SF State plans to demolish two on-campus housing sites and replace them with a new mixed-use Creative Arts building, which will include dorms, classrooms, retail stores, and an 800-seat concert hall.
The new building is part of the University’s Master Plan, which incorporates the construction of the Wellness Center and other replacement buildings including Clinical Sciences and Behavioral and Social Sciences. The plan states it will demolish the dorms located in Tapia Triangle which includes 54 units of student housing and six non-student apartment units in the fall of 2017 and replace them over a two-year stretch.
“SF State has offered to relocate those residents to other existing on-campus housing within the year,” Morales said. “The University will pay all relocation costs.”
According to the Master Plan, the University is preparing the campus to support a proposed increase of 20,000 to 25,000 full-time students by the year 2020. The plan will add 800,000 gross square feet of new academic space.
University spokesperson Jonathan Morales said the plan, which was written in 2007 before the economic crisis, can be changed at any time but as far as he knows, it’s on track. Morales said the six non-student apartments at Tapia Triangle will not be replaced, but will be absorbed into regular campus housing.
“There is a huge shortfall of student housing in San Francisco,” said Tim Colen, director of San Francisco Housing Action Coalition. “If you take all of the students at any accredited school school in San Francisco, there is a shortfall of about 60,000 to 80,000 beds in student housing.”
Colen said that it is very difficult logistically to move students, however, he expressed that the SFHAC is excited for SF State to expand student housing.
Alina Castillo, a photojournalism major who transferred to SF State from Sacramento City College, said the process of getting housing on campus was a stressful one. It wasn’t until the end of June or early July when she finally got a confirmation email that she had a space in University Park South.
Castillo says she has mixed feelings on whether the new building would be an improvement for the University.
“As a musician, a concert hall would be pretty cool,” Castillo said, “It would be worth it in the long run but parking would be crazy with the retail shops and it sucks that they’re making housing that much smaller (temporarily).”
