Two permits — a $190,000 grading filing and an $87,240 demolition filing — entered triage in early August at the vacant former UCSF Laurel Heights campus, the first tangible site-prep steps toward the long-delayed 744-unit Presidio Highlands.

On the ten-acre block at 3333 California Street, behind the perimeter fence that has held since UCSF walked away in 2023, the paperwork finally turned toward the ground this month. Two permits landed in the Department of Building Inspection's triage queue: one, filed August 7, to grade and excavate — the removal of pavement sections, surface-improvement demolition, utility removal and landscape clearing, valued at $190,000; the other, filed August 4, a straight demolition permit valued at $87,240.

Neither is a groundbreaking. Both are still in triage, the earliest review stage, and together their dollar figures are a rounding error against a project budgeted in the hundreds of millions. But they are the first filings that describe moving dirt rather than drawing units — and for the site that has sat entitled and empty longer than almost any in the city, that is the signal worth marking.

The block is the former UCSF Laurel Heights campus, slated to become Presidio Highlands: 744 housing units, roughly 38,000 square feet of retail, a childcare center and about five acres of open space, developed by the Prado Group with SKS Partners. A quarter of the housing is set aside as affordable, most of it senior units in the central Walnut Building, which Mercy Housing California is slated to operate. The Planning Commission signed off on the conditional use authorization back in September 2019; a neighborhood group sued the next year, Prado bought the land for $51.5 million in 2022, and the project then waited on financing.

That lock came off in January 2026, when the city approved an infrastructure financing district for the site. Permit filings followed — a first phase of 152 units late last year, a roughly 200-unit second phase in June — and the developer has pointed to late 2026 for construction to begin. The grading and demolition filings now in triage are what that timeline looks like on a clipboard.

Walk California Street past Laurel today and the fence, the shuttered buildings and the empty surface lot are still what you see. The permits say the next thing to notice will be the pavement coming up.