A 17-story tower in San Rafael? Seriously?

[Auggie]

San Francisco Chronicle / 3-25-26

A long-vacant office building in San Rafael tucked between Highway 101 and a Kentucky Fried Chicken is slated to transform into a 17-story tower of steel and glass.

If built as planned, the project at 700 Irwin St. would replace a dilapidated four-story building in Marin County’s largest city with a residential high rise featuring 200 apartments, floor-to-ceiling windows and a new waterfront promenade.

A 17-story apartment building would not stand out in downtown San Francisco, but the tower would be a radical departure for Marin County, where cities hew closely to valleys and hillsides, and it would become the tallest building in the North Bay — by a large margin. It’s just one in a wave of high-rise proposals that could reshape San Rafael.

SNIP

Currently, the tallest existing building is an eight-story commercial tower at 1000 Fourth Street, anchored by a bank, and it easily outflanks the rest of downtown, which is mostly two, three and four stories high.

Link (paywall): https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/san-rafael-apartment-building-tower-22073361.php

According to the link, Marin County must plan for more than 14,000 new residential units by 2031, including about 3,200 units in San Rafael. State law.