Dogpatch's Vacant Kneass Building Puzzles Neighbors Near Crane Cove Park

From the kayak launch at Crane Cove Park, the Kneass Building at 671 Illinois Street is impossible to miss: corrugated metal siding, patched paint, occasional graffiti, and no sign of activity inside. While the Power Station development rises nearby and Pier 70 lures new tenants along the Dogpatch waterfront, the 13,500-square-foot structure has stood vacant for years on property owned by the Port of San Francisco.

Adam Zolot, who runs Dogpatch Paddle from the park's renovated Building 49, calls the former boat works a "sore thumb" along a stretch that now includes the seven-acre Crane Cove Park, the Chase Center and Pier 70. His customers see it every time they arrive.

The building's vacancy is not accidental. It is the residue of a 2021 Port Commission process that imploded after two competing proposals both failed the agency's financial and community standards. Friends of Dogpatch Hub, a nonprofit that had assembled more than $9.6 million in commitments including $4.2 million from UCSF, $2.5 million from the Potrero Power Station project and $2.1 million from the Pier 70 Development Fund, proposed filling the space with meeting rooms, youth programs, senior activities and archival storage. A second bidder, Premier Structures, offered three floors of office space, dining and a community gathering area. The Port's 650-point evaluation system produced a near-tie: Premier Structures scored 435, Dogpatch Hub 434. The Port terminated the process anyway, declaring that neither proposal adequately met the solicitation's objectives. Friends of Dogpatch Hub eventually redirected its plans to 1278 Minnesota Street, near 24th Street, leaving the waterfront site without a tenant.

Since that RFP closed, the Port has continued to carry maintenance costs on a building generating no lease revenue. The Kneass structure, named for boatbuilder George Kneass who operated on the property from 1936 until 1970, is a contributing resource in the Pier 70 Union Iron Works Historic District, a designation that adds an environmental review layer to any future reuse plan. Port planning documents list community facilities, water and recreational uses, retail and office space as all acceptable categories; a financially viable proposal would need to blend public programming with revenue-generating use to clear the agency's threshold.

The Port Commission holds sole authority to approve any lease for the property and meets on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at 3:15 p.m. Residents can also bring concerns to the Port's Southern Advisory Committee, which covers the Dogpatch corridor and meets on the fourth Wednesday of each month at 6 p.m. at the Southeast Community Center at 1550 Evans Avenue, with a virtual option also available. The committee's planning contact is Mark Paez at mark.paez@sfport.com.

The building's unresolved status puts a pointed question to the Port in a neighborhood that has otherwise embodied San Francisco's redevelopment ambitions: whether public ownership of a prime waterfront site guarantees anything close to a public benefit.