Mission District Parking Lot at 321 Florida St. Will Become 152 Apartments; Groundbreaking in November

A surface parking lot at 321 Florida St. in the Mission District is set to become a nine-story apartment building with 152 homes. DM Development and its partner Ascentris have closed a $61.7 million construction loan from PNC Bank, with groundbreaking expected in November 2026 and completion in late 2028, according to a September 21 announcement reported by IREI and the San Francisco Examiner on October 13.

What’s Being Built

The building will have studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments. Fifteen of the 152 units, just under 10 percent, are reserved for low- and moderate-income households; the rest are market rate. IREI lists the building as Type I concrete construction with 39 covered parking spaces and about 10,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor rooftop space with a resident lounge, fitness center and terrace. The Examiner adds bike parking for 110 bicycles, a theater room, hot and cold plunges and green space.

Handel Architects designed the building. On its project page, the firm describes bay windows that project from the Florida Street facade in reference to the city’s Victorian houses, framed by vertical fins in a metallic palette chosen with community stakeholders.

The ground floor includes a 1,500-square-foot retail space. The Examiner reports it is expected to become an event space for Cultura y Arte Nativa de las Americas (CANA), an educational nonprofit, and that DM Development will give CANA $500,000 and match community donations up to another $500,000 at a fundraiser on October 22.

Why It Matters

IREI and the Examiner both describe 321 Florida as only the second market-rate apartment project of its size to break ground in San Francisco since 2023. DM Development CEO Mark MacDonald told the Examiner that “getting a market-rate housing project financed and underway in today’s environment is no small feat,” and pointed to recent city changes: in July, supervisors cut inclusionary housing requirements and eliminated them for projects of 10 to 24 units, and the city reduced development impact fees. SFGuide covered that vote in San Francisco Cuts Its Affordable Housing Requirement From 15 Percent to 5 Percent.

The project has been in the works for years. DM bought the land in December 2018 for $11.2 million, per the Examiner, and began working with city departments in early 2020. When the Planning Commission approved an earlier version in 2021, it was a 168-unit plan, the figure still shown on Handel’s project page.

The Location

The site is on Florida Street near 16th Street, in the stretch of the northeast Mission sometimes called Media Gulch, next to Showplace Square. For more on the area, see SFGuide’s Mission District guide; for another Mission housing story this month, see the Artist Space Trust home offered to artists for $425,000.

Sources: San Francisco Examiner, October 13, 2026; IREI, September 21, 2026; Handel Architects project page.

Rendering: Handel Architects.