1601 Ocean Ave Refiles for 98 Homes After 17 Years of Plans

The K Ingleside stops at Ocean and Miramar, and a short block west, on the south side of Ocean Avenue between Capitol and Faxon, sits a row of 13 storefronts. As of late 2025, most of its tenants had moved out and only Jade Building Material Supplies remained, per Ingleside Light.

On September 30, 2026, a new project application for that corner, 1601 Ocean Avenue, landed at San Francisco Planning. It proposes a seven-story mixed-use building with 98 condominiums, 18 of them affordable at 55 percent of area median income, plus five ground-floor retail spaces, according to Planning record 2026-008664PRJ. The same day, Planning closed the sponsor’s 101-unit application from November 2025 as cancelled.

What the new 1601 Ocean Avenue application proposes

The application lists 30 studios, 18 one-bedrooms, 35 two-bedrooms and 15 three-bedrooms over 6,055 square feet of shops. It would replace about 5,700 square feet of retail and 3,900 square feet of office in the Ocean Avenue Neighborhood Commercial Transit district. No homes exist on the lot now.

S-AC Design Group, the architecture firm behind the 2025 renderings, is the applicant, and planner Jennifer Lung is assigned. The record does not state a height. The 2025 version was drawn at 79 feet, SF YIMBY reported.

The new mix trades eight one-bedrooms for five more three-bedroom homes. The switch from rentals to condominiums means the homes would be sold individually if built.

Why AB 2011 dropped out of the description

AB 2011 lets housing on commercial land skip discretionary review. Late last year a Planning Department letter said the project was “not eligible for AB 2011 or any ministerial process at the moment” because the site is on the state’s Cortese list of contaminated properties, a legacy of a former dry cleaner, Ingleside Light reported.

Under the Family Zoning Plan maps that took effect in January 2026, the parcel’s height district reads 50//85-R-4. Per a Planning Director bulletin, the 50 applies to projects outside the city’s Housing Choice-SF program, the 85 applies to projects in it, and projects in that program cannot also use the state density bonus.

Seventeen years of plans for one corner

A 2009 application for a four-story, 36-home building was withdrawn in January 2022. The site was listed for sale at $6.99 million in 2024, and a five-story, 92-apartment plan surfaced in April 2025, seven months before the seven-story version.

Supervisor Chyanne Chen said last year that projects like it “do little to serve the housing needs” of a district with many families and multi-generational households. The Ocean Avenue Association said it looked forward to working with the development team.

By our count, applications opened September 1 to 28 proposed 30 net new homes citywide, the fewest since 2012. This one filing lists 98, though it replaces a cancelled 101.

Ingleside by the numbers

On Houseberry, the corner falls in Ingleside, the neighborhood south of Ocean Avenue just east of Ingleside Terraces. It ranks 42nd of 92 in our San Francisco neighborhood rankings, with 3.6 overall, 4.2 for safety, 3.5 for schools and 2.7 for amenities. Its nearby-merchants score is 4.5.

Ingleside’s median was about $1.33 million in August 2026, roughly 40 percent below the $2.2 million citywide median that month. Across Ocean Avenue, Westwood Park ran about $2.18 million in September 2026 with a 4.8 safety score. Both figures track existing homes, not what new condos would sell for.

The pedestrian bridge to City College is about half a mile east, and Balboa Park BART about two-thirds of a mile. Next to City College, the 1,100-home Balboa Reservoir project has its first 288 affordable homes under construction, expected as early as 2028, SF YIMBY reported in September.

The review clock at SF Planning

No hearing date appears on the record yet. Under SF Planning’s project application process, intake staff respond on completeness within 21 days, a window that runs to about October 21.

The assigned planner then has 30 days to issue a plan check letter. A Planning Approval Letter must come before the sponsor can apply for a building permit.

Sources

• SF Planning project record 2026-008664PRJ, DataSF
• SF Planning project record 2025-010575PRJ, DataSF
• Ingleside Light: 7-Story Development Plans For Ingleside’s Ocean Avenue, December 2025
• SF YIMBY: Renderings Revealed For 1601 Ocean Avenue, November 2025
• SF Planning: Planning Director Bulletin No. 11, Housing Choice-SF Program
• SF Planning: Project Application (PRJ)
• SF YIMBY: New Building Permits Filed In Balboa Reservoir Masterplan, September 2026