Post-catastrophe imagery and AI-derived property damage and condition data unite to help insurers process customer claims more efficiently.
What do atomic fallout, The Beatles and aerial mapping have in common? What if you throw in The Cold War and the 1989 World Series that was interrupted by a 6.9 earthquake? Add years of urban neglect plus a secret military laboratory where radiation tests were conducted and you’ll only just begin to scratch the surface of San Francisco’s forgotten southeast corner of Hunter's Point, now in the midst of an 8 billion dollar urban renewal—the largest redevelopment project in the city’s history.
The Hunter’s Point Shipyard was once the nation’s most polluted site. It was the site of a federal nuclear program that included a secret Cold War nuclear lab plus military equipment and Navy ships contaminated with nuclear radiation from atomic tests in the South Pacific. Just to its south stood Candlestick Park, home to the San Francisco Giants for over 20 years, the site of the last Beatles concert and famous for withstanding a 6.9 earthquake on live TV in the middle of the 1989 World Series.
The venerable Candlestick Park stadium survived a lot, but it couldn’t survive gentrification. Check out these progression images of its demolition to make room for new development as seen on Nearmap aerial maps and historical imagery tool.
San Francisco is a city with some of the highest rents in the nation, where burned down ‘fixer upper’ houses sell for well over six figures. Therefore, the pressure to develop its neglected southeast docklands is great. The city has followed all federal and state protocols to clean up the site from all toxins (radioactive or otherwise), and the first stage of the new housing development has recently been completed.
Check out the construction of the first stage of the new Docklands Development with Nearmap aerial maps and historical imagery tool.
This is all part of a 20-year project that will connect the former Navy Yard and the former Candlestick Park site with the current San Francisco Giants baseball stadium and a future basketball arena with a chain of parks and new housing, as well as retail and entertainment venues. The plan is hugely ambitious but visionary pioneers have already plunked $600k plus for apartments in the new complex. Always conscious of the gentrification pressures, the developers will reserve 32% of new housing for low or middle-income buyers and renters.
Construction companies, developers and city governments are finding that subscribing to frequently updated high-resolution aerial imagery is crucial when it comes to decision-making in large urban development projects like this one at Hunter's Point. Developers can keep track of demolitions and construction while deploying virtual measuring tools and other GIS software on top of the most recent and historical imagery.
Use frequently updated aerial maps from Nearmap to keep track of this exciting development and to review the progress to date.