Zusha Elinson/The Bay Citizen

The view of Market Street and City Hall from Trinity Place. Demolition will begin in the next few weeks on a small portion of the yellow building in the foreground. It will be rebuilt into a 22-story apartment building.

Soon a 22-story apartment building will rise near San Francisco's Civic Center.

It will replace the defunct yellow low-rise hotel across from the Orpheum Theater. And it’s the next piece in the ambitious 1,900-unit development called Trinity Place by storied San Francisco real estate mogul Angelo Sangiacomo.

The construction, expected to start in late summer, will not only change the face of Market Street, but also continue to rebuild Sangiacomo’s image, according to some observers. He is often referred to as the “father of rent control” because his unilateral rent increases spurred San Francisco’s tough rent-control laws. But the deal he cut in 2005 to give low-income residents of the old buildings new apartments at the same rent-controlled price won him the plaudits of San Francisco’s staunch tenant advocates. 

“The Trinity tenants all end up with dramatically better housing,” said Randy Shaw of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, who helped broker the deal along with then-Supervisor Chris Daly. “He not only kept his word, he went beyond his word. … I think he has changed his image.”  

On a walking tour of Trinity Wednesday, Trinity Properties CFO Walter Schmidt said that demolition of 60 units of the low-rise building next to the existing tower will begin in the next few weeks.

Zusha Elinson/The Bay Citizen

The 24-story tower on Mission Street is complete

Originally part of a Del Webb hotel, complete with a pool, the yellow building will get an additional 418 units in the rebuild and reach 22 stories.

While many developers have put projects on hold because they can't get banks to lend them money in the down economy, Trinity is moving forward because it's not relying on lenders, Schmidt said. The project has been financed "internally," he said. 

The first phase, a 24-story building on Mission Street, is already built. Of the apartments there, 360 were kept under rent control; 225 of the original tenants living in the complex moved into new apartments in the building with their same low rents.

Trinity used an out-of-town architect, Bernardo Fort-Brescia of Arquitectonica. His firm is based in Miami — and it shows. Several people on the tour, which was arranged by the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, commented that the building had a Miami feel, especially the lobby with its glassy exterior and zebra-striped marble-covered walls. You can see the designs here.

This map shows the location of the Trinity Place development:

View Trinity Place in a larger map