The AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust (HIT), in cooperation with the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council (BCTC), hosted a lunch today to honor the union workers who are building a new residential development at 333 Harrison in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. The HIT is providing $70 million of union pension capital to help finance construction of the $105 million project. The union-built, seven-story residential structure will have 326 rental units and create approximately 600 jobs for members of San Francisco’s building and construction trades unions.
At the lunch, BCTC Secretary-Treasurer Mike Theriault thanked both the HIT and the union workers for their role in the project.
With the HIT’s investment, 333 Harrison is being done 100 percent union, putting hundreds of our members back on the job at a time when residential construction projects are scarce and unemployment is high. 333 Harrison will be a quality product that the community, its residents, and the building trades can be proud of because of the skill and craftsmanship you bring to this project.
Others who praised the project’s union workforce included HIT Director of Labor Relations Rod DuChemin.
Today’s event is all about you, the workers here at the job site. The union men and women doing these jobs are the same folks who, through their pension funds, allow the Housing Investment Trust to provide funding for projects like 333 Harrison. The Trust is proud to be a part of this winning formula – union pension money creating union jobs and housing for the benefit of workers and their community.
The project’s developer is the Emerald Fund, Inc., and Webcor Construction is the construction manager.
In addition to its investment in 333 Harrison Apartments, the HIT is currently providing $35 million in financing to build two other San Francisco residential projects – the $80.4 million Potrero Launch development in the Central Waterfront area and the $48 million Arc Light Co. residences in the South Beach neighborhood. Together, these three San Francisco projects represent a total of 616 housing units, approximately 1,340 union construction jobs, and $105 million in HIT financing.
333 Harrison is one of the projects financed by the HIT under its Construction Jobs Initiative, launched in mid-2009 to help counteract massive job losses across the country. Having surpassed its initial goal of 10,000 jobs in less than two years, the HIT has raised the goal to creating 15,000 jobs by year-end. To date, the HIT and its subsidiary Building America CDE have created over 13,400 union construction jobs nationwide through the Initiative. Learn more at www.aflcio-hit.com.
