FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 21, 2025 [SAN FRANCISCO]—San Francisco Heritage, the city’s leading preservation nonprofit, protests a planned demolition of 447 Battery Street, one of San Francisco’s 320 designated city landmarks, and calls on the Board of Supervisors to preserve the building.
As part of a proposed development agreement between the city and developer Related California, 447 Battery Street—the former Jones Thierbach Coffee Company warehouse and San Francisco Landmark no. 299—is proposed for demolition to make way for a mixed-use luxury office/hotel tower at 530 Sansome Street and new city fire station.
“This is unprecedented,” said Woody LaBounty, SF Heritage President & CEO. “Since the city’s landmarks program establishment in the late 1960s, only 320 have been designated and none have been intentionally destroyed.”
The city’s Historic Preservation Commission last Wednesday declined to rescind the status of 447 Battery Street as a city landmark. The Planning Commission on Thursday endorsed the development agreement by certifying the final Environmental Impact Report and adopted findings under the California Environmental Quality Act. The final decision now lies with the Board of Supervisors.
The 530 Sansome project agreement—changed to accommodate the requests of the developers to encompass the city landmark just last November—has community benefits and key terms addressing parks, affordable housing, and arts funding. The agreement, however, offers no investment in preservation work even as it calls for the destruction of a designated city landmark.
“Landmarks are more than old or attractive buildings,” LaBounty said. “From the Mission Cultural Center to the Rainbow Flag in the Castro to City Cemetery in Lincoln Park, they tell our collective story. By establishing that they can be erased for needs of the moment we open the door to losing any of them.”
San Francisco has more than 200,000 parcels, but only 320 designated landmarks under Article 10 of the Planning Code. The purpose of Article 10 is described as necessary to promote the health, safety, and general welfare of the public through, in part, “the enrichment of human life in its educational and cultural dimensions…by fostering knowledge of the living heritage of the past.”
Landmark designations are increasingly one of the last tools to safeguard special places as state streamlining laws and proposed upzoning plans strip planning reviews and public comment. San Francisco Heritage calls on the Board of Supervisors to respect our city’s architectural heritage, our shared past, and to preserve 447 Battery for future San Franciscans.
“The city has not been kind to preservation in 2025,” LaBounty says. “First delaying hearing of a North Beach National Register historic district, then the mayor’s budget cutting the position of the legacy business manager, and now this proposal to demolish a landmark…We urge our city’s leadership to start taking meaningful actions to preserve our special places.”
About San Francisco Heritage: San Francisco Heritage is a 501(c)(3) membership organization that preserves and enhances San Francisco’s unique architectural and cultural identity. Its programs and partnerships interpret, share, and celebrate the shared histories, landscapes, and communities of the city to instill optimism, belonging, and purpose. www.sfheritage.org
Media Contact:
Kerri Young
Programs and Communications Director
San Francisco Heritage
415-483-4774
kyoung@sfheritage.org
