Filing Proposes 45-Story, 528-Unit Tower at 1601 Mission St

A project application filed with the San Francisco Planning Department proposes a 45-story residential tower with 528 units at 1601 Mission St, at the edge of SoMa near the Van Ness and Market corridor known as the Hub. The filing, case 2026-008833PRJ, was submitted Oct. 7 and remains in “Submitted” status, meaning it is a pending application and has not been approved. The record does not identify the development company behind it.

Why it matters

A 45-story residential proposal is unusually tall for San Francisco, where most housing towers top out well below 40 stories outside a handful of downtown sites. The filing leans on California’s State Density Bonus law, which lets sponsors exceed local height and density limits in exchange for setting aside a share of units as affordable. If it advances through entitlement, 1601 Mission would join a small cluster of supertall and near-supertall residential towers proposed around the Hub district in recent years, a sign that sponsors still see the corridor as viable for large-scale housing despite a slow citywide approvals pipeline.

The numbers

The application calls for 528 dwelling units, including 114 studios, 59 junior one-bedrooms, 203 one-bedrooms, 132 two-bedrooms, and 20 three-bedroom units, according to the planning record. Of the total, 40 units would be set aside at Very Low Income levels and 40 at Moderate Income, for 80 affordable units, or roughly 15 percent of the project. The site, parcel APN 3514/043, sits on a trapezoidal lot at Mission and South Van Ness, a location that has drawn multiple large residential proposals over the past decade.

What’s next

The case now moves into SF Planning’s standard review process, where staff will evaluate the density bonus request, required waivers, and environmental review before any hearing before the Planning Commission. Submission is only the first procedural step; a project of this scale typically takes months to years to clear entitlement, and the unit count, height, or affordability split could change before any vote. The planning record lists no development company or architect of record in its public applicant fields, and the identity of the project sponsor was not available in city data as of this filing.