Geneva Office Building and Power House
2301 San Jose Avenue · Outer Mission
-
April 27, 1892
The San Francisco and San Mateo Railroad Company, incorporated by Isaac and Berend Joost, opened the city's first electric street railway, from Second and Market Streets to Daly's Hill (now Daly City); a branch up 18th Street to Golden Gate Park followed in 1894.
-
1896
After a foreclosure the railroad was reorganised under Adolph B. and John D. Spreckels, whose growth outran the first car house at Sunnyside Avenue and Joost Street and led to the building of this one.
-
July 15, 1900
The San Francisco and San Mateo Electric Railroad broke ground for its Geneva Avenue Shops at San Jose and Geneva avenues. The brick complex was to hold four buildings: a two-storey office with a single-storey transformer room attached to it, a twenty-track car shed and a blacksmith's shop.
-
1901
Built as the San Francisco and San Mateo Railway's company car house and office building at San Jose and Geneva avenues; by the 1920s it housed more streetcars than any other barn in the city's electric-car era.
-
1901
Twenty-two days after the office and powerhouse were finished, the Spreckels sold the railroad to the Baltimore syndicate headed by Brown Brothers of New York, and the San Mateo line became the nucleus of the United Railroads. The Romanesque brick office is attributed to Reid Bros.
-
April 22, 1901
The shops opened for business; the power house was finished later in the year. The office stands 45 feet high and about 122 feet by 47, wood-framed with unreinforced brick walls inside and out, late Romanesque Revival with Queen Anne turrets at its corners, curve-glazed double-hung windows in the turrets and tri-partite windows along the flanks under two round-arched entrances on the west. The design is attributed to the Reid Brothers, James W. and Merritt Reid, but no original drawings and no primary source naming them have been found.
-
1906-1917
After the carmen’s strikes the United Railroads opened the office's second floor as a social hall that could be turned into dormitories for live-in strike-breakers, and cut a door into the east wall so they could reach the yard without passing the strikers at the gate.
-
April 18, 1906
The earthquake brought down the whole second-floor wall on the office's north elevation and part of the matching section on the east. The collapsed sections were rebuilt in wood framing and diagonal bracing was added in the window arches.
-
May 10, 1906
The office was back in full use three weeks after the earthquake.
-
1910
The power house was altered: its multi-paned windows were changed, the central bay's openings widened under shallow segmental arches, and the outer west and south walls encased in cement from the mezzanine up.
-
March 1916
The funeral car service the office had run came to an end — three electric cars fitted with a coffin compartment at the front, a coffin elevator and seats for mourners behind, working the spurs off the electric road to the cemeteries.
-
1928
The rebuilt walls were wrapped in tar paper.
-
1944
Transferred to the Municipal Railway (MUNI) along with the rest of the Market Street Railway system.
-
1956-1979
The Geneva Avenue yard was the only working streetcar depot in the Bay Area.
-
late 1970s
The car barn beside the office was demolished.
-
1981
The power house had been abandoned by the time a new power grid was laid in for the Boeing light rail vehicles taking over from the older electric cars.
-
1985
Designated a San Francisco landmark as the Geneva Office Building.
-
1986
The city made the Geneva Office Building a landmark, City Landmark No. 180.
-
1989
Severely damaged in the Loma Prieta earthquake, prompting MUNI to abandon the building for operations.
-
1995
The Federal Emergency Management Agency found the office and the power house eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, and the State Historic Preservation Officer concurred.
-
May 2003
Reroofing. structural repairs (permanent at roof). temporarary seismic stabkizaton. temporary window &.
-
2004
Transferred to the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department for use as an arts and history center, pending rehabilitation funding.
-
2004
The empty office building and power house were mothballed and stabilised to Carey & Co.'s plans: temporary steel frames braced the masonry walls, floors were tied to the walls, and a membrane roof went on.
-
Apr 2009
Upgrade to ada code compliance of the men's & women's locker rooms & path of travel to locker facilities. work is associated with new canopy structure to be submitted under a separate permit.
-
Jul 2009
Construction of new metal building for storage of muni trains.
-
Oct 2009
Design & install new overhead fire sprinkler system at new historic car enclosure. design & install new underground fire water service from property line to new historic car enclosure (includes cathodic protection).
-
March 31, 2010
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the office building and power house together, as the last surviving buildings of the San Francisco and San Mateo Electric Railway's Geneva Avenue shops.
-
May 2010
Installation of sprinkler monitoring system.
-
Jul 2015
Install circuit from existing electrical panel to new 4 gang receptacvle. install dis server. install 2 antennas on building wall. install radio unit. install cables, hyperflex, cat 5 fiber optic.
-
Jun 2016
Work on "power house" part of building only. work includes: rehabilitation, & restoration of exterior facade, seismic upgrade, new mep systems, interior renovations, site improvements, pre-manufactured toilet facility & ramp under separate permit. ** maher: n/a **.
-
Aug 2016
Install steel frames with gates to provide fall protection system for muni maintenance workers.
-
May 2018
Ref to permit application 201606018886: foundation for temporary modular/remanufactured restroom facility and access platform to service building owned by city. modular structure certified by state of ca will be filed under separate permit.
-
Nov 2018
Revision to permit application 201606018886. t.i to building interior. adjust swing doors, expand electrical rm, convert storage to expanded pantry, addition of 218 sq ft office rm.
-
Jun 2019
Install new fa system - include new facu, 1 remote annunciator, 1 cell comm, 1 document box, 1 dual monitoring module for fire sprink system, 1 relay module, 1 monitoring module for emergency power invertor, 1 monitoring module for cell comm, 1 pull station, 1 smoke det, 16 horn strobes & 2 strobes.
-
Jun 2019
Ref permit application 201606018886; install overhead sprinkler 81 heads.
-
Nov 2020
Interior improvement: upgrade of railing around perimeter of existing equipment platform; capless glass balustrade.
-
Sep 2025
Cleaning, selective replacement and patching of bricks on the san jose and geneva ave facades. installation of new gutters and downspouts around the entire building to match existing. in kind repair of four bay windows along san jose ave facade to be protected with a plywood system.
-
Dec 2025
Se building: voluntary replacement of the fires alarm syste including a cellular dialer, replace of 38 initiating devices and 5 notification devices and 2 new modules.
-
Jun 2026
Fire only work to be obtain as as-built permit for the voluntary replacment of the fire alarm system, initial fire alarm permit application: 202512161848 and these drawings adds 1 smoke detector correction.
-
Jul 2026
Fire only work to obtain as-built permit #2 for the voluntary replacement of the fire alarm system. as-built permit#1 bpa#202606112971 indicated 9 heat detectors when only 2 were existing/replaced. ref bpa#202512161848.
DBI holds 29 permits for this parcel, most of them tenant improvements on individual floors. The timeline shows the 24 largest by stated cost, plus the earliest on file; the DBI query in the sources below returns all 29. 7 expired or cancelled permits are not shown. Sources disagree on when the Geneva Office Building was made a city landmark: the Muni facilities history gives 1985, the Planning Department's 1998 environmental impact report gives 1986.
Nearby
- 397 San Jose Avenue Same street
- 3101 San Jose Avenue Same street