Open space is a key feature of future Central Subway station

There is something that the Chinatown community desires more, and has less of, than housing.

Open space.

While San Francisco stakeholders years ago debated the Central Subway extending the Muni T-Third Street line north on Fourth Street with a Chinatown station as the terminus, community activists coalesced on what would become of the area above it.

Fast-forward to today, construction crews at Washington and Stockton streets in the heart of the neighborhood are erecting walls 85 feet below surface level for the approved, multilevel Central Subway station scheduled to open by 2019. The design plans for a 5,400-square-foot rooftop plaza at the site have yet to be grounded, but are shaping up to be what the Chinatown community wants, said Norman Fong, executive director of the Chinatown Community Development Center.

"I dreamed about that a long time ago with a lot of people in the community, but we figured maybe The City would go for income-generating things like housing," he said. "So I had low expectations. I can't believe that The City listened to the community and the community needs for open space."

The design for the Chinatown station itself was approved with a transit-oriented development to complement it in mind. In determining what to build above the station, The City opened the process to community groups that conducted surveys and various meetings.

"We looked at housing and business, but at the end of the day, what the community wanted -- and they were probably right -- was to have a park and enjoy the sunshine," said John Funghi, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency's Central Subway program director.

San Francisco's Chinatown is the densest neighborhood in the country outside of New York's Chinatown, with only four open-space places -- heavily trafficked Portsmouth Square, the Willie "Woo Woo" Wong and Woh Hei Yuen playgrounds, and St. Mary's Square, which is slated to get a rooftop park extension in exchange for two new office towers on the rise.

The Chinatown station plaza is an opportunity to create a fifth spot, Recreation and Park Commissioner Allan Low said.

"Open space is being elevated, which is really the only way you can create new open space," he said, praising the "creativity and collaboration" on the project thus far.

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Open space is a key feature of future Central Subway station