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A Second Chance
by Robert Shurell
Now is a good time to visit “the hill” in Hunters Point. Just make a left off Third
Street at Palou, head up Ingalls Street, and make a left into the Shoreview apartment complex at the very crown of the hill. Stop by the Shoreview Community Center at 35 Lillian Court. Although construction crews are still finishing the renovation of the community center, it is apparent that something major has happened in the neighborhood.
It isn’t just the Shoreview area that’s had a makeover. The All Hallows, La Salle and Bayview complexes have also been completely renovated since the owner, AIMCO, purchased the properties in 1998. AIMCO (Apartment Investment and Management Company) is one of the largest apartment housing owners in the country, boasting somewhere in the neighborhood of 200,000 units. About 40,000 of them provide housing for very low-income tenants whose rent payments are subsidized by the federal government. Of those, 604 are on the hill here in San Francisco.
The buildings were constructed in the mid 1970s, of classically dubious ‘70s quality, and received very little routine maintenance or upgrades (save for a notorious vinyl siding job over the original plywood siding that, in the end, directed water into the wall cavity). By the early 2000s, the buildings were literally falling apart. Years of neglect by tenants with so little at stake in their lodgings had resulted in units with doors falling from the kitchen cabinets, cabinets falling from the walls, and drywall falling from the studs. Years of water directed into the wall cavities created not only crippling dry rot in the wood, but also incubated infamous black mold in the stud cavities in such quantities that it could be scooped out with just cupped hands. To open the walls and expose the mold, abatement teams in space suits were needed because of asbestos in the drywall mud. Toilets and bathtubs with neglected leaks were collapsing through rotting subfloors. Some windows were held into their rough openings with nothing but caulk. Precast concrete “butterfly” stair treads had cracked and chipped to pieces, and their steel attachments to the tube steel stringers had corroded to a point that, although once welded, the treads could simply be lifted from the stringers by a single person.
The list of deficiencies could go on and on. When the San Francisco Department of Housing Inspection realized the condition of the properties, housing inspectors arrived and began investigating housing code violations. At one point, over 120 Notices of Violation were outstanding on the properties.
Diligently, over a period of several years, a team of architects, water intrusion specialists and builders cleared the violations from the title. At the same time, plans for the “big project” were drawn up. The plans had a vast scope that basically took the buildings down to their studs, sheathing and what was left of the interior drywall. It called for new roofs, windows, building paper and siding, flashing all around, and traffic coatings on decks. Each unit would also receive new carpet and linoleum, wall paint, lighting fixtures and closet doors. The bathrooms would get new tubs, toilets, vanities and sinks, and accessories. The rebuilt kitchens would have new cabinets, sinks, dishwashers and disposals. Planned for, but not built due to the logistical and cost implications of major plumbing modifications, were over/under washer and dryer units in closets. This was a major undertaking, but AIMCO was dedicated to both improving the lives of the tenants who called these apartments home and enhancing the quality of their assets.
The $80-million project’s initialization was contingent on clearing the notices of violation from the property titles, allowing HUD refinancing and no-interest construction loan financing from the State of California. With the encouragement of the City of San Francisco, AIMCO pursued financing in 2004 through the California Debt Limit Allocation Committee to secure bond funds for the refurbishing of the properties.
These funds were available because the apartments will be made affordable to
very low-income families through 2020 at a minimum.
The Big Shuffle
During construction of the project, the single largest challenge was the phasing of such a major renovation, as the units were occupied by families throughout construction. At the time construction started, overall occupancy had been reduced to about 60% (by keeping vacated units off of the market, and evicting tenants who historically refused to pay their required portion of the rent). This assisted, although did not solve, the big shuffle during construction.
As the units range from one-bedroom all the way to five-bedroom units, the biggest problem was finding an appropriate unit for each family. Families had to be relocated into units that had already been renovated (nobody could be moved into a trashed apartment). Unfortunately, some tenants, knowing they were only in the apartment temporarily, destroyed the newly renovated space, requiring a second refurbishment.
The phasing took a building-by-building approach, with each building typically housing two to six units each. A building would be completely emptied for reconstruction, but prior to that each family in it would have to be relocated to a new apartment. The goal was to relocate each family only once, as their unit was being readied. However, some situations required a family to relocate up to three times, which was unfortunate but necessary.
You can imagine how confusing it could get, and how easily a family could actually be “lost” on the property. Imagine the fleet of moving trucks (all relocations were paid for by AIMCO; the tenants had only to pack and box their possessions) zooming around the site, with four full construction crews swarming the area, and someone trying to maintain an ever-changing spreadsheet of where 350 families were located.
That attention to detail is what it took, however, for AIMCO to earn the trust of the tenants. When the property was purchased 11 years ago, it had been neglected for so long that the tenants saw any landlord as an evil entity. That distrust and lack of respect for their own living quarters promoted and enhanced the violence well known in the area. During the initial NOV clean-up phase, the contractor was forced to regularly shut down and walk off the job site due to shootings on the property, in broad daylight, sometimes just adjacent to a work site.
In the end, the place looks great. With regular maintenance, the properties should perform solidly for the next 20 to 30 years. All 604 units are currently filled, at 100% occupancy. Crime has gone down, particularly violent gun crime. Individual health is extremely dependent on physical surroundings, and in improving these properties AIMCO has given the tenants tools to use as they improve their lives.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the SFAA or the SF Apartment Magazine. Robert Shurell is a licensed architect with Stantec Architecture and can be contacted at robert.shurell@stantec.com. Copyright © 2009 by Black Point Press. All rights reserved.