Noah Berger for The Bay Citizen

The Golden Gateway Tennis & Swim Club, site of a proposed condo development, is pictured on Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2011, in San Francisco

Last year, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted, 10 to 1, to quash a condominium project planned for 555 Washington Street, in the shadow of the Transamerica Pyramid. The vote stunned the developers, who were backed by former Mayor Willie L. Brown Jr. and Rose Pak, the Chinatown power broker.

Now, eight months after Brown and Pak engineered the appointment of Edwin M. Lee as interim mayor, another controversial condo project — 8 Washington Street — is moving quickly through the planning department, according to city officials.

The contrasting fortunes of the two developments — just 16 months and five blocks apart — show how a dramatic shift in political power is playing out on the streets of San Francisco, at a time when Lee is favored to win election to a four-year term this fall.

“I think we’ve got a political order in the city that’s more receptive to projects like this one,” Dean Macris, a former director of the San Francisco Planning Department, said of the 8 Washington project.

The 3.2-acre triangle where the developer Simon Snellgrove is proposing to build is one of the most desirable slivers of real estate in San Francisco, with unparalleled views of the bay. The land is directly across the street from the Ferry Building, and is occupied by the Golden Gateway Tennis & Swim Club, a private sports club.

Courtesy SOM

Drawing of Simon Snellgrove's proposed condo development at 8 Washington

Snellgrove is proposing to scale back the tennis club and build a glass and limestone condo complex that would step up from 4 to 12 stories and hold 165 residential units that are expected to be among the priciest in the city.

A coalition of neighborhood groups opposes the project, saying it would destroy the decades-old club and alter the San Francisco skyline. Many of them also fought 555 Washington.

“To give this up for a huge condo project built for the rich hedge-fund executives and an underground parking garage — you’ve got to be kidding me,” said Lee Radner, president of the Friends of the Golden Gateway.

But Snellgrove’s team is confident that 8 Washington will be approved under the new regime at City Hall, and big money is already lining up behind it. The project’s financer, CalSTRS, the state teachers’ retirement fund, has committed $26.7 million to pre-construction costs, and had spent $23 million as of March 31.

“I would like to think there is a more rational and productive debate in City Hall now,” said P..J. Johnston, a spokesman for the developer, attributing the change to “the supervisors as well as the mayor.”

The ill-fated development at 555 Washington, a planned 38-story corkscrew-shaped tower near the Financial District and North Beach, drew the same battle lines between developers and neighborhood activists.

Brown, who oversaw a construction boom during his eight years as mayor, starting in 1996, was a consultant on the project. The developer, Lowe Enterprises, made a donation to the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and secured the support of  Pak, the group’s influential consultant, according to people involved with the project.

“Rose was definitely a supporter,” said Andy Segal, senior vice president of Lowe Enterprises. “We had a lot of support lined up, but just not enough in the end.”

Pak did not return calls seeking comment. Brown declined to comment.

The developers attributed their defeat to former Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who was elected in 2000 as a liberal firebrand who vowed to slow the proliferation of big-money development projects backed by Brown.