California artist Jim Isermann will present a slide show of his recently installed chandelier at noon in Genentech Hall on June 11;
Crews on June 4 commemorated placement of the last piece of steel to the Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research or QB3 building;
The campus community toasted on May 22 the start of the 752-bed housing project to open in fall 2005;
Faculty and staff working at Genentech Hall began dining May 19 at Genentech Hall's café; and
Trees planted in the Koret Quad are adding color to a busy construction zone of crews, equipment, trucks and growing cluster of trailers.

Meanwhile, interior work on the second research building continues and erection of the steel framework for the campus community center is proceeding on schedule. The steady pace of the first phase of projects at UCSF Mission Bay is nothing short of impressive, especially in this fiscally frugal environment.

Mission Bay is the centerpiece of the Campaign for UCSF and a vital priority of the $1.4 billion fund-raising effort that is the largest investment in human health ever undertaken by any university. As of May 2003, UCSF had raised $192.8 million toward its goal of reaching $260 million in private support for the new campus. Fundraising for the campus is supported by the UCSF Foundation's Mission Bay Task Force, a group of donors and civic leaders chaired by venture capitalist William Bowes. State support toward the construction of Genentech Hall and QB3, along with campus reserves and debt completes the financing package for the first phase of the campus, where 10 projects are now under way.

"It's busier than we ever imagined and it's going to be getting even busier," said Katy Irwin, assistant director of Mission Bay construction for UCSF Facilities Management, who has been working out in a trailer since the official birth of the campus in 1999. Irwin was among a group of staff, students and community members to celebrate the start of production pile driving for the Mission Bay housing project - considered a milestone both on and off campus.

'A dream come true'

UCSF Mission Bay will be home to about 750 UCSF students, postdoctoral scholars and their families who will begin moving into the 431 apartments as they become available in August 2005.

"Three years ago, housing at Mission Bay wasn't even a twinkle in our eye," said Steve Wiesenthal, assistant vice chancellor of Facilities Management. "The wonderful foresight to add housing creates a more vibrant campus for all of us. It turns it from a campus into a community."

Housing was not part of the original master plan for the Mission Bay campus because Catellus Development Corp., the master developer of the entire 303-acre redevelopment project and donor of 30 acres of land to UCSF, had its own plans to build housing.

But a small but vocal group of students and members of the Community Advisory Group (CAG) asked UCSF leaders to consider the inclusion of affordable housing at the new campus.

"This is really incredible," said Sabrina Wong, who was president of the Graduate Students Association in 1996 when she served as an advocate for housing at Mission Bay. "This is like a dream come true because I worked so hard to get housing included on the campus."

Now a UCSF research specialist, Wong says her experience working with campus officials has led her to believe that "students have more power than they think and can influence the actions at UCSF."

"A truly supportive environment means having decent and affordable housing so that students don't have to worry where they are going to live or how they are going to pay the rent," Wong said.

Doing their part, members of the CAG, including Dennis Antenore and Agar Jaicks, began in March 1998 to urge campus leaders to add student housing at Mission Bay. At the time, San Francisco was experiencing an extraordinarily tight housing market — with rental rates among the highest in the nation next to Manhattan.

To make a long story short, University and Catellus officials reached an agreement to allow UCSF to offer affordable housing at Mission Bay. And later, campus officials, led by Irene Agnos, associate vice chancellor for University Relations, reached a compromise with Senator John Burton and neighbors to scale back the height of the proposed housing complex, which partially blocked city skyline views of some neighbors.

"As a resident, I've always had a distrust of UCSF," said Toby Levy, a CAG member. "But, by and large, it's been good to see all these changes, the inclusion of housing and the reduction in its height."

A 20-year resident of South Park, Levy says she's "looking forward to this part of the city getting reintegrated with the neighborhood and having access to this piece of land. It's got great sun."

"We're very glad to see UCSF put housing on this campus and that the University reduced the height of the building in response to the community," said longtime CAG member Corinne Woods, who also attended the Mission Bay housing groundbreaking.

In September 2000, Chancellor Mike Bishop appointed members to the Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Housing to conduct a formal assessment of the demand and supply of housing and to identify and recommend long-range goals for meeting the housing needs.

The Mission Bay campus housing project represents a major step toward UCSF's goal to provide affordable housing for 40 percent of its students and 25 percent of its postdoctoral scholars. Currently, UCSF provides housing for only 14 percent of the student body, or 370 of 2,649 students, and none for postdoctoral scholars.

"It's been a long time coming and the students deserve this," said Campus Housing Director Barbara Jones.

Jones, who started working at UCSF in 1978, saw the conversion of the Millberry Union from dormitories to offices due to severe space constraints on the Parnassus campus, the addition of Aldea housing and the affordable housing shortage in San Francisco during the height of the high-tech industry boom. Now with a slow economy and a soft local rental market, Jones actually has some vacancies in campus housing for the first time in her memory. "We've come full circle," she said.

Source: Lisa Cisneros

Last updated January 28, 2005

Campus housing

The Mission Bay housing complex (20) is a 421,370 gross-square-foot building to accommodate more than 750 students, postdoctoral scholars and their families. The complex includes 431 apartments, retail space and developed outdoor space. The total cost is estimated at $112.8 million. Construction will begin in June 2003 and will be completed in June 2005. Full occupancy is anticipated in October 2005.