Note: This story has been updated to include the results of Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors hearing and vote.
A sprawling Marina District building designed by San Francisco’s most famous homegrown architect became a city landmark only six months ago. It’s already embroiled in a fight in which each side claims the other is in danger of destroying this SF classic forever.
“We all as San Franciscans have a stake in this site. This is a very important project to get right,” Historic Preservation Commissioner Hans Baldauf said at an April hearing to discuss the fate of the Julia Morgan Building at 3400 Laguna Street, just south of Fort Mason.
The three-story brick building, bedecked with terra cotta details and stained glass, dates back to 1925 and has always been a care home. Its nonprofit owners go all the way back to 1853, when the San Francisco Ladies Protection and Relief Society was founded to shelter women and children left “sick and dependent” during the Gold Rush. The society later expanded to caring for the elderly.
The Relief Society building and other buildings on the property are now home to seniors, with room for 86 residents, and the longtime owners want to renovate and expand. They say the work includes critical maintenance and will help them remain economically viable.
On the other side of the fence — literally — a coalition of neighbors who call themselves Save the Marina’s Heritage warn that the work will ruin the the site forever. There are no significant visible changes proposed to the Morgan Building’s exterior. An environmental impact report says proposed changes will in fact remove elements that mar the building’s historic nature, such as an unsightly loading dock.
Still, opponents have invoked a procedural maneuver that’s as oh-so-San Francisco as Julia Morgan’s legacy. Because the facility needs special permits to operate in this residential neighborhood, the city’s land use rules allowed opponents to appeal a planning decision to the Board of Supervisors — 11 elected officials — to make what often becomes a political decision.
That decision came Tuesday at the board’s regular meeting. The hearing started late after union members, protesting the mayor’s plan to cut 100 city jobs, interrupted proceedings for 90 minutes.
The appeal and public comment took up more than two hours. Supervisors eventually voted 10-1 to deny the appeal and confirm the Planning Commission’s approval of the project. But that’s not necessarily the end of the story.
So much heritage
The owners of the Julia Morgan Building and its surrounding property are now known as Heritage on the Marina. (Or just The Heritage as it’s often called.)
They commissioned Morgan for the work in 1925 on land donated after the 1915 World’s Fair. Last December the city officially designated it a landmark, calling it “an excellent, rare, and well-preserved example of Jacobethan Revival style.” The campus, which takes up about half the city block, includes four other structures built between 1928 and 1963.
In 2023, the most recent year for which the Heritage has released financial data, the home took in about $6.5 million in service fees (rent plus living and health expenses) from tenants.
The $30 million renovation plan would add 58,000 square feet of space, nearly double the median room size to about 800 square feet, and add space for 23 more residents.
The Heritage says the expansion is a route to continued solvency without raising fees. “Raising revenue on the backs of our senior residents is not something we want to do,” Heritage board chair Randy Gridley said at a joint hearing of the city’s Planning Commission and Historic Preservation Commission in April.
This will mean demolishing two structures, which planners have said are not historically significant. The centerpiece Julia Morgan Building will see internal renovations but remain unchanged outside. New buildings will not exceed the 40-foot height limit for the block.
Page & Turnbull, the same SF historical consulting firm that helped rehab the Ferry Building, signed off on Heritage’s plans. Woody LaBounty, president of San Francisco Heritage (not to be confused with Heritage On the Marina or Save the Marina’s Heritage) told planners in April that his group does not oppose the project “in its current form.”
So why the opposition? Start with the views.
Some kind of monster
Unlike many complaints about development in San Francisco, neighbors aren’t fretting over their views of, say, the Bay or the Golden Gate Bridge. They say the upgrades will keep them from gazing upon the now-officially-historic building itself.
“The expansion will completely block the view of the Julia Morgan Building from three sides,” Steve Williams, a lawyer for Save the Marina’s Heritage, tells The Frisc.
The new buildings will be 40 feet tall, but based on filings that height doesn’t include “rooftop appurtenances” like roof decks, elevator enclosures, and solar panels. Those are legal to add to the base height, but Williams complains they will further obstruct views. He calls the expansion “The Monster In the Marina.”
At the April hearing, historic preservation consultant Christopher Van Planck testified that the construction will “physically dwarf and shadow the Morgan Building” and relegate it to “backwater status” on the block.
SMH spokesperson Tania Albukerk went a step further and said the upgrades “will destroy this landmark even if the building itself is minimally changed.”
The neighbors also allege The Heritage has been breaking rules around their facility for years. Williams tells The Frisc it has bought up nearby rent-controlled buildings and incorporated them into the care facility campus.
In 2023, the Planning Department investigated the complaints but found no violations. Deputy director Rich Sucré reiterated those findings yesterday, while calling the neighbors’ allegation “a bit irrelevant.” Williams says planners have been derelict in their duty.
They’re leaving the historic building alone, I’m not sure what else anyone could want.
sup. myrna melgar, land use committee chair
Neither The Heritage nor its lawyers responded to multiple requests for comment. In a letter to the Board of Supervisors ahead of yesterday’s meeting, Heritage lawyer Alan Murphy said the Planning Commission already approved the environmental review that “correctly concluded that the proposed project will not materially impair the significance of the historic resources on the property.”
Breaking precedent
At the joint April hearing, commissioners unanimously approved the review but stopped short of a full green light. They called the project summary too vague. Yesterday’s board vote gives the commission leeway to refer the case to the city’s Architectural Review Committee (ARC), which could require more detail from The Heritage.
Traditionally, when projects have come to the board on appeal, supervisors have deferred to their colleague whose district hosts the site. That decorum went out the window in 2021, when a majority overruled Sup. Matt Haney and shot down a proposed 24-story South of Market residential tower.
Before the vote, at least one supervisor seemed skeptical of the appeal. “They’re leaving the historic building alone, I’m not sure what else anyone could want,” said Sup. Myrna Melgar at a public discussion last week moderated by The Frisc. (Melgar added that she had not decided which way to vote, since she hadn’t yet heard the appeals.)
Sup. Stephen Sherrill, whose district covers The Heritage, led the board yesterday through a series of amendments and votes that sent the expansion back to Planning for final review. Only Sup. Connie Chan voted no. Chan was not immediately available for comment.
Williams, attorney for the Marina neighbors, tells The Frisc he believes they could prevail in court. He did not say if his clients would pursue a lawsuit.
Correction, 6/17/25: The original version of this story misidentified the Architectural Review Committee as the Architectural Review Board.
