Pyramid’s steep path from civic eyesore to icon
December 27th, 2009 Filed Under Development Updates, Financial District, Zoning & City Hall Issues
The San Francisco Chronicle
By John King
December 27th, 2009
The Transamerica Pyramid is San Francisco’s tallest and best-known tower. It’s a registered corporate trademark, a fixture on postcards - and proof that snap judgments on buildings can often be wrong.
Construction began 40 years ago this month over the loud objection of anyone who was anyone in urban design. The city’s top planner called the proposal “an inhumane creation.” The Washington Post’s critic recoiled at “a second-class world’s fair Space Needle.” Progressive Architecture magazine warned the impact on San Francisco would be “no less reprehensible than … destroying Grand Canyon.”
Instead, the 853-foot-tall tower that opened in 1972 has become a civic icon. [More...]
S.F. real estate story line: Flight to quality
December 18th, 2009 Filed Under Development Updates, Financial District, Tenant Activity, Zoning & City Hall Issues
The San Francisco Business Times
By J.K. Dineen
December 18th, 2009
San Francisco office tenants are increasingly gravitating to downtown’s most prestigious trophy towers, taking advantage of desperate landlords to lock in cheap rents, according to a study by Jones Lang LaSalle.
While overall San Francisco tenants gave up 1.3 million square feet more than they leased in 2009, the city’s 49 most prominent buildings — JLL calls them the Skyline 49 — actually had about 100,000 square feet of positive absorption over the past two quarters. [More...]
Morgan Stanley to give back San Francisco buildings
December 11th, 2009 Filed Under Development Updates, Financial District
The San Francisco Business Times
By J.K. Dineen
December 11th, 2009
Morgan Stanley Real Estate, one of San Francisco’s largest office landlords, plans to give back to its lender five downtown office buildings acquired in 2007 at the apex of the boom.
The properties were part of Morgan Stanley’s $2.43 billion portfolio purchase from the Blackstone Group, the largest real estate transaction in San Francisco history.
The properties will be given to the property arm of New York private equity firm Apollo Global Management in a consensual transfer, a complex transaction that has been nearly a year in the making. [More...]
Towering plan for new S.F. skyline unveiled
November 19th, 2009 Filed Under Development Updates, Financial District, South of Market, Zoning & City Hall Issues
San Francisco Chronicle
By John King & John Cote’
November 19th, 2009
The recession hasn’t stopped San Francisco’s city planners from thinking big.
The Planning Department released an ambitious set of proposals Thursday to turn the blocks around the Transbay Terminal into a commercial and transportation centerpiece of the region over the next two decades.
The 145-acre “Transit Center District” would redraw San Francisco’s skyline with a half-dozen towers taller than almost any in the city, including one stretching at least 100 feet higher [More...]
Lease expirations to slam San Francisco
November 16th, 2009 Filed Under Development Updates, Financial District, Midmarket/ City Hall, South of Market, Tenant Activity
San Francisco Business Times
By J.K. Dineen
November 13th, 2009
A nascent recovery in San Francisco’s leasing market could be swamped by a wave of empty office space hitting the market in the next two years.
Consolidations by several large tenants — including Wells Fargo, Levi Strauss, Charles Schwab, Williams Sonoma and JP Morgan Chase - will result in the return of nearly 1 million square feet to the office market during the course of 2010, according to a forecast by Colliers International.
Wells Fargo will vacate 350,000 square feet at 155 Fifth St. in June 2010. In opting to renew at Levi’s Plaza at 1255 Battery St., Levi Strauss will shed about 200,000 square feet of its current 550,000-square-foot headquarters. William-Sonoma’s consolidation into the Icehouse on Union Street will result in about 75,000 square feet of vacant space at Mariposa Square on Florida Street and Wamu Card Services, now JP Morgan Chase, will give back about 105,000 square feet at 123 Mission St., according to Colliers. [More...]
Shared spirit in 1 Kearny’s styles from 3 eras
November 12th, 2009 Filed Under Development Updates, Financial District
San Francisco Chronicle
By John king
November 10th, 2009
The newest building on Market Street in San Francisco isn’t really a building at all. It’s a 10-story bookend with a coat of brick-red terra cotta and crisp black metal.
It’s also the third piece of an architectural collage started in 1902 - a triptych that manages to distill a century of design and cultural trends into a single building that covers less than half a block.
The largest piece of what’s now called One Kearny came first, a 12-story burst of French Renaissance ebullience designed by William Curlett. There’s a regal granite base, the emphatic thrust of sandstone and then, at the summit, a steep two-story roof clad in red clay tiles and punctuated by florid dormer windows. [More...]
Shorensteins prevail in bid for S.F. building
November 9th, 2009 Filed Under Development Updates, Financial District
San Francisco Business Times
By J.K. Dineen
November 6th, 2009
The Shorensteins are jumping back into the downtown market with the $25 million purchase of 188 Spear St., the first property the legendary family real estate investment firm has bought in San Francisco since 2005.
Prudential Real Estate Investors is in contract to sell the 147,000-square-foot office property to Shorenstein for $170 a square foot, a 56 percent drop from the $385 a square foot or $56.9 million that the city assessed the south financial district property for last fiscal year. The only other Class A financial district building to sell this year, 250 Montgomery St., traded for $172 a square foot — also a 56 percent drop from its previous sale in 2006. [More...]
Tavern on the Metreon Never a Done Deal
October 15th, 2009 Filed Under Development Updates, Yerba Buena
Globe Street
By Brian K. Miller
October 14th, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO-Tavern on the Green, the heavily-touristed restaurant in NYC’s Central Park generated a lot of news stories last year when its operators announced plans to launch a West Coast iteration overlooking this city’s urban oasis, Yerba Buena Gardens. More than $10 million reportedly would be spent on the build-out of a 43,000-square-foot space atop the Metreon, headlining an effort by Forest City Enterprises and Westfield to remodel, re-tenant and thereby revitalize the under-performing 360,000-square-foot development for success in 2010.
Forest City called it an “an extraordinary addition” in the May 2008 announcement. Westfield called it “an ideal complement” to the cultural, hospitality and convention businesses in the area. “We have been anxiously waiting for the perfect opportunity…and we are pleased to say that we have finally found it…, said Tavern on the Green CEO Jennifer LeRoy in the same announcement. “The City of San Francisco, with its vibrancy, diversity and passionate dining culture, combined with the perfect setting on a park in the heart of the city is simply too good to be true.”
Apparently it was. A source with Tavern on the Green tells GlobeSt.com it never made a firm commitment to open at the Metreon and that such a commitment is now on indefinite hold [More...]
Transbay funds delay may have $100M price tag
October 9th, 2009 Filed Under Development Updates, Financial District, South of Market
San Francisco Examiner
By Will Reisman
October 9th, 2009
An unexpected delay in funding for the new Transbay Terminal could set construction plans back months and cost the project another $100 million.
The transformation of the existing Transbay Terminal, a 70-year-old building on Mission and First streets, into a modern regional transit hub is expected to provide 45,000 jobs.
Earlier this year, the Transbay Joint Powers Authority — the agency in charge of the ambitious renovation project — applied for $400 million in federal stimulus funds, a revenue stream it originally expected to be released this month. [More...]
Nektar to move HQ to Mission Bay
October 2nd, 2009 Filed Under Development Updates, Mission Bay, South of Market, Tenant Activity
San Francisco Business Times
By Ron Leuty
October 2nd, 2009
Nektar Therapeutics Inc.will shift its headquarters and 150 employees to San Francisco after taking 102,283 square feet of office space in Mission Bay originally intended for Pfizer, Inc.
The move from San Carlos is laced with a heavy dose of irony: Two years ago, Pfizer pulled the plug on a drug collaboration with Nektar, and nearly killed the company in the process.
It’s also laden with sizeable savings. Nektar will pay no rent in the first four years of the 10-year sublease deal and will snag a $15 million tenant improvement allowance granted to Pfizer by landlord Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. [More...]
