The Hugo Hotel was a building in San Francisco's

South of Market South of Market (SoMa) is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, situated just south of Market Street. It contains several sub-neighborhoods including South Beach, Yerba Buena, and Rincon Hill. SoMa is home to many of the city's museums ...

district built in 1909, designed by Theo W. Lenzen. It was located at 200-214 Sixth Street. Gutted by fire in 1988, Hugo Hotel was notable for being held vacant by the owner for 26 years, and for being the site of the ''Defenestration of Furniture'' art installation created in 1997 by local artist Brian Goggin. The

San Francisco Redevelopment Agency The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency (SFRA) was an urban renewal agency active from 1948 until 2012, with purpose to improve the urban landscape through "redesign, redevelopment, and rehabilitation" of specific areas of the city. SFRA demolis ...

took the owners to court in 2008. In 2009, the building was acquired by the

City and County of San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

under a rare claim of

eminent domain Eminent domain (United States, Philippines), land acquisition (India, Malaysia, Singapore), compulsory purchase/acquisition (Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, United Kingdom), resumption (Hong Kong, Uganda), resumption/compulsory acquisition (Austr ...

for $4.6 million. It was finally razed in 2015 to make way for

affordable housing Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a household income at or below the median as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on affo ...

; in 2017 the Bill Sorro Community, an apartment house for low-income residents, was completed at the site.

References

{{South of Market, San Francisco Hotels in San Francisco Hotel buildings completed in 1909 South of Market, San Francisco Demolished buildings and structures in San Francisco Buildings and structures demolished in 2015 Defunct hotels in California