In San Francisco, a Developer Proposes Packing People into Underground Pods
The 50-square-foot subterranean sleeping pods are expected to rent for $1,000 to $1,375 a month.
Solutions to San Francisco’s squeezed rental market are getting weirder by the day. Closets become bedrooms; Victorians bought with venture capital become cramped, live-in tech incubators; and coliving dorms—where adults earning a living wage bunk with strangers—are becoming commonplace.
Kentucky-based firm Elsey Partners, which specializes in college campus developments, is cashing in on the new normal. The firm has proposed two apartment buildings in the Mission District with eight levels of 200-square-foot micro apartments—but the real dirt lies underground.
The plans also call for two subterranean levels filled with "sleeping pods"—basically stacked bunk beds that come with privacy curtains, shared kitchens and bathrooms, and rules that address the finer points of living in extreme proximity to a transient population of renters.
88 underground sleeping pods fill the basement levels of two proposed apartment buildings in the Mission District of San Francisco. The 50-square-foot spaces are expected to rent for $1,000 to $1,375 per month.
Courtesy of Elsey Partners
"Obviously, people don’t like it when people come home drunk and belligerent. And no pod sex," Chris Elsey of Elsey Partners told SF Gate. "I think anyone who has been in college, or a dormitory—you’ve had experiences where you prefer that people do those things in private."
Most would agree—but anyone who’s attended college, lived in dorms, or has stayed a single night in a hostel is aware that rule breaking can be hard to curb. Who will police the halls? Will there be RAs? Will they get a discount on the $1,000 monthly pod rental fee?
The arrangement calls to mind SROs that house low-income residents—but at a grand for a below-ground nook, and upwards of $2,375 for a 200-square-foot apartment, they can hardly be considered affordable housing. Still, the developers call each project "a modern-day version of the affordable SRO."
Above ground, each building will feature 200-square-foot apartments that are expected to rent for anywhere from $2,000 to $2,375 per month.
Courtesy of Prime Design
The micro homes seem geared toward bootstrapping tech talent willing to settle—at least at first. One such worker, Nick (who requested I omit his last name), arrived in San Francisco for video game development. Like-minded folks suggested he try a coliving arrangement, and the simplicity appealed to him—no utility bills, relatively low rent, no lease agreement, and a social environment. But with simplicity came caveats.
"I shared a room and a bunk bed with a complete stranger, on a floor with 16 other rooms with other people who were doing the same thing," says Nick, whose building spilled out into the seedier parts of the Tenderloin. "Each floor had shared bathrooms, and the whole place was really poorly taken care of. It got old pretty fast," he said, laughing.
Each pod comes with access to shared living areas, bathrooms, and kitchens. The proposed development continues a trend toward bunk-style living arrangements that have become commonplace in San Francisco.
Courtesy of Elsey Partners
See the full story on Dwell.com: In San Francisco, a Developer Proposes Packing People into Underground Pods
