St. Francis Square Cooperative

Located in the heart of San Francisco and right next to the main 38 Geary bus line, this place is a very convenient place to live! The area is becoming safer and all of my neighbors are really nice. There are often community events and gatherings going on. I really enjoy having a Safeway in walking distance and all of the Japanese food and culture right across the street. Hop on the 38L and you’re Downtown or at the beach in a few minutes. This place 4 or 5 blocks from the Kaiser Emergency Room if you need it. Pool and park about 3 blocks away. YMCA gym across this place’s parking lot. If you live here and work in the city, you probably don’t need a car to get around since the buses are convenient. Not needing to find parking and dealing with the car when hanging out in SF is always a plus.
The good things defiantly out way the bad things and I would recommend anyone who is looking for a convenient place to live in SF to consider moving in here.

A great place to live!
My roommates and I recently just moved here two months ago, and this place has been nothing but great.
We live in a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment. Living room is big. Balcony space is cute. Room sizes are manageable. Bathrooms and kitchen are on the small side.
The complex itself comes with a lot of pretty plants and flowers, as well as playgrounds and a basketball court for youth. There are laundry rooms on-​site which are cheaper than most laundromats.
The area is fantastic. Across the street from Safeway and the Japan Center, this is a wonderful place to live. Our landlord pays for electricity, water, and garbage, which is also an added bonus.
This place was a gem to find!

In response to paul l’s update, I am fully aware that SFSQ is a co-​op – as I stated in my previous review. Your statement that «you are actually a leasee and therefore get the boards approval for anything you do within your walls» is simply not true. Yes, you must get approval for renovations & structural improvements that could affect your neighbors (such as flooring or removing a wall), but the same is true in a condominium. However, if I want to paint my walls bright purple and découpage my kitchen cabinets, I can do so without board approval.
I’m sorry you had a rough time living here. Sounds like you did the right thing for you by moving. It also sounds like you did not fully understand what a co-​op was before you bought here. Many of us, however, find SFSQ a positive, comfortable, happy place to live and appreciate being a part of this community.

One thing people are forgetting in these reviews is that this is NOT a CONDO. It is a COOP. and not in the NYC sense. but more in the Hippy sense. As a coop, you don’t actually own your own unit. you have a right to an endless lease. as a result, you are actually a leasee and therefore get the boards approval for anything you do within your walls. also, this place is not safe. people are kidding if they think this is a great place to live. i was accosted by so many neighbors for this or that, it was ridiculous. cantankerous curmudgeons mixed in with gang member types. there is a safeway parking lot across the street. there have been 2 murders there in the past few years.
Also, just because you submit to the board doesn’t mean they will allow things. the neighbor under you might object, and if they do, then you’re through. remember, you don’t actually own the unit you live in.
and when you try to sell, it will be a lot tougher than trying to sell a condo in SF.
The idea might have been good in the 60s when people had all these lofty ideas. But when reality finally set it, human nature took over and turned this «notion» of collective living into a housing project.

The partner, dog and I moved here almost two years ago — when i was younger and still based out of LA my parents and I would come up here for vacations, and I remember seein this place across the way from Nihonmachi and thinkin «wow! how awesome would it be to live there!»
Some fifteen or so years later, after several months of looking mostly in the Ingleside and mostly at «fixer uppers» and having almost given up, I found this place again and was immediately sold! It’s perfect, location-​wise for two bureaucrats working in Civic Center. But if it just had the location going for it I wouldn’t take the time and effort to write this review — as some of our most active coop-​erators say, St. Francis was and continues to be a real experiment in self-​governance. with that comes both the privilege and the responsibility to make smart decisions and investments, which the board and its various committees (conservation, buildings and grounds, budget and finance, etc.) endeavor to do. It is true that «it takes a village» or «you get what you put into it» and we are doing what we can to make it work. If you move here we hope you’ll bring your creative, positive energy with you!

St. Francis Square is full of contradictions. Young, yuppie singles and couples and retirees and widowers — all with non-​conformist streaks and mostly fierce advocates of democratic self governance; familiarity and genuine friendliness amidst the anonymity of the city; obscene abundance north of the main corridor and public housing to the south; rigid, boxy structures amongst common, manicured pathways, bright and colorful flower beds, simultaneously private and public gardens and open space.