The renovation of the New Mission Theater at 21st and Mission streets is scheduled to begin this summer, bringing a “dinner and movie” style experience to the Mission.
The Alamo Drafthouse Theater will feature indie, foreign and classic films on five screens along with live events. It will also include a restaurant and bar with special dinner-and-movie shows accompanying themes paired with the movie being shown.
Along with the theater, an 8-story building replacing the dilapidated Value Giant next door will be converted into a mix of offices, retail space and market value one- and two-bedroom condos.
Victor M. Marquez, legal counsel for Alamo Drafthouse and construction firm Oyster Development, said the project is right on schedule. It will begin in late July or early August, with an estimated completion date of late 2014 to early 2015, while marketing for the condos will begin in early 2014.
With any new development in the city, developers are required to dedicate 15 percent of new units to affordable housing or pay a fee that would help build affordable housing somewhere else. In this case affordable housing will be constructed at Shotwell and Cesar Chavez streets.
According to the San Francisco Planning Commission this location will work out better for the community because 46 units will become available, whereas only 14 units would have been available had they been included in the Mission Street development.
“We’ve worked very closely with the community and the Housing Authority to ensure that we got the maximum amount of units for this development,” said Marquez.
The stretch of Mission Street between 16th and Cesar Chavez streets was known as “the Mission Miracle Mile” during the 1940s and ‘50s, being one of the largest shopping and entertainment districts in San Francisco.
“The Mission is unique because it’s the only neighborhood in the Bay Area that has two BART stations,” said Phil Lesser, manager of the Mission Miracle Mile Business Improvement District. “This project will in effect put more people between the BART stations, encouraging both transit use and overall economic growth.”
Business owners near the new development feel it will have a positive effect on the neighborhood.
“[The] development is good because it will bring more people, which is good for business and the overall community,” Amanda Ngo, owner of Duc Loi, a grocery store at corner of 18th and Mission streets
Lesser hopes The Mission Miracle Mile Business Improvement District can return the area to its earlier grandeur.
“[The] development will bring people going in and out of buildings, which is a good thing, where as people languishing about on the street is a bad thing.”