A Modest Proposal for a Growing Community

The Problem

Since the rezoning of the Eastern Neighborhoods in 2008, the Dogpatch community has attracted large-scale residential development, yet the City has made little progress in adding public community amenities --“the critical elements of a complete neighborhood” as stated in the City’s adopted Central Waterfront Area Plan.

As quoted from SF Planning:

What are Public Benefits and how will they work in the Eastern Neighborhoods?“The Eastern Neighborhoods Plans propose to provide a full array of public benefits to ensure the development of complete neighborhoods, including open space, improved public transit, transportation, streetscape improvements, community facilities, and affordable housing. To help fund these community improvements the Plans propose an impact fee on new residential and commercial development as well as identifying other funding sources.” 

Got Growth? Yes -- But Zero Public Facilities

We counted: starting in 2010 through 2030, 6000 housing units have been built, are under construction, entitled, or in planning, in Dogpatch ALONE. In fact from Mariposa St. to the north to Caesar Chavez St. to the south, in an area with a population expected to triple by 2020, there are no new public schools, no new public recreation centers, no new city parks, no new public playing fields, no public pools and no new community centers. Dogpatch desperately needs a community space for people of all ages to gather.

While a Historic Public Site Sits, Blighted 

Built in 1912 and 1915, respectively, in the heart of Dogpatch, the historic Potrero Police Station and Hospital are currently abandoned, and for years have attracted illegal activity.

A 2012 fire caused $200K in damage. A 2013 City RFP offered them for lease or sale as surplus property – yet went unanswered.

Today these two unused buildings still sit, as blight, in the heart of our growing neighborhood.

A Solution: The Dogpatch Hub

This public eyesore offers two opportunities:

• Save these derelict yet historic public buildings that tell an important story about Dogpatch history and its connection to Pier 70

AND

• Build a neighborhood hub to serve our community, as well as the entire Central Waterfront, from Mission Bay to India Basin and Potrero Hill—the first of its kind since Dogpatch’s inception over 150 years ago.

Old Potrero Police Station and Hospital History

Inextricably linked to the growth of the Pier 70 Shipyards, the new Potrero Police Station (1) was designed in 1912 by City Architect, John Reid, Jr. in an effort to cope with the expanding population of the Potrero District. Located at the southwest corner of Kentucky and 20th Streets (2300 3rd Street) on what had been an ungraded 60’ outcropping of serpentine rock, the site links Dogpatch to Pier 70’s historic core.

The neighborhood needed its own police station to cope with the increasingly transient and often quarrelsome shipyard laborers, most of whom were single males. The two-story police station is a hybrid essay in the Mediterranean Revival Style, with its scalloped parapet, stucco walls, and Spanish tile roof.

Three years later Mr. Reid designed a similarly detailed public hospital for the southern portion of the same lot (2310 3rd Street). The Potrero Emergency Hospital (2), as it was called, was deemed necessary to cope with the larger number of injured shipyard workers who had little recourse beyond the company dispensary.

Both are contributing buildings to the Dogpatch Historic District.  

Excerpted fromPier70SF.org, the History of Dogpatch by Christopher VerPlanck