John and Raelynn Hickey no longer control the old Sloat Garden Center site, but that has not stopped them from trying to shape its future. The couple is back at the San Francisco Planning Department with a new entitlement application for roughly 682 housing units on the parcels across from the San Francisco Zoo. The latest high-rise pitch, layered over a messy legal backdrop, is reigniting debate over who will actually get to build on this Ocean Beach adjacent lot.
Foreclosure, auction and the new application
Last month, the Hickeys submitted a new application for a 100% affordable high-rise even as their lender moved to seize the property. Lone Oak Fund took control of the two parcels at 2700 and 2750 Sloat Boulevard through judicial foreclosure and, at a recent auction, used a credit bid that effectively transferred ownership of the lots, according to reporting from The San Francisco Standard.
What the plan would build
The newest filing sketches out two 24-story towers with about 682 apartments, most of them deed restricted as affordable, along with limited ground-floor retail and space set aside for a possible grocery store, according to local coverage. Solomon Cordwell Buenz is listed as the architect on the application, and public sales records show the Hickeys paid roughly $8.55 million for the parcels in 2020. Project details are laid out by SF YIMBY, while title history is documented on PropertyShark.
Loan default and legal steps
The filing comes on the heels of a default on a roughly $10 million loan that pushed Lone Oak to begin foreclosure proceedings earlier this year, according to prior reporting from The Real Deal. Court listings and receivership calendars show Lone Oak pressing legal action to recover the debt and clear title, as reflected in posted court listings.
What planners and architects say
Industry trackers show the Sloat Garden Center proposal has already gone through multiple reinventions, starting with an early 50-story concept and cycling through lower mid-rise options as the design team and entitlement strategy shifted. Trade coverage and permit summaries list Solomon Cordwell Buenz on earlier filings and trace how the project has tried different paths through the city’s approval maze. A timeline of the key changes is compiled by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat at CTBUH.
As The SF Standard wrote, developers sometimes walk "a thin line between optimism and utter delusion," a description that has followed the Hickeys' shifting, high-rise ambitions on Sloat Boulevard.
Legal baggage and what's at stake
This is not the Hickeys’ first trip through the legal spotlight. Court documents reviewed by reporters show John Hickey was indicted and imprisoned in connection with a Ponzi scheme that defrauded hundreds of investors, and restitution obligations remain. The San Francisco Standard reports that the couple’s Chapter 11 case was dismissed by a U.S. Bankruptcy Court shortly before the lender completed foreclosure, after Lone Oak argued the filing was made in bad faith. Related public court materials are posted on DocumentCloud.
What happens next will come down to creditors and whether an outside buyer steps up with both cash and the patience to run the Planning Department gauntlet. Industry trackers note that groups such as Housing America Partners have kicked the tires on alternate concepts for the site in the recent past. For now, the parcel’s future hinges on who can clear title, satisfy lender expectations and steer any proposal through San Francisco’s entitlement process, a saga mapped in coverage from SF YIMBY and The Real Deal.
