The developer behind the infamous “Monster in the Mission” project has recently lost two major Bay Area properties to loan defaults, and its founder is embroiled in a sexual assault lawsuit that has some wild allegations involving cocaine and pornography.

San Francisco’s quintessential real estate controversy from the 2015-17 era was an attempt to build a 10-story, 380-unit luxury apartment building at 16th and Mission that opponents nicknamed “the Monster in the Mission.” That proposal came from an SF-based developer called Maximus Real Estate Partners, who also owned SF’s largest apartment complex, Parkmerced Apartments, right next to SF State, and for good measure, a nearly 300-unit Marin County complex known as The Cove at Tiburon.  

Well, the “Monster in the Mission” project never got approved, and the land has since been sold to the city to build an all-affordable housing complex. And as for the Parkmerced Apartments, the SF Business Times reported two weeks ago that property was placed into receivership after Maximus had defaulted on a $1.5 billion loan. And now the Chronicle reports that The Cove at Tiburon has defaulted on a $210 million loan at that property, in a story that starts as being about real estate loan woes, and quickly pivots to a wild new sexual assault lawsuit against Maximus founder Robert Rosania.

Mission Local has described Rosania as “a flamboyant champagne collector out of New York who self-applies the nickname ‘Big Boy.’” Yet in the new sexual assault lawsuit, his former executive assistant Richaele Affannato describes him as “so ‘amped up’” on cocaine and other drugs that she was “physically afraid of him.” That suit also alleges, in the Chronicle’s words, “pornography purchases by Rosania on the company’s credit card and drug-fueled outbursts.” Affannato additionally says that she was ordered to buy “male performance pills” for Rosania, that he showed her images of “women he was traveling to meet for romantic encounters,” and that when she was required to work in his home, he left “pornography on.”

That suit was filed last week in San Francisco Superior Court. The details are intriguing, but the fate of Parkmerced Apartments is obviously the more important issue, as the complex has apparently been languishing in a state of neglect for more than a year.

“I am eager to have a competent manager who will respond to tenant needs,” the district's Supervisor Myrna Melgar told the Chronicle. “I am also eager to have an owner who can realize the vision for a denser, modern, vibrant community at Parkmerced.”

Parkmerced was even approved to get nearly 7,000 more additional new apartments years ago, but that plan is obviously by the wayside now. The Cove at Tiburon may also be getting a new owner. The Chronicle notes that Maximus “may still have an impact on Bay Area housing” because of a 687-unit project near the San Leandro BART station called 899 Alvarado, which was approved in 2019.

But a San Leandro newspaper known as The Cargo reported last year that 899 Alvarado was “now just a chainlink fence in front of weeds and dirt.” And Google Street view images from just three months ago show that it is still just a chain link fence in front of weeds and dirt, with ground still not broken on the development.

Related: Former ‘Monster in the Mission,’ Now to be 100% Affordable Housing, Awarded to Two Local Nonprofits [SFist]

Image: Maximus Real Estate Partners

Hostage/crisis negotiators were on the scene at Parkmerced in San Francisco Monday morning, after a man barricaded himself inside an apartment after allegedly making threats. The subsequent standoff lasted seven hours.

The situation began around 6:30 am Monday, as KRON4 reports. Officers from Taraval Station responded to a call about an individual "breaking in and making threats" on the 400 block of Gonzalez Drive.

The individual may have been experiencing a mental health emergency.

Video from the Citizen app showed police surrounding a building, and police tape cordoning off a large area.

Update: As KRON4 later reported, the situation was resolved as of 2:17 pm, with the man safely taken into custody. Officers reportedly "coordinated and developed a strategic plan and utilized the assistance of SFPD’s Crisis Negotiations team" in order to resolve the incident without injury.

This post has been updated throughout.

Photo: Zak Farris

Under a new plan, the entire M-Ocean View line could be an underground train, but no additional car lanes are slated to be added to 19th Avenue.  

Those of you with long memories and a fascination with backwoods San Francisco neighborhoods may recall that five years ago, the SFMTA announced they were considering plans to put an underground tunnel beneath 19th Avenue. Doing so, of course, would render the entire M Ocean View into an underground line, as the M would go underground (as opposed to onto street tracks) once it hit West Portal station. Those plans have plodded along more slowly than the M Ocean View itself, but they are suddenly being revised and fast-tracked, as the San Francisco Examiner reports that the SFMTA is launching a nearly million-dollar study to explore building the underground tunnel.

The tunnel, and general overhaul of the M line, have new urgency with gobs of new units coming to the fancypants Parkmerced apartment complex, as well as more possible housing at SF State and even the Stonestown Galleria. Parkmerced (the apartment complex, not the neighborhood proper) is worried enough about the underserved, out-in-the-boonies reputation of the area that they’re offering $100 a month in Uber subsidies to entice tenants.    

Despite serving the alleged boonies, though, the M train is often pretty crowded. “The M, I would say, needs some help,” SFMTA Citizen Advisory councilperson Neil Ballard told the Examiner. “As I’ve taken it from [SF] State it’s often not reliable and crowded.”

Would putting the M Ocean View underground open up new car lanes for smoother driving on 19th Avenue? Probably not! These plans are from 2016 but still show four lanes southbound, and three northbound on the configuration. Plans for any and all of this can be altered, of course, and nothing is a done deal.

Neighborhood merchants are actually supportive of the idea, as the executive administrator of the San Francisco Council of District Merchants expressed support to the Examiner. But he may not be taking into account the construction woes that would come with god-knows-how-many-months-or-years of 19th Avenue being torn up.

Related: The 8 Coolest BART And Muni Stations [SFist]

Image: By Pi.1415926535 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,

A two-alarm fire at a San Francisco apartment tower injured two people this morning, and a cat is still missing following the blaze.

According to tweets from the San Francisco Fire Department, the fire was reported on the seventh floor of a 13-floor apartment building located at 125 Cambon Drive, part of the Parkmerced apartment development near San Francisco State University.

The SFFD was first alerted to the blaze at 5:36 a.m. Friday. Firefighters evacuated the sixth, seventh and eighth floors of the building, ordering the rest of the residents of the structure to shelter in place.

Firefighters rescued three people at the scene of the flames, they say. One of the victims was treated at the scene, and the other two were transported to an area hospital for treatment of injuries the SFFD says are not life-threatening.

By 7:24 a.m., the fire was under control, the SFFD says. As of 7:28, the SFFD reports that an orange cat that lived in the building was still unaccounted for.

The cause of the fire is as yet unknown, the SFFD says, as are the number of people displaced by the fire. As the investigation at the scene is ongoing, people who can are urged to avoid the area.

Related: Three Injured In Wednesday Morning House Fire In SF

The real estate developer behind San Francisco's massive Parkmerced project announced today via press release a newly formed partnership with ride-hail giant Uber. On the face of it, the goal appears an attempt to incentivize future tenants of the 5,700-unit project to reduce dependency on car ownership — a goal which both benefits developer Maximus (every nonexistent parking space means more room to build apartments), and, of course, Uber.

"This is a first-of-its-kind partnership between Uber and a real estate development company, designed to encourage car-free living at Parkmerced and establish a sustainable, multimodal transportation model for communities and developments across the United States and globally," reads the press release in part.

Both the Chronicle and Business Times report that developer Maximus will provide tenants with a $100 "subsidy" that can be used toward Clipper cards and Uber rides. The Times writes that "a minimum of $30 of the subsidy must be used on Uber, and the developer would be paying for the subsidy, not Uber, according to a source familiar with the arrangement."

The press release from Maximus, however, makes no mention of a subsidy, and instead refers to an "incentive." "New residents to Parkmerced will be able to reduce their private car use through a $100 monthly incentive to be used with Uber, the world’s leading rideshare company, and Clipper, an all-in-one Bay Area transit card providing access to Muni, Bart, Caltrain and more, with more transportation options to come." Uber's press release calls it a "stipend."

SFist reached out to Parkmerced spokesperson P.J. Johnston, Maximus spokesperson Mitch Breindel, and Uber in an attempt to clarify just exactly how the program will work. An Uber spokesperson informed SFist that the deal is optional for tenants, would be good for the life of the lease, and applies on a per-unit (not per-person) basis.

This agreement raises a number of obvious questions. Primarily, will the cost of the guaranteed $30 per month toward Uber simply be passed on to the renter in the form of higher rent? And do the credits expire monthly?

Interestingly, in receiving the $100 incentive renters are agreeing to be tracked by both Uber and their future landlord — both while they live there and potentially even before they move in. "Parkmerced and Uber will undertake research regarding program participants’ driving habits before and during their participation, to add important real-world data about driving behavior, cost savings, use of public transportation, and associated environmental benefits," the Maximus press release reads.

Just what, exactly, does this mean?

These are all questions that are left unanswered by both the Chron and the Business Times. One thing, however, is for sure: Supervisor Scott Wiener is excited about Uber's foray into real estate.

“By incentivizing multimodal transportation, this pioneering partnership between Uber and Parkmerced demonstrates the kind of innovative leadership that is needed to help solve San Francisco’s, and other cities’, pressing urban mobility challenges,” the supervisor wrote in Maximus' release.

Oh, and for you Lyft fans out there, tough luck — this deal is exclusive to Uber.

Related: Parkmerced Plan Narrowly Approved by Board of Supervisors

One woman is dead after an early-morning fire in a San Francisco apartment that displayed "evidence of hoarding," the San Francisco Fire Department says.

At 5:10 a.m. Friday, fire crews were called to a Parkmerced apartment building on Chumasero Drive, which is just off Brotherhood Way near the San Francisco Golf Club.

According to SFFD Deputy Chief Mark Gonzales, though the fire alarm for the entire 13-floor building had gone off, crews instead found several small fires burning in a single apartment.

Gonzales says that upon entering the unit, crews found a body, described by the Chron as a woman of unknown age or identity.

According to Gonzales, the apartment was crowded with possessions, suggesting a hoarding situation. In fact, according to Gonzales, the apartment was so packed that crews had to search for the flames before extinguishing the fire.

The deceased woman appears to have been the only resident of the apartment, and no one else was injured in the blaze. The fires remain under investigation.

In the far off land known as Parkmerced, a string of recent home burglaries all within blocks (or yards) of each other has the neighborhood freaking out. As CBS reports, the same stretch of Garces Drive has been hit six times since late February, and in all the cases the thieves broke in to empty homes through windows that face a community backyard area.

No one has encountered a thief or been injured yet, but that remains the fear of residents, many of whom say that Parkmerced management are not taking the spree seriously enough. Police are pledging greater vigilance in the area.

As you'll recall, the large housing complex just south of SF State is in expansion mode, with an impending redesign and the addition of some 5,700 units over twenty years, which the Board of Supervisors narrowly approved last year.

[CBS]

After around an hour of tense discussions and an expletive-laden ejection of one unruly member of the public, the Board of Supervisors narrowly passed the Parkmerced Plan on a 6-5 vote. Dissenting supervisors Avalos, Campos, Kim, Mar and Mirkarimi all opposed the plan the controversial plan that will demolish 1,538 residential units in the process of redesigning the 152-acre site. Over the next twenty to thirty years, the plan will add 5,679 total new units, neighborhood level retail, a new elementary school, 68 acres of open space and bring the M-Ocean View line out through the development. As usual, we'll have a full meeting recap tomorrow. In the meantime, Bay City News reminds us there's still a final vote set for June 7th.