It made perfect sense when, in 2015, a construction company named Shangri-La Builder Inc. bought the dilapidated parking lot at 4805 Mission St. and began to build a five-story building — apartments and ground-floor retail — on the site.
The spot is a prime location in the Excelsior, right on the corner of Russia Avenue and Mission Street, less than a 10-minute walk away from grocery stores, restaurants and the neighborhood library.
What makes less sense is why 4805 Mission St. still isn’t finished more than a decade later.
The building looks tantalizingly close to completion. Its apartments and retail space appear ready to move into, at least from the outside. It has windows, balconies and what seems to be a roof deck with panoramic views of the city.
But it’s had all of this since at least 2021.
In fact, 4805 Mission’s condition has declined since then.
The windows on the ground-floor retail space, once covered with paper, are now barricaded behind a wall of plywood that has been covered in layers of graffiti and peeling advertisements. Places where the building has been tagged have been covered with mismatched paint, giving it a patchwork appearance.
Neighbors call it an eyesore. Some have been filing complaints for years.
“4805 Mission Street has been a blighted property for at least 10 years,” one resident wrote to the city in 2025. “The Excelsior neighborhood is tired of being a dumping ground for property owners who cause harm to our community.”
Recent developments indicate its long-overdue completion may yet be on the way.
San Francisco’s Department of Public Works last month approved a Street Improvement Permit worth $3,614, authorizing Shamrock Engineering Concrete, a San Francisco-based construction company contracted by Shangri-La Builder Inc., a Dublin-based construction company in the East Bay, to reconstruct the sidewalk, curb, gutter, and curb ramps along the building, and to cut two new vehicle entrances into the curb, a small but necessary step to bring the building into ADA compliance.
District 11 supervisor Chyanne Chen, whose district includes the Excelsior, said that her office is aware of the situation at 4508 Mission and has been “actively tracking this project.”
“We all want to see the building completed with new homes, local businesses and a safe, welcoming street level,” said Chen.
But the blight of 4805 Mission long predates Chen, who only took office in January 2025.
Liming Liu, CEO of Shangri-La Builder Inc., did not respond to a request for comment. Former District 11 supervisors Ahsha Safaí and John Avalos, who both represented the neighborhood during the decade-plus of construction, also have not replied.
City records show a long, slow attempt to pressure Shangri-La into completing construction. Since July 2015, 4805 Mission has received 26 complaints to the Department of Building Inspection, describing the building as “a source of chronic blight” and a “health hazard.”
These complaints resulted in six hearings and seven orders of abatement, a legal directive that can be issued by the Department of Building Inspection or other city agencies when building or housing violations remain unresolved after a notice of violation was issued.
Those orders of abatement, which date back to July 2022, describe 4805 Mission as “an unsafe building or a public nuisance.”
At none of the hearings was the owner, or a representative of the owner, present.
Shangri-La Builder Inc. was ordered to register 4805 Mission as a vacant or abandoned commercial storefront and building for a fee of $711, according to its first valid order of abatement in July 2022, facing a penalty of nearly $2,844 if ignored.
That registration fee went up to $818 and penalty fee hiked up to $3,272 in 2023. It remains unknown if Liu or anyone at Shangri-La Builder Inc. ever paid the fees.
After 2023, two more hearings were held about 4805 Mission, one in December 2025 and another in February 2026. As was the case earlier, both hearings were unattended by Liu or any other representatives at Shangri-La Builder Inc.
On Feb. 10, 2026, the building department cited the building as an “unsafe structure” with an outstanding penalty of $6,764.
‘I just don’t understand how it could sit that long’
To neighbors of 4805 Mission, the building has become a symbol of neglect the neighborhood feels by the city.
Patricia Barraza, who has lived in the Excelsior since 1979, has watched the building rise, stall, and sit unfinished for years.
“It’s just been an eyesore,” said Barraza. She’s tried to contact Shangri-La Builder Inc. on her own, but got no response. “It seems really annoying, at least for those of us that live there and have to pass by every day.”
“I just don’t understand how it could sit that long,” said Julie Clima who has had a front-row seat to the stalled construction as the manager of the Italian American Social Club, which sits directly across Russian Avenue from the building. She has never seen the owner of the building on site, she said. “It’s just crazy.”
Tom Murphy, who oversees the Jerry Day festival in McLaren Park and owns property in the area, agreed.
“It’s an absolute eyesore,” said Murphy, who said he watched the building fester for years. “And it’s not fair to all the businesses around there and all the other property owners around there.”
“If you put this on any other corridor,” he said. “it would not have been overlooked for so long.”
Sad, and the Excelsior doesn’t deserve this! I’d love a data story on abandoned properties like this around the city. I feel like 2-3 years is more than reasonable to get it done. 3+ and 10+ — that’s terrible.
Similar thing is happening in Bernal too — the great Cole Hardware fire of 2016 – construction is still not finished on the corner lot there. Playa Azul, and that area was, however, repaired quickly and is back in business.
Start foreclosure proceedings on the unpaid fines.
There is an equal eyesore just on the other side of McLaren Park, on the west side of the 2800 block of San Bruno Ave. in Portola. The builder bribed DBI officials, ignored permits, built an insta-slum with more units than the permit allowed, and then received a slap on the wrist fine, which was a mere dent in profits. The empty storefronts are not maintained, and are a grafitti magnet and a continual blight. I do agree with Excelsior residents that this would not be allowed in wealthier areas like Noe Valley.
Well, obviously it’s the NIMBY’s who have kept it this way, right? I mean, unless it’s the city’s arcane building permit system, right? Wait. I’m wrong?
So the problem might be with the developer? Incompetent? Stupid? Waiting for full gentrification before selling the condos at “market rate” or something even better?
Just imagine how much duller is the developer’s pencil after paying property tax on the space for a decade and having labor and materials costs increase while said developer is … hanging out in Shangri La.
YIMBY’s should organize a squatter wing of their party and just move in.
Here’s an idea: The City in partnership with a nonprofit offers to buy the building. If successful, the goal would be to sell or rent below market rate. If do right, a few affordable units can be added to the neighborhood at record speed and at a much lower per cost per unit.
Fly by night developers with their get rich quick schemes prove that the.
How can YIMBY ECON 101 analysis explain a largely completed building sitting empty for almost a decade?
Why did Scott Wiener force cities including San Francisco to facilitate the production of empty apartment buildings?
In San Francisco, empty apartment buildings should be illegal.
“In San Francisco, empty apartment buildings should be illegal.”
Preston tried that and the courts slapped him down.
You cannot force the owner of a residential or commercial unit to offer it for rent, sale or use. And there are a variety of legitimate reasons to leave units vacant.
With a plan and money, San Francisco can take blighted property such as this eyesore via eminent domain at lower valuations.
I doubt that the Courts would take any more of a benign view of such cynical and opportunistic takings as they did with Preston’s ill-fated land grab.
With a plan and money, San Francisco can take blighted property such as this eyesore via eminent domain at FAIR MARKET valuations.
I very much doubt that would work. Eminent Domain was never designed to empower ideological objections to a building temporarily left vacant due to market or other conditions.
And it is often city policies that cause buildings to be left vacant e.g. rent control, formula retail bans, excessive restrictions on use etc.
Any such ED attempt would be tied up in the courts for years.
Municipal eminent domain proceedings are haltingly slow, litigious and cripplingly expensive for all involved. San Francisco is notoriously reactive (as opposed to proactive) as a city government, so even if “a plan” were to be drafted by SFGov and see the light of day, we’re also in an uncharted deficit situation forecasted to near a billion dollars. Our City’s record and history as a landlord, contractor and manager of properties is similarly abysmal.
I have brought this up to supervisors for years and filed complaints. 4805 Mission is an example of money outside of San Francisco investing in San Francisco real-estate as speculation and maybe the developers ran out of cash or just live far away and really do not care at all about the neighborhood? Maybe it was money-laundering? Who knows? From this report, they are MIA. The end result is a busy corner with nothing but an ugly building and no one living there. Let’s be honest. Even if the building was open, it is an architecturally awful. Cold. Full of creepy staircases. Non-functional balconies. Now it is just boarded up.
The fines for this delinquency are extremely low to the developers. What is curious to me is the property taxes are around $80,000 a year. Are they being paid? As an investment it makes no sense.
To the comment about Joe’s Cable Car restaurant, sitting there, looking like we are living in the Twilight Zone. Maybe the City should buy this land and turn it into a minipark. Create a public restroom so that people getting on the 14 Mission can ride in comfort. Maybe have farmers market afternoons. A small stage for public performances.
The City has just completed paving all the way from Geneva to Silver. Por fin! Thank you. Let’s make the E a place that the hard working people in this neighborhood are proud of and want to live in.
Please continue reporting on this 4805 Mission Street.
Paul, I thought that property tax is only payable wen a certificate of occupancy is issued.
https://county-taxes.net/ca-sanfrancisco/property-tax/
It is paid in full. $40,000 twice a year. I looked it up. Why and how can someone pay that kind of money for an empty building. Very fishy.
The other eyesore up Mission Street is the Joe’s Cable Car building which has become a vacant graffiti magnet. Building owners are just sitting on these empty properties.
Chuck, how do you know that owners are “just sitting” on properties? Have you asked them their reasons?
Isn’t it more likely that they cannot get a viable rent in this market? Commercial leases tend to be very long, up to 20 years. No owner wants to be stuck with below-market rents for that long.
Is there any legal obligation for a developer to complete and make available a new building under any particular timescale? I would have thought that is a matter solely for the discretion of that developer.
So for example the hangover from Covid has lasted most of the last 5/6 years. Would it not make sense for a developer to hold back making commercial and residential units available until more favourable market conditions?