The Greenhouse Project -- December 2024 Update
Joelle Kenealey
From: The Greenhouse Project <cai...@sfgreenhouses.org>
Date: Thu, Dec 19, 2024, 1:36 PM
Subject: The Greenhouse Project -- December 2024 Update
Dear Greenhouse Project Advisors and Supporters,
Happy holidays! We’re overdue for a big update. This past year there have been a series of pivotal questions that have required careful consideration and real soul searching. We’re reaching out today with our latest thinking about what’s next for 770 Woolsey. We’ll map out details below but, in short, with no real movement by or communication from the developer, we’ve decided the best thing to do now is to scale back the project’s operations until something significant shifts.
2024 In Review
When the door seemed to close on the full site opportunity in late 2022, we turned our focus to the 17,000 sq ft community parcel we negotiated as a fallback benefit from the developer. Our goal in making this turn was to develop for consideration a robust concept for the small site.
A year ago in November, we shared an initial proposal for Portola Flowers, a production-focused flower farm. Drawing upon our fundamental enthusiasm for the history of the site and the potential of urban agriculture to teach and inspire, Portola Flowers sought to graft the original project goals onto the smaller community parcel. This past spring and summer we engaged key community partners and funders to test the concept while we also monitored the developer’s progress:
Partnership & Focus Group Meetings – This past spring, in collaboration with Sitelab Urban Studio, we hosted a series of meetings with neighborhood collaborators to confirm areas of mission alignment and to gauge interest in long-term partnership (e.g. fiscal, programmatic, etc). The first round of conversations included Alta Vista School, Philip and Sala Burton Academic High School, Family Connections Center, Portola Branch Library, SF Heritage, and The San Francisco School. Later in the spring we held a second round of meetings to explore potential governance structures and to further test the agricultural component of the vision. This round included meetings with SF Parks Alliance, Sam Mogannam from Bi-Rite, and Portola Neighborhood Association.
These many conversations surfaced a clear and broad consensus around child-focused education and play, as well as interest in senior gathering space, self-guided tours, and community event space. Finally, these meetings also clarified key missing pieces, which we’ll elaborate on below.
Portola Community Meeting & Survey – In June, we held a community meeting at El Toro Nightclub, hosted by the Portola Neighborhood Association as part of their Summer Celebration Stroll. We updated an audience of 50+ neighbors about development progress (or really the lack thereof) at 770 Woolsey and presented the Portola Flowers vision, augmented by takeaways from our spring focus group meetings. In collaboration with Sitelab, we also distributed an in-person and online survey, translated to both Spanish and Chinese, gauging current community needs and soliciting reactions to Portola Flowers. We received an impressive 147 responses; a summary of findings is attached.
Developer Monitoring & ARG Consulting – Development of a community asset at 770 Woolsey remains contingent upon the owner moving the entitled housing development project forward and adhering to their legal obligation to deliver the community parcel with significant improvements including rebuilding several structures to the Secretary of Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties. This year we contracted with Architectural Resources Group (ARG) to support our monitoring of the developer’s design and permit activity as well as to help ensure a standards-compliant project.
Missing Pieces and Recalibrating
The most significant challenge to delivering an agricultural operation on the smaller community site is its scale. While we know it’s possible for a production-focused microfarm to operate on ⅓ acre, we also know from experience that ongoing support is necessary to augment sales revenue and maintain financial solvency. While we’ve explored the possibility of a quasi-endowment, this past year we’ve continued to run up against another crucial missing piece: operational partners. It’s clear to us that the success of this project hinges on identifying an operational team – namely farmers and educators – equipped to design, implement, and adapt culturally relevant programming centered around a working urban farm. Unfortunately, as with serious funder conversations, the enormous uncertainty that continues to cloud the future of the site, perhaps today more than ever, has made it virtually impossible to initiate serious partner conversations; the most we’ve been able to do is to gauge hypotheticals. After wrestling with these realities throughout the first half of the year, including discussions with funders and community, we began more actively brainstorming meaningful but less resource intensive alternatives to Portola Flowers.
We’ve arrived at the conclusion that should the developer move forward with their housing plans and build the community parcel as required, the most inspiring use for the space is one that will (a) be shaped directly by a coalition of our partner organizations in the neighborhood (bringing necessary operational capacity), and (b) in keeping with neighborhood partners’s strengths, will follow different contours than Portola Flowers – be it outdoor play-based education, traditional community garden plots, or an events-based, landscaped town square. We’ve concluded that the most meaningful contribution our team can make will be to support our Portola partners in developing such an alternative.
Group I – More Movement without Progress
In June, at the same time that we were grappling with the challenges of the small site for agricultural operations, Group I reached back out to us privately to gauge our interest in purchasing the full site. We of course engaged, albeit without much expectation. In late July, we signed an NDA and received documents from the owner’s lenders which we reviewed with the fee appraiser we worked with back in 2022. With his review complete, in late August we sent follow-up questions to Group I that, in short, sought clarification about the significant delta between our appraiser’s earlier $15M value conclusion and the much higher valuation shared with us (which there were clearly strong grounds to question). We expressed hope for a reasonable reconciliation between the two values.
As of this update, there has been no response from Group I, which we interpret to mean there will be no further conversation.
Moving Forward
The future of the site is unclear. According to public records, it appears Shanghai Commercial Bank Ltd. now owns the property and that while permits were filed in 2023 to develop the entitled project, none have been issued. Group I has not responded to our emails seeking further information as to the current status or plans for the site.
Given all this, we think it prudent to scale back our operations as The Greenhouse Project, including dissolving our part-time staff position and returning to an all-volunteer effort. We of course remain committed to helping bring to fruition the community parcel at 770 Woolsey. This decade-long labor of love, and the incredible community that has rallied behind it, mean the world to each of us. We’re grateful that Sitelab will be on hand to help us map possible paths forward, and we look forward to determining the best ways to support our community partners from here.
We’re in the process of finalizing our 2025 budget accordingly. Please know that we will not be soliciting donations for the coming year, including multi-year gifts, and we’ll be in touch directly with those of you who have offered ongoing support. No matter what the future holds, we’re forever grateful to this community for helping us carry the project so far. If and when the future of the site becomes clearer (e.g permits are issued or the property is listed for sale), we will be back in touch.
With gratitude,
Caitlyn, Juan Carlos, and Nik
The Greenhouse Project