The San Francisco Flower Mart has announced a partnership with Kilroy Realty Corp. that will preserve the flower market at its current location in San Francisco at Sixth and Brannan streets in a new, state-of-the-art facility, according to a news release.

“Over the past several months we have been working to finalize our agreements with Kilroy and begin designing the new flower mart facility,” said Bob Otsuka, executive vice president and general manager of San Francisco Flower Mart, in the release. “With an updated, more efficient facility, we will be able to stay competitive in our conveniently located market and service our customer base. Our goal is to keep seamless, continued operations during construction to service the growers, wholesalers and retailers who supply, sell and buy here at the mart.”

Under the terms of the agreement, Otsuka and his team will continue to manage both the current site and the new facility when completed. All vendor-tenants have been offered a five-year extension of their leases at their current rent and terms.

Artist’s rendering of the new San Francisco Flower Mart space.“SFFM and Kilroy Realty have agreed to affordable rent levels in both the existing and new facility. The leases offered enable us to plan for our future in a way that we could never do on our own without this partnership,” said Steve Oku, owner of Oku Nursery, a tenant of the flower mart, and president of the SFFM board of directors, in the release. “The agreement not only ensures that we will have a new flower market, but that it will be affordable to the current tenants, which has been our goal all along.”

The new facility will include a state-of-the-art 115,000-square-foot warehouse, large enough to accommodate all tenants of the existing flower market. The warehouse will be located below-grade in order to provide a temperature and light-controlled environment for the flowers and easy access to the new, below-ground parking lot and loading area for the facility, which will be sectioned off to prevent any exhaust fumes from damaging the flowers.

With 24-foot-high ceilings and strategically placed skylights to provide natural light, there will be enough space for a mezzanine that can accommodate office space for the wholesale flower vendors. New, energy and space-efficient refrigeration space will be provided adjacent to the individual vendor stalls.

Above the warehouse, a new public plaza will have flower retail space, restaurants and other neighborhood-serving businesses. Of this, 10,000 square feet will be dedicated retail space for the new SFFM.

The proposed project is still being designed, according to Mike Sanford, Kilroy Realty’s executive vice president for northern California. “We envision the new SFFM to be a real destination — a mixed-use development where flower vendors, retail tenants, office users and visitors mingle together to create a unique, organic environment that complements all of the varied uses on the site,” said Sanford in the release.

Kilroy Realty and California Flower Market will work alongside a committee of flower mart tenants to design the new facility, which will tentatively begin construction in late 2016 and open in 2019. All current tenants in good standing will be offered space in the new facility.

The San Francisco Flower Mart dates back to the late 1800s in San Francisco. Local flower growers would bring their products to Lotta’s Fountain in downtown San Francisco and sell on the city streets. The market has relocated four times over the past century, but has remained at its current home at Sixth and Brannan streets since 1956.