Appeal Halts Demolition of Fire-Scarred North Beach Verdi Building

Across from Washington Square Park, the charred shell at 659 Union Street known to North Beach regulars as the Coit Liquors building has stood vacant and deteriorating since fires gutted its interior in 2013 and 2018. What happened next to that building became a legal dispute that has now halted all demolition work at the site through at least May 27.

Owner Powell Partners LLC submitted a permit on March 27 for a targeted intervention: removal of a 50-foot section of a rear wall. Theresa Flandrich, a North Beach resident and tenant advocate, filed an appeal on March 31 arguing that demolition activity had far exceeded that limited scope. Flandrich contends Powell Partners was pursuing a complete teardown while operating under a permit that authorized only a partial-wall removal.

The appeal triggered an automatic halt to all work at the Verdi Building, with a hearing now set for May 27, 2026 at City Hall. Nothing can be demolished until the city rules.

The urgency of the situation is not in dispute. A March 18 Department of Building Inspection engineering report described the building as structurally compromised and at imminent risk of collapse. The report warned that "it is only a matter of time before these walls fail under lateral loading," language Powell Partners cited as justification for the limited demolition permit as a means of addressing immediate hazards.

Preservation advocates counter that the safety framing obscures a broader commercial agenda. Conceptual plans previously linked to Red Bridge Partners envisioned an eight-story mixed-use building with dozens of residential units and ground-floor retail on the site. Critics argue those development ambitions create incentives to pursue wholesale removal rather than careful rehabilitation, using emergency permits as a backdoor to full teardown without the public review such a project would normally require.

The Verdi Building occupies one of the most visited blocks in San Francisco, steps from the park, the bocce courts, and the low-slung historic streetscape that defines North Beach. Its fate has sharpened a citywide tension between state housing mandates pushing officials to streamline approvals and preservation rules meant to protect neighborhood character.

The May 27 hearing will set the immediate course. If the appeal prevails, Powell Partners could face a full entitlement process, including historic-resource review, before any demolition proceeds. If it fails, partial structural work could resume, though further legal challenges remain possible. The outcome will also signal how far an emergency demolition permit can reach before triggering the kind of exhaustive public scrutiny that preservationists say a building in the heart of North Beach has always deserved.