Construction crews broke ground weeks early at 1979 Mission Street, with dirt already moving before the formal ceremony scheduled for April 23. SFist first reported the early start on the project known as “Marvel in the Mission,” a 19-story, 382-unit affordable housing tower near the 16th Street Mission BART Station.
Phase 1 delivers 136 units of permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless residents. That approach has shown results in cities that have committed to it. Phases two and three follow with 134 and 112 affordable family units, respectively. Once all three phases are complete, it’ll be the largest affordable housing development the Mission has ever seen.
The project carries two names: “Marvel in the Mission” in English, “La Maravilla” in Spanish. Co-developers Mission Housing Development Corp. and the Mission Economic Development Agency, known as MEDA, say their model isn’t just about putting people in units but keeping them there, with on-site services baked into the building’s operation from the start.
Getting here wasn’t clean.
The corner of 16th and Mission spent the better part of two decades as a public argument. A market-rate condo proposal that critics dubbed “Monster in the Mission” drew enough neighborhood opposition that its developer eventually walked, citing financing problems. The city bought the land in 2022 and locked it into 100-percent affordable use. Then, last summer, a new fight broke out. Parents from Marshall Elementary School raised safety concerns and objected to an unusual plan to split the property into multiple separate addresses. Supervisors voted to let the project proceed.
Last month’s financing vote was the unlock. The Board of Supervisors approved a package for Phase 1 that includes a $61 million loan from the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, tax-exempt bonds, and a long-term ground lease. Funding comes from a combination of local, state, and federal sources plus bond proceeds.
Mission Housing Executive Director Sam Moss told the Chronicle what it felt like to finally see dirt moving. “I pinch myself when I walk by at least once a day to see it,” he said. He described Phase 1’s close as one of the hardest in the organization’s history, with staff pushing through the final three months of 2025 to lock down every dollar. “Everyone worked really hard the last three months of 2025 and pulled off a not very small miracle, and closed all the funding that was needed. Now there’s a tangible building coming out of the ground that represents going on two decades of organizing and difficult work.”
That’s not spin. The lot at 16th and Mission sat vacant for years while the affordable housing crisis ground on around it, a place where money, politics, and neighborhood anxiety kept anything from actually getting built. The 16th Street Mission BART Station sees some of the highest foot traffic of any stop on the system, which made the empty parcel a daily reminder of what the city couldn’t figure out how to do. Now it can’t be ignored in a different way.
The 04/09 construction start, ahead of the April 23 ceremony, didn’t wait for the ribbon. That’s unusual. It suggests the development team wasn’t taking any chances on another delay after a close that Moss described as barely pulling off. By 2026 standards, in a city that’s been losing ground on housing production while costs climbed, a 382-unit all-affordable project moving from financing to active construction in a matter of weeks counts for something.
Phase 1 alone won’t fix what’s broken. But 136 units of permanent supportive housing at one of the city’s most visible intersections, with two more phases behind it, is a number worth watching.