Mission activists demanded fully affordable housing, held rallies, packed city hearings, and dubbed the project the \u201cBeast on Bryant.\u201d They hoped city officials would vote against it.<\/p>\n
But in the final days before it was approved<\/a> in 2016, the developer\u2019s lawyer added a sweetener to the deal: Podell promised to cover $500,000 of the costs to build out a community art space at a 100 percent\u00a0 affordable housing project next door. He had earlier donated land to the city to make that affordable housing project possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n The project was voted through 11-0.<\/p>\n The buildout of that community art space was finally completed this month, but the promised money, has yet to arrive.\u00a0<\/p>\n Roberto Hernandez, the chief executive officer of Cultura y Arte Nativa de las Americas, which occupies the arts space at the affordable housing complex at 681 Florida St., said he spoke with Podell about a month ago. Podell, he said, offered to pay $100,000 and told him he did not have any money, and that Hernandez should get the city to pay the sum.<\/p>\n Last week on Oct. 21, District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder called for a hearing to find out why and to help secure the payment.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m hoping we can make this right,\u201d said Fielder.<\/p>\n Podell did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The developers and owners of the affordable housing of 130 units at 681 Florida St., which is known as Casa Adelante, declined to comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n Fielder\u2019s office confirmed the supervisor spoke with Podell once, but the developer still refused to follow through with his 2016 commitment. The city attorney\u2019s office did not confirm if the city had any liability for the payment.<\/p>\n The delay is the latest in a long-running saga. Podell first announced a plan to build more than 300 units at the intersection of 18th and Bryant streets and replace a series of smaller buildings<\/a> that included the art space Cellspace<\/a>, alongside some rent-controlled units.<\/p>\n It was fought viciously by local activists, who demanded 100 percent affordable housing there instead. Opponents nicknamed the project \u201cthe Beast on Bryant\u201d in keeping with similar campaigns that sought to block construction of new market-rate housing, like the Titanic Mess on South Van Ness<\/a>, the Monster in the Mission<\/a> and the Fright on Folsom<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n After months of negotiations, Podell agreed to donate land<\/a> at 681 Florida St. for the city to build a nine-story, 130-unit affordable housing project with an art space. He then committed<\/a> to give $500,000<\/a> to build out the arts space on its ground floor.\u00a0<\/p>\n The city subsequently approved<\/a> the 196-unit market-rate project next door at 2000 Bryant St. in 2016.<\/p>\n Podell\u2019s commitment was clear to those involved at the time. In a 2016 hearing<\/a> in front of the Board of Supervisors, Podell\u2019s representative, attorney Steven Vettel, said his client had committed to providing $500,000<\/a> in capital to build out the 10,000 feet community art space. The commitments followed up with a letter<\/a> to then-District 9 Supervisor David Campos bearing Podell\u2019s name on the same date as that hearing.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis letter is to memorialize several revisions that we are prepared to incorporate in the project to address community concerns,\u201d the letter reads. \u201cWe will provide $500,000 in capital funding for tenant improvements to the community arts space in the MOHCD building.\u201d<\/p>\n The buildout was completed this month, but payment has not yet been made.\u00a0<\/p>\n Emails<\/a> obtained by Mission Local show communication from 2021 to April of this year between the two affordable housing developers, the Mission Economic Development Agency<\/a> and the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation<\/a>, and Junius Real Estate Partners<\/a>, a New York company.<\/p>\n Junius appears to represent Podell as his name and a potential payment are referenced throughout the emails. The emails show attempts by the affordable housing developers to obtain the $500,000. Junius and Podell did not reply to multiple emails by Mission Local.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had been working on this draft with Podell and their legal team for some time \u2014 are they out of the picture right now?\u201d a member of the affordable housing team wrote to the investment firm in 2021, in reference to an earlier exchange regarding the ability to include the tenant\u2019s design and engineering cost as an eligible expense.<\/p>\n The Junius representative replied that tenant improvement funds could be disbursed \u201cto whatever entity you want.\u201d<\/p>\n In a later exchange in January of this year, Kevin Straub, a Junius representative, wrote to Jose Garcia, chief real estate officer at MEDA, that the funds were to be sent on completion of the project. Garcia wrote in October \u201ckindly asking\u201d for the $500,000 as construction wrapped up.\u00a0<\/p>\n Junius did not respond to that email, according to Hernandez from Cultura y Arte Nativa de las Americas, which occupies the arts space.<\/p>\n Hernandez hopes the city can help them obtain the funds. The city attorney\u2019s office, for its part, will not acknowledge if it has weighed in on the matter. \u201cAny advice we may have provided to our clients on this topic is confidential under attorney-client privilege,\u201d wrote Jen Kwart, the director of communications at the city attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n When asked who the office\u2019s client was, Kwart said the information was confidential.\u00a0<\/p>\n A general contractor who did work on the arts space is ultimately the party awaiting the half-million-dollar payment.<\/p>\n Podell<\/a> is also the president of Neighbors for a Better San Francisco Advocacy<\/a>, a 501(c)(4) organization that has donated millions to San Francisco politics.\u00a0<\/p>\n Fielder\u2019s request for a hearing did not require a vote. No date has been set.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Few housing projects have been as contentious in San Francisco as the mid-2010s Bryant Street project proposed and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[6702,20812,1011,13133,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-27578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-board-of-supervisors","tag-district-9","tag-housing","tag-jackie-fielder","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27578","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=27578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/102428_MMG_CasaAdelante-3-930x598.jpg\")
A metal gate, designed by nine San Francisco public high school students, features the sun, moon, animals and various craftspeople representing the cultural history of the Mission District. Photo by Mariana Garcia.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Podell-2-853x640.jpg\")
The inside of the art space at 881 Florida St. on Feb. 13, 2025. Photo by Oscar Palma.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Podell-4-853x640.jpg\")
The inside of the art space at 881 Florida St. on Feb. 13, 2025. Photo by Oscar Palma.<\/p>\n