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Parkmerced: Imagines A Better Future
By PJ Johnston
When my parents brought me home from St. Mary’s Hospital, exactly 40 summers ago, they squeezed me into their uncomfortable little apartment at Parkmerced. Even in 1969, this cookie-cutter community on the southwest corner of San Francisco was long past its heyday.
(Photo: Proposed Juan Batista Circle)
The ensuing decades were not any kinder to Parkmerced. A series
of owners, including the infamous Leona Helmsley, seemed to
specialize in unbenign neglect, and by the turn of the century
whatever anachronistic charm this postwar experiment in “suburban
living within city limits” may have exuded had seriously deteriorated.
Things began looking up in 2005, when new owners took over Parkmerced and embarked on a mission to attack the long-deferred maintenance, vastly improve current living conditions and launch a massive revitalization effort that will transform Parkmerced into one of the best neighborhoods in San Franicsco.
(Photo: A typical Parkmerced street)
It may not be easy at the moment, but imagine a Parkmerced thriving with life, no longer dormant and dependent on cars squeezing through a maze of unsafe streets. Imagine a Parkmerced that grows its own food, refills Lake Merced and provides a healthy living environment for its residents and neighbors. Imagine learning from the mistakes of the last 60 years and beginning the 21st century with a more enlightened way of life.
Currently, Parkmerced can only be considered unsustainable, economically and environmentally. But with city approvals just around the corner, positive change is about to come to the southwest corner of the City.
There are two basic dwelling types at Parkmerced: midrise towers and attached, single-unit “garden apartments.” The project was built quickly, by Metropolitan Life, during and just after World War II. Most of the so-called garden apartments were built during wartime material rationing, using quick and inexpensive wood and plaster construction techniques, poorly detailed for weather tightness. As a result, constant repair and remediation is necessary to keep them habitable (the current ownership has spent more than $130 million on upgrades, repair and maintenance since purchasing the property).
Consequently, the garden apartments have ongoing material decay and water intrusion. In addition, they lack wall insulations, contain inefficient fixtures and appliances, have undersized electric service and are not ADA accessible.
These highly consumptive conditions extend throughout the development, and include heavy use of cars by tenants due to retail and transit inaccessibility.
The 1940s landscape is another prime example: maintaining the expansive lawns and open boulevards, along with wide unusable spaces, require the application of tons of fertilizer and wastes millions of gallons of drinking water annually. In fact, actual metering shows the consumption of 55,000,000 gallons of potable water per year – just for irrigation.
What the team at Parkmerced is creating is a 21st Century eco-neighborhood with sustainable construction, employing renewable and alternative energy.
Parkmerced, with its urban planners and environmental experts, is developing a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood that will:
• radically reduce automobile dependency
• provide much improved access to transit
• create concentrated and more usable open spaces (using native materials that minimize water requirements and maximize species diversity)
And it’s allowing for the continued harvesting of constantly evolving environmental technologies to reduce energy and water usage.
Parkmerced’s preliminary engineering studies have been a revelation. The experts are confident they will be able to reduce potable water consumption and energy consumption by more than 60% per dwelling and daily car trips by more than 50% per dwelling.
Just as significantly, Parkmerced will be employing natural filtration and bio-swales to recapture rainwater – diverting it from the sewer system – and directly re-charge Lake Merced, which has suffered significantly over the decades from the encroachment on its natural watershed.
A sustainable farm is one of the most exciting aspects of the Parkmerced Vision! The acreage currently being considered for the micro-farm, or “Community Supported Agriculture,” is 2 ½ to 3 acres; the farm will yield food for residents, supply an on-site restaurant and serve as a learning opportunity for young people.
Just as importantly, the plan for Parkmerced will directly address the City’s housing shortage for households at all income levels. Over a period of 15 to 20 years, the project will construct 5,679 net new residences and a social core comprising new office, retail and open spaces to serve the neighborhood – with a healthy mix of for-sale and rental units.
Moreover, Parkmerced is ready to commit the resources to improve transportation in the area – something that hasn’t happened on the West Side over the past 40 years! And the reality is San Francisco must combine density with transit accessibility. Through innovations like a rerouted Muni line and an “eco-shuttle” to Daly City BART, Parkmerced will become a neighborhood where car use is an option, not a necessity.
The social core will be within comfortable walking distance of all residences at Parkmerced, and will allow residents to purchase groceries and other goods and services without the use of an automobile. Through livability, will come vitality. This is the intelligent alternative to continued sprawl in the Bay Area.
Some say Parkmerced should be frozen in time as a “cultural landmark.” That the buildings at Parkmerced – which amount to a single housing project built by an insurance company, within an accelerated timeframe, utilizing a design repeated from other projects MetLife had done on the East Coast – should never be touched. That the neighborhood should be allowed to languish forever.
Setting aside the more dubious aspects of Parkmerced’s history (its segregated beginnings, its deterioration during the Helmsley years, etc.), it seems more than a little impractical, and totally unsustainable, to freeze 155 acres within San Francisco as an artificial, 1940s-era suburban time capsule. That just can’t be reconciled with the living needs of the City, especially when positive transformation is so clearly required.
And while the neighborhood’s infrastructure seriously deteriorated over the years, Parkmerced has remained a community that houses a full cross-section of San Franciscans, just like the rest of the City. The new owners’ vision is to enhance that healthy mix of income levels, while attracting more families to Parkmerced … only this time with a truly thriving social heart at its center and a communitywide focus on urban sustainability.
In these challenging times, imagine all the jobs this 15-20 year project will generate! Imagine the beautiful new homes. Imagine the healthier environment. Imagine a replenished Lake Merced. Imagine transportation improvements. Imagine a safer, healthier neighborhood.
So maybe 40 summers from now – or perhaps just a dozen – new parents will be absolutely thrilled to bring their babies home to Parkmerced.
This is the future for Parkmerced. Just imagine.
PJ Johnston is a local media consultant, former newspaper journalist and fourth-generation San Franciscan. Illustration by Charles Grubbe, / Skidmore, Owens & Merrill. For more information about the plans for Parkmerced, go to www.ParkmercedVision.com.
September 2009
Parkmerced May Meet Its Match
The Highly Acclaimed Thomas Church Design Falls Prey to Ongoing Development
Preservationists are a hardy bunch, used to unexpected developments in the course of their work, but rarely surprised by the constant parade of new plans for old buildings (or the building’s site). But one project on the boards makes even the seasoned professionals gasp: a plan to remove 170 two-story houses and clear nearly 116 acres in San Francisco, including an extensive landscape plan created by Thomas Dolliver Church, the celebrated founder of modern residential landscape design in the United States.
Parkmerced was developed during World War II and the immediate postwar era as part of Met-Life’s nationwide effort to provide for the housing needs. It is one of four such comprehensively planned residential communities remaining in the country and is particularly unique in its integration of housing, circulation, and landscape design. Now, the whole is to be replaced with new buildings between one and fourteen-stories high, with an additional 310,000 gross square feet of commercial and retail services (about the same square footage as three Wal-Mart stores). The only original structures spared in this wholesale clearance are 11 thirteen-story towers.
Preservationists now find themselves in the position of defending a cultural landscape that is on the fringe of public understanding in terms of historic significance, and itself a project of huge proportions. The process of creating an argument that effectively conveys the importance of the site, and doing so quickly and efficiently, is one of the biggest hurdles facing the National Trust for Historic Preservation, The Cultural Landscape Foundation, and the several citizens groups working to save Parkmerced.
Citizens, preservationists, and developers alike attended a recent scoping meeting, held at a local YMCA. Under the California Environmental Quality Act, the scoping period is intended to help the lead agency identify feasible alternatives to the proposed action to be explored in the environmental impact statement. Several displays were on hand for the project proponent’s plan to re-design Parkmerced over the next three decades. Even on paper, the plan is oversized. From the Notice of Preparation: “The proposed Parkmerced Project is a long-term mixed-use development program to comprehensively re-plan and redesign the Parkmerced site, increase residential density, provide new commercial and retail services and transit facilities, and improve utilities within the development site. About 1,683 of the existing apartments located in 11 tower buildings would be maintained, and over a period of 30 years, the remaining 1,538 existing apartments would be demolished in phases and fully replaced, and an additional 5,679 net new units would be added to the Project Site.” The landscape would be heavily graded so all rain water would filter into a pond at the current site of Juan Bautista circle, the streets redesigned, and underground parking constructed.
Noticeably absent from the displays on hand were existing conditions of the site and the recent determination, completed by the research and history firm Page & Turnbull, that the site was eligible for the National and California Registers as an historic district.
The public meeting started with a brief presentation from the proponent showing the intent for Parkmerced and focusing on “sustainability” concepts. The representative then suggested that the townhomes were built as “temporary” structures, naturally nearing the end of their productive lives with no mention of the historic importance of the landscape.
All but a few of the thirty to forty speakers were ardently opposed to the project. Many were near to early retirees and had concerns that they were being forced to choose between spending the last years of their lives in a construction zone or move out. Several speakers said they lived in Parkmerced for more than 20 years, one woman for 50 years. There were, as usual, concerns with traffic, but the sense of community preservation was also very strong. Several people who grew up in the apartments lamented that the redevelopment would force people out, similar to the process undertaken in the Fillmore years earlier. One person jokingly cried “Where’s Leona Helmsly when you need her?” Most spoke favorably of the proximity of their homes to the outdoors and the integration of the landscape with housing. One common concern is that the development would be primarily used as dormitories by the adjacent San Francisco State University.
Parkmerced Other advocates spoke out against the proposed new development at the scoping meeting included Andrew Wolfram with DOCOMOMO US/Northern California Chapter and Aaron Goodman with the Parkmerced Residents’ Organization (PRO). Though PRO hasn’t formally taken a stance on the issue, Goodman expressed grave concerns that Parkmerced management has been modifying portions of the landscape without respect for its historic design.
The project approvals that will be required are extensive – California Environmental Quality Act for planning code and general plan amendments, a Coastal Zone permit, and a Section 404 (Clean Water Act) permit that will trigger Section 106 review. The Environmental Impact Report must discuss the magnitude of the new plan’s impact to local, state, and national history and evaluate feasible alternatives. The National Trust believes strongly that project goals to increase density and environmental sustainability can be achieved without demolishing the existing townhomes and landscapes.
It is imperative that the California Environmental Quality Act analysis for the project include a feasible preservation alternative that meets a reasonable number of the project objectives and complies with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards. Such an alternative may include the newly proposed environmental contributions to Parkmerced such as energy retrofits, water recapture, and transportation improvements. Sustainability and historic preservation are not mutually exclusive.
In short, this pattern of total removal and re-development is fiscally irresponsible, culturally insensitive, environmentally disastrous, and ultimately unsustainable. The good news is there are still alternatives – and a little time – for supporters to act on behalf of Parkmerced.
More on Parkmerced: www.tclf.org/landslide/parkmerced Christine Madrid French is the Director of the Modernism + Recent Past Initiative for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Her colleague and co-author, Brian R. Turner, is the Regional Attorney for the Western Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
July/August 2009
Parkmerced
featured in “Marvels of Modernism" Exhibit
The design and gardens of Parkmerced have been selected as a premier site for The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s exhibit —“Landslide: Marvels of Modernism”.
The Cultural Landscape Foundation, the only not-for-profit foundation in America, is dedicated to increasing the public’s awareness of the important legacy of cultural landscapes and to helping save them for the future. “Marvels of Modernism” opened at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, NY, in November 2008 and remained at the Museum until Mid-January 2009. Since January the exhibit has been traveling across the country, sponsored, in part, by San Francisco design and furniture firm, Design Within Reach.
Of the 12 sites selected, the Bay Area figured prominently, with the gardens of “Parkmerced”, off of 19th Avenue, and the “Kaiser Roof Gardens” at the Kaiser Center in Oakland featured in the exhibit.
The description that accompanies the photo by Tom Fox, featured in the TCLF’s exhibit, describes the gardens. “Parkmerced was designed as a city within a city by architect Leonard Schultze and Associates with planning and landscape architecture by Thomas D. Church with Robert Royston. Its revolutionary site plan artfully melds individual housing units on pie-shaped blocks, vehicular and pedestrian traffic, and a large central circle covered by a lush tree canopy. Today it is one of this country’s four remaining examples of large-scale, post-World War II urban planning. Unfortunately, there are numerous threats to the design, including plans by San Francisco State University and a private developer to subdivide the property, and recent re-planting and redesign of its historic traffic circles.”
The aerial photo by photographer Mix shows the unique and intricate design that encompasses Parkmerced, one of the largest planned rental communities in the Western U.S.
Feb. 2009
