San Francisco approves ambitious Lennar project
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - San Francisco voters have approved a measure allowing Lennar Corp to move forward with the biggest redevelopment effort in the city since World War II, according to election results on Wednesday.
The measure was passing 61 percent to 39 percent and a rival measure that would have trimmed Lennar's plan for the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard and neighboring Candlestick Point area was failing by 38 percent to 62 percent, according to unofficial results from an election on Tuesday.
Lennar could begin breaking ground as early as 2010, depending on the pace of land transfers by the U.S. Navy to San Francisco and necessary environmental remediation, according to a local spokesman for the Miami-based home builder.
Lennar Chief Investment Officer Emile Haddad said redeveloping Hunters Point and its surrounding area would be a landmark effort for the company.
"As an urban project, this is definitely the most ambitious one," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.
Lennar plans to build up to 10,000 homes, including up to 3,500 affordable housing units, up to 2 million square feet of commercial space and up to 750,000 square feet of retail space on the property along San Francisco Bay.
Additionally, Lennar would set aside land and provide $100 million to help build a new and privately financed stadium for the San Francisco 49ers.
The referendum passed by San Francisco voters on Tuesday undoes a 1997 measure that would have allowed the city to sell $100 million in debt to build a new 49ers stadium.
The owners of the National Football League franchise are in talks with Santa Clara, California, about building a new stadium there for the team.
Lennar has been working to redevelop the shipyard and the surrounding area since 1999. Its efforts have intensified in recent years and were helped by the 49ers' announcement in 2006 that they aimed to move.
Prominent officials, including San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and two high-profile city residents, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, had supported the measure backed by voters on Tuesday.
Haddad said the victory may add momentum for Lennar's bid to redevelop Treasure Island, another decommissioned U.S. Navy base in the San Francisco Bay area.
"We're hopeful that it will be very much on track with Hunters Point," he said. "Our hope is that they're going to come on line almost at the same time."
Lennar's other projects involving former military installations in California include redeveloping the Navy's former Mare Island facility in Vallejo to include new homes and a planned 3,600 homes and 4 million square feet of nonresidential space on the U.S. Marine Corps' former El Toro air station in Irvine. The former air station will also have a park larger than New York City's Central Park.
(Editing by Jan Paschal)
