The Planning Department is currently reviewing a proposal to turn ground-floor public open space at 50 Fremont Center into a child care center for the families of Salesforce employees.

According to the environmental review notice Planning sent to surrounding building owners this week, 50 Fremont Center is a 43-story office building with 837,443 gross square feet of office space and 15,445 of privately-owned public open space (POPOS). The POPOS at 50 Fremont includes a pedestrian mall and mid-block plaza with public seating. However, the construction of 50 Fremont was approved in 1985, before the Downtown Plan, which requires private developers of large office developments to create and maintain onsite publicly accessible spaces indefinitely, was enacted. "Thus, the proposed project is not subject to the minimum requirements for the provision of POPOS as prescribed in Planning Code Section 138," the document concludes. 

 Salesforce announced in November of last year that it would purchase 50 Fremont Center for $640 million to expand its global headquarters in San Francisco.

If the child care center is approved, it will convert 4,529 square feet of ground-floor restaurant and office space, 8,152 square feet of second-floor office space, and 8,900 square feet of outdoor public open space into an indoor-outdoor child care facility for infants through pre-school age children.

We reached out to Salesforce to learn more about these plans, and particularly whether any studies have been done on usage of the existing public open space. The company issued the following statement: "As San Francisco’s largest tech employer, Salesforce is always looking for new ways to support its local employees, many of whom are working parents. We’re currently working with the City on plans for a new child care facility at our 50 Fremont location. For more information on this process, please contact the San Francisco Planning Department or see our application on the Planning Department’s website."

While the public open space at 50 Fremont isn't an official POPOS, protecting public spaces in the dense SoMa area has been a popular topic as of late.

This week, the Board of Supervisors reviewed an appeal of the massive 5M Project. Among the appellants' many arguments against the project was an assertion that the city did not sufficiently analyze the potential impacts of the high-rises on open public spaces in SoMa and the Tenderloin, or the quality of new open spaces the developer proposed as part of the project. A number of residents also turned up at the Planning Commission last month to speak out against the 363 6th St. residential development, which would increase shadows on Gene Friend Recreation Center by .02 percent per year. Both developments ultimately received approvals.

As for regulating actual POPOS, heads turned earlier this year when the Planning Department began enforcement and learned that two mandated public spaces at the InterContinental Hotel were not up to code. To help address the problem, Supervisor Jane Kim introduced legislation that would allow the InterContinental Hotel and other land owners to pay an in-lieu fee per square foot in order to take existing POPOS private. Kim's office ultimately abandoned that legislation, stating that "the fee structure proposed was not agreeable to those developers interested and the conversation has more or less stopped there."

In response to our questions regarding whether plans are underway to brig the InterContinental's POPOS into compliance with the Planning Code, a Planning Department spokesperson, Candace Soohoo, stated that "the Department is currently in conversation with the project applicant/hotel."

But public open space isn't the only amenity in demand south of Market, where the population of workers and residences is booming. During the Board of Supervisors' review of the 5M Project this week, Supervisor Yee stated that, when planning office and commercial space, "the thing that gets lost is the notion of the child care facilities that need to be built," and pointed out that the two child care centers within walking distance of the project site are consistently at capacity. He then announced that in final-hour conversations with Forest City, the developer agreed to make a good-faith effort to include a 3,000-square-foot child care center in the development. While three supervisors sided with the appellants and voted against the development, none voted against including a child care center in the developer's community benefit agreement with the city.

As for Salesforce's child care center proposal, Planning Department representative Gina Simi explained via email that a permit review notice will likely be issued to surrounding neighbors next week. "If no request for Planning Commission review pursuant to Subsection (g) is made within 10 days of such notice, the Zoning Administrator shall approve the application."

Thank you reader Patrick C. for tipping us off.