For nearly three years, a vacant SoMa lot at Fifth and Clara streets has been accumulating water, garbage, and mosquitoes. Now three years and two lawsuits later, a new owner vows it should be cleaned up soon.People who frequent Fifth Street in South of Market know that a vacant lot at Clara Street, about a block north of The EndUp, has earned the nickname “trash lake.” The abandoned construction site has been taking on lakes of standing water, even during the dry months, and has become a hotbed of illegal trash dumping and mosquitoes, while developing a rancid stench that can be smelled from a block away. "I've seen people in the lake, people dump trash in here, and it just feels like it's a neglected piece of the city," Clara Street resident Nick Dipastena told KGO in the segment above. But relief is supposedly on the way for him and other nearby residents, as that same KGO segment says the developer of the site is vowing to finally clean up the trash lake. SFGate first reported on the SoMa trash lake in May 2024 (and thus likely dubbed it the “trash lake”), though KGO says complaints about it go back as far as “spring 2022.” Those are not particularly rainy times of year, and city officials could not explain where the water was coming from. City Attorney David Chiu sued the owners of the site this past September calling it a “public nuisance that substantially endangers the safety, health, and welfare” of residents. To make matters worse, the owner had stopped making payments on the property, and another lawsuit from the owner’s lender seems to have forced a sale. A court-appointed receiver will be handling the cleanup. That court-appointed receiver is Thompson Builders Corp. The company’s president Paul Thompson told KGO "The plan is to pump out the water, clean out the residual debris, and we'll backfill the site to bring it up to grade, stabilize it, and repair all the sidewalks so it's a presentable piece of property.”The site was supposed to be a 127-unit residential project, but construction stopped without explanation around August 2020. Thompson Builders Corp are not the new owners, and Thompson declined to name who the new owners are. But he said to KGO that that they have "excellent reputation and track record," and they reportedly plan to build a 130-unit complex at the site.Related: Trash and Debris Showing Up Again On SF Beaches, As It Often Does After Rainstorms [SFist]Image: @cameron_pfiffer via Twitter