urban Meridian Group, bought the building for about $3.5 million, said Thomas Kerbleski, the developer\u2019s consultant who grew up and lives in the Outer Sunset.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The church<\/a>, which offers both Cantonese and English Sunday services, will remain at the property for six more months before moving to another building it owns in San Bruno, Kerbleski said.\u00a0<\/p>\n By July, Kerbleski hopes to have new tenants lined up to transform the space into a temple of small business and occupy the retail space during the years it will take for the city to approve a plan to build housing on the site.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe over-under optimistic estimate is three years,\u201d he said. \u201cSan Francisco should be able to approve it sooner than that.\u201d<\/p>\n Kerbleski has named the property \u201cFLEX SPACE,\u201d and put a survey in circulation<\/a> asking neighbors to weigh in on what they would like to see on-site. The options range from \u201cBar\/Restaurant\u201d to \u201cDay Care\/School\u201d to \u201cStorage\/Surfboard\/Wet Suit\u201d to \u201cCafe\/Boba\/Ice Cream.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Since starting the outreach last month, Kerbleski has shown the space to half a dozen interested businesses.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI want to have complementary uses that allow more things to thrive,\u201d Kerbleski said. \u201cIf you have an art studio space teaching kids art classes, a boba shop where people can grab a coffee or an ice cream. Then the kids get boba after class. Maybe in the evening it turns into a wine bar and live music.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Finding tenants to occupy the ground floor would be relatively easy, Kerbleski said. Much of the building was already broken into smaller spaces by the church \u2014 a 2,550 square-foot main hall and several smaller spaces. It also has a commercial kitchen.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the long run, said Kerbleski, Urban Meridian plans to develop the site into market-rate housing with ground-floor retail. Under the city\u2019s new upzoning plan<\/a> that was signed into law<\/a> in December, the height limit for the parcel has increased from 40 feet to 85 feet<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n While the project could include underground parking, Kerbleski said that would come with high costs and less space on the first floor due to the need for a driveway. \u201dThe demographic that we\u2019re seeking for apartments will likely want that urban living, and not feel you need a car.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The plan, he said, is to \u201cdo it nice\u201d with balconies and a rooftop garden. He wants to\u201cmake it pretty\u201d and create a place that the neighborhood can have \u201ca lot of pride\u201d in.\u00a0<\/p>\n The one-story church, at the corner of 46th Avenue and Judah Street, is across from a 7-11 parking lot just three blocks from Ocean Beach. The N-Judah train and the 18-46th Avenue bus both stop in front of it.<\/p>\n The church tried to sell the property about 12 years ago, Kerbleski said, but its members voted against it at the time. About a year and a half ago, the church decided to sell again.\u00a0<\/p>\n It took a while to find the right buyer, Kerbleski said. \u201cThat was pre-election and in the previous administration. At the time, San Francisco developers were very scared. They didn\u2019t want to spend any money.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The new upzoning plan is \u201chuge,\u201d he added. But as much as Mayor Daniel Lurie promises to expedite permitting, it is still unclear if the development will move any faster.<\/p>\n \u201cDevil\u2019s in the details,\u201d he said. \u201cIt still comes down to the departments to do it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n This site is \u201cperfect\u201d for redevelopment, he added, \u201cbecause there are zero businesses being displaced and zero residents being displaced by doing something here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n That said, Kerbleski added, he was ready to hear all the neighborhood feedback, both in support and opposition. \u201cWe want to put it out and hear what people have to say here. The good, the bad, the ugly.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Grace Evangelical Free Church of San Francisco, located at 4114 Judah St. at 46th Avenue, will ultimately become…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[1011,101,103,102,104,106,105,18069],"class_list":{"0":"post-191730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-housing","9":"tag-san-francisco","10":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","11":"tag-san-francisco-news","12":"tag-sf","13":"tag-sf-headlines","14":"tag-sf-news","15":"tag-sunset"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}