San Francisco Development News

[SF1977]

Great news for SF's office market. Hopefully, this momentum continues and triggers some new construction!

Office development is making a comeback in San Francisco.
With downtown vacancies now under 9 percent and rents climbing into the mid $50s a square foot, developers are pouncing on land and redevelopment plays with an optimism not seen since 2006. On Howard Street, Tishman Speyer is digging the foundation on Foundry Square III, a $200 million speculative development. Around the corner at 222 Second St., Tishman Speyer is also looking at a late 2012 construction start date for a 450,000-square-foot, 22-story tower.
Meanwhile, developers are chasing two entitled downtown sites, 350 Mission St. and 535 Mission St., both of which are on the market. In another prime site for sale at 329 Brannan St., a former car wash that could work for either residential or commercial, large office developers have been outbidding the housing developers, according to project broker Daniel Cressman of Cornish & Carey Commercial Newmark Knight Frank.

Source and article: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci...-for-more.html

[Cal_Escapee]

The Wall St. Journal yesterday pointed to San Francisco as an example of a place where office buildings are now selling for prices higher than the cost of a new building would be. If that's true, how long can it be before new buildings get going?

[bayviews]

Originally Posted by Cal_Escapee

I have a different take on it. The tech boom creates fewer jobs in San Francisco because San Francisco fundamentally doesn't want and won't allow the kinds of jobs similar economic activity creates in Texas. We don't have big box retail and fast food joints lined up mile after mile and never will. Some people are proud of that. I'm not particularly. What it means for me is that rather than drive a mile or 2 to the Wal-Mart, I just order stuff from Amazon.com and create a job in Phoenix or Seattle. More and more I find myself saying, "I don't even know who would sell that thing I need in San Francisco" and rather than search for it in local retail as I might once have had to, I just sit down at my computer and order it. More low wage Texas-style jobs not created. And since I don't need to drive to Wal-Mart, I don't even need a car . . . or an auto mechanic or a guy sitting sullenly behind bullet-proof glass at the gas station.

Frankly I'd rather have retail & eating places lined up mile after mile than homeless & knocked-out denzions lying in closed or vacant storefronts, mile after mile.

Perhaps if SF got off its hi-horse & stooped to allowing more big box & fast food retail it might generate more entry-level employment for the street dwelling population & thus get back into the productive population.

[Cal_Escapee]

Originally Posted by bayviews

Perhaps if SF got off its hi-horse & stooped to allowing more big box & fast food retail it might generate more entry-level employment for the street dwelling population & thus get back into the productive population.

Well, I think Skybar is a better place to debate this but San Francisco spends more money on free stuff for the homeless than Texas probably pays them in wages--$200 million per year on 7,000-10,000 homeless--but don't kid yourself into thinking there aren't still plenty of them in Texas. If they aren't on the street there, it may be because the city manages to hide them.

But most of the bums on San Francisco's streets, many of us who live here know, are not actually homeless (and they shouldn't be with all money being spent). Drugs and panhandling are just their preferred occupation. So allowing more chain stores and fast food wouldn't make much difference. It might, however, employ more youthful immigrants and poor kids.

[ElDudarinodotcom]

Dolby to move HQ to Mid-Market
Casey Newton
Published 01:43 p.m., Tuesday, June 26, 2012

(06-26) 13:41 PDT San Francisco -- Dolby Laboratories will move its headquarters to the Mid-Market neighborhood, continuing the transformation of a neighborhood that is becoming a new technology hub.

The audio technology provider said Tuesday that it plans to purchase the building at 1275 Market St. from DivcoWest. The purchase price is $110 million.

The building, which sits a few hundred feet from the new Twitter headquarters near 9th and Market streets, was formerly occupied by the State Compensation Insurance Fund. DivcoWest and TMG Partners acquired the 354,000-square-foot building from the fund in October for $44 million, according to the San Francisco Business Times.

Dolby, which has about 700 Bay Area employees working in three San Francisco offices, will consolidate most of its operations into the new headquarters, CEO Kevin Yeaman said. Its current headquarters at 100 Potrero Ave. will continue be used as a sales office, he said.

The company is making the move despite the fact it is not receiving financial incentives from the city. Although its new headquarters sits close to the Mid-Market area where companies are eligible for a temporary exemption from the city's payroll tax, the site lies a bit outside of it.

"We're actually excited to be a part of the Mid-Market area," Yeaman said. "There are a lot of exciting things going on there. It's an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a very exciting neighborhood."

In addition to Twitter, technology companies that have moved into the area recently include ZenDesk, Zoosk, One King's Lane and CallSocket.

"They're going to be adding to our whole strategy around Market Street," Mayor Ed Lee said. "They're a good San Francisco company. They mean to grow here and be here for the long term."

The building will be renovated before employees start moving in, likely some time in the next year to 18 months, city officials said. Yeaman said renovation plans are still in the early design phase.

Founded by Ray Dolby in Great Britain in 1965, the company moved to San Francisco in 1976. Its products include surround-sound systems and technology that encodes and compresses audio.

"We are excited about Dolby Laboratories' continuing and growing presence in the city and its contribution to revitalizing the Mid-Market area," Dolby said in a statement.

http://www.sfgate.com/technology/art...et-3664405.php

[Cal_Escapee]

Updated June 26, 2012, 1:20 p.m. ET
Tech Boom Hits San Francisco Rental Prices
Prices Soar as Well-Paid Tech Workers Stream Into City After a Long Exodus
By SHIRA OVIDE

SAN FRANCISCO—The latest technology boom is helping to stem a decadelong exodus of residents from San Francisco, but the influx of well-paid workers is driving up already-high housing costs and straining public resources . . . .

The new migration follows a long period in which San Francisco lost residents to states such as Arizona and Nevada, which offered jobs, cheaper housing and warmer weather. During the decade that ended in 2010, an average of 9,000 people a year left San Francisco for other parts of the U.S., according to California's Department of Finance. The city of roughly 800,000 continued to grow due to immigration from abroad. But in the fiscal year ended last June 30, net domestic outflow fell to 3,400 people, the best performance since fiscal 2000.

While there are no migration data for late 2011 or this year, employers and economists say the renewal of San Francisco's tech scene is luring many workers from elsewhere. Local tech companies including Zynga and Twitter Inc. have expanded in San Francisco, and many techies who work at Facebook Inc., Google Inc. and Apple Inc., in Silicon Valley to the south, are opting to live in the city, too.

In April, the city's unemployment rate was 7.4%, down from 8.4% a year earlier. That compares with 8.1% for the nation, down from 9% a year earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Livefyre Inc., a San Francisco start-up working on online-commenting technology, said it has hired about a quarter of its 45 employees from outside the Bay Area. "We're seeing more and more talent gravitating towards San Francisco, particularly in our engineering group, where we look across the country to recruit top talent," said Jordan Kretchmer, Livefyre's founder and chief executive.

The city's renewed popularity comes with problems. The average number of weekday riders on the Caltrain commuter line connecting San Francisco with Silicon Valley rose 12.7% in April from a year earlier, despite fare increases. "We're bursting at the seams," said Christine Dunn, a spokeswoman for Caltrain, which plans to add six trains to the service. In South of Market, the burgeoning pedestrian population is raising concerns about people getting hit by cars, said the city, which is weighing stronger traffic-control measures . . . .

The San Francisco area, which real-estate research firm Reis Inc. defines as the city plus Marin and San Mateo counties, had the nation's fastest-rising costs to rent a home in the first three months of this year. The average monthly rent hit $1,888, up 5.9% from a year earlier, the biggest jump of all U.S. metropolitan areas tracked by Reis. The rise nationwide was 2.8%.

The second-fastest-growing market was an area of Silicon Valley anchored by San Jose, where rents jumped 4.9% over the same period. The average rental cost remains about 20% lower in the San Jose area than in the San Francisco area—the country's second-most-expensive rental market behind New York City, according to the Reis data . . . .

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...=ITP_pageone_1

[SF1977]

1998 Market and 1800 Van Ness are breaking ground soon.

After Bosa's project, the next significant condo developments hitting San Francisco will be 1998 Market St. and 1800 Van Ness Ave. Brian Spiers and Canyon Johnson Urban Funds are ramping up to start construction on the 114-unit 1998 Market next week; Oyster Development's 98-unit 1800 Van Ness also starts this summer. Both projects will take 18 months to construct.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci...do-market.html

Just to refresh:

1998 Market

Source: www.socketsite.com

1800 Van Ness

Source: www.socketsite.com

[Cal_Escapee]

When 1998 Market breaks ground, doesn't the off-site BMR component further down Market (at Gough as I recall but maybe it's Franklin) have to break ground at the same time?

[SF1977]

Originally Posted by Cal_Escapee

When 1998 Market breaks ground, doesn't the off-site BMR component further down Market (at Gough as I recall but maybe it's Franklin) have to break ground at the same time?

That sounds logical, but I'm not sure. I assume it would have to be delivered with, or around the same time, as 1998 Market.

In addition to 1998 Market St., Spiers and Canyon Johnson are going forward with 1600 Market St., a 24-unit project, which will satisfy the affordable housing requirement for the 1998 Market project. Under the city’s affordable housing ordinance, 15 percent of a project’s units must be affordable to low- to moderate-income households, a requirement that rises to 20 percent if a developer chooses to build the affordable portion off-site. Both parcels of land were transferred into a joint venture with Spiers and Canyon Johnson. Cahill is the general contractor on both projects. Forum Design is the architect on the affordable development.

Source: http://www.polarisgroup.com/news/con...ruck-by-magic/

[SF1977]

Some info about the Moscone expansion:

A decade after its last major expansion, San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center is planning to enlarge its space by adding 250,000 to 400,000 square feet to its current 1 million square feet. Helming the potential additions and reconfigurations is the joint team of SOM and Mark Cavagnero Associates. They beat out a slew of contenders, including AECOM, Gensler, and HOK, who designed the original center in 1981.

As part of developing a 25-year-old master plan, the firms are designing a new identity around “an iconic architectural presence for Moscone,” said SOM’s Craig Hartman. “The Yerba Buena neighborhood has become a cultural and commercial hub, so it’s important that convention center also live up to 21st century expectations of what the city should be.”

The expansion is spurred by client demand and competition posed by other cities adding to their convention capacities. “A lot of our regulars are growing and a lot of groups that would like to be in there that can’t fit,” said Joe D’Alessandro, president and CEO of the San Francisco Travel Association, a private nonprofit representing the city’s tourist industry, which is driving the expansion.

While the architects are in the preliminary stages of planning, the RFP outlines two new buildings and a major underground expansion. The new construction could include a sizeable addition to Moscone South, a six-story, 260,000 square-foot building along its Third Street frontage; Moscone East, a four-story, 240,000 square-foot building that would take place of the current Moscone Center garage on the other side of Third Street and connect underground with the existing center; and a Howard Street Connection, a 11,000 square-foot underground facility between Moscone North and South. The last major expansion was Moscone West, completed in 2003.

Source and the rest of the article:
http://www.archpaper.com/news/articles.asp?id=6148

[desertpunk]

Originally Posted by SF1977

1998 Market and 1800 Van Ness are breaking ground soon.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci...do-market.html

RE: Madrone: Bosa's on fire! They just won approval for a 41 story luxury condo tower in San Diego. Can't wait to see these San Francisco projects go up too!

[SF1977]

Socketsite revealed new renderings of 706 Mission today. At 550', it will be the tallest tower in the immediate area (YBG).


Source: www.socketsite.com


Source: www.socketsite.com


Source: www.socketsite.com


Source: www.socketsite.com

The 706 Mission Scoop: Design, Details And Timing For Museum Tower
Source: www.socketsite.com

As plugged-in people know, the proposed 550-foot tower to rise at 706 Mission Street would house the Mexican Museum on floors one to four with 43 floors of residential above.
The base of the building would cantilever slightly over Jessie Square at the third and fourth floors and employ a glazed aluminum curtain wall system "articulated with vision, masonry, metal, and/or spandrel panel façade elements.”
Plans for the adjacent historic Aronson Building call for new retail and restaurant space on the ground floor with museum space on the second and third floors and either residential or office space on floors four though ten.With respect to parking, the existing Jessie Square Garage would be converted from publicly to privately-owned to provide parking for the project with 260 spaces for tower residents and 210 spaces on the upper two levels remaining available to the public.

Source and more info: http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2....html#comments

[Cal_Escapee]

As I posted in the other thread, I know the director of the Mexican Museum and we were both at a party the other day so I asked him when they were going to build this thing. He said they hope to start in 2013--they are doing the EIR now. Since you would need at least the massing to do an EIR, I assumed we might see something in the way of renders soon.

[SF1977]

Demolition has begun at 260 Fifth to make way for the second phase of a 2 building apartment complex - Phase 1 is under construction.

Demolition began Friday at 260 Fifth St. The site’s previous building featured a mural of the San Francisco bay and the Golden Gate Bridge, and was proximate to a gated empty lot on Tehama St. with a rarely-used basketball hoop. Rumor has it that the building used to house a famous music and film recording studio.

Now the site is slated to be complementary to an Avant Housing (the same folks who brought us SOMA Grand) development at 900 Folsom, which will include ground-floor retail space, condominiums, and a public green space. Construction at 900 Folsom is well underway but, as these images show, the work at Avant Housing’s 260 Fifth has just begun.

Source and article: http://www.livesoma.com/2012/07/02/2...h-street-soma/

[SF1977]

Originally Posted by Cal_Escapee

As I posted in the other thread, I know the director of the Mexican Museum and we were both at a party the other day so I asked him when they were going to build this thing. He said they hope to start in 2013--they are doing the EIR now. Since you would need at least the massing to do an EIR, I assumed we might see something in the way of renders soon.

So are you saying the latest "renderings" are just massing studies?

[Cal_Escapee]

Originally Posted by SF1977

So are you saying the latest "renderings" are just massing studies?

No. I'm saying I hadn't seen anything firm before, just ideas or proposals. But to do things like shadow and wind analysis, a part of any EIR, they had to have a pretty firm idea of the shape of the building (and occupancy) so they'd have to have finalized that, at least. How much further they might have gone in terms of finalizing the design I couldn't say--enough to produce a rendering apparently. But as some comments on Socketsite implied, there may be a lot of "refinement" to these renderings before it's all approved. The fact that the Mexican Museum is in the building and a lot of people want that finally built should help keep it on a fast track, though.

[SF1977]

Originally Posted by Cal_Escapee

No. I'm saying I hadn't seen anything firm before, just ideas or proposals. But to do things like shadow and wind analysis, a part of any EIR, they had to have a pretty firm idea of the shape of the building (and occupancy) so they'd have to have finalized that, at least. How much further they might have gone in terms of finalizing the design I couldn't say--enough to produce a rendering apparently. But as some comments on Socketsite implied, there may be a lot of "refinement" to these renderings before it's all approved. The fact that the Mexican Museum is in the building and a lot of people want that finally built should help keep it on a fast track, though.

Got it. Thanks!

After looking at these renderings a few times, it seems this building is designed to be more about the materials than its form, but a little "refinement" wouldn't hurt. I do trust Handel Architects and am positive they'll deliver a great building when all is said and done.

[Cal_Escapee]

San Francisco's new condo market (supply) rapidly vanishing
San Francisco Business Times by J.K. Dineen, Reporter
Date: Friday, June 29, 2012, 2:35pm PDT - Last Modified: Tuesday, July 3, 2012, 12:11pm PDT

San Francisco is quickly running out of new condos.

The supply of available condos is being depleted so rapidly that 20.4 percent of San Francisco’s entire new construction condominium inventory sold in the month of June, alone, according to the Polaris Group, which handles the marketing and sales of new condos.

In the first half of 2012, the city’s supply of available for-sale condominiums has shrunk from 881 homes in 15 developments to just 378 homes in 10 developments.

Chris Foley of the Polaris Group was pleased earlier in the spring to finally have a couple of new projects to sell: the 36-unit 299 Valencia St. in the Mission district and the 32-unit Millwheel in the Dogpatch. Two months later both projects are sold out.

It took 45 days to sell out the Millwheel project and 60 days to sell out 299 Valencia. Average price per square foot was $900 on Valencia and $600 at Millwheel. (The units are much larger at Millwheel, which partially explains the lower price per square foot.)

Meanwhile, One Hawthorne and the Millennium Tower are both down to their last units and there are no large new projects coming on line before Bosa Development's Madrone in Mission Bay, which will be complete this summer. All the rest of the projects under construction -- more than 3,000 units -- are all rental.

After Bosa's project, the next significant condo developments hitting San Francisco will be 1998 Market St. and 1800 Van Ness Ave. Brian Spiers and Canyon Johnson Urban Funds are ramping up to start construction on the 114-unit 1998 Market next week; Oyster Development's 98-unit 1800 Van Ness also starts this summer. Both projects will take 18 months to construct . . . .

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci...&ed=2012-07-05

[Cal_Escapee]

Rush for Mid-Market’s dwindling vacancies
J.K. Dineen, Reporter
Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 3:00am PDT

When the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission moves into its new building on Golden Gate Avenue this fall, the agency will leave behind about 140,000 square feet of space at 1145 Market St. — right in the heart of Mid-Market.

It seems unlikely that the building will sit empty for long. Already, tenants are honing in on the space, several of which are interested in taking all of it and others that would occupy a floor or two.

“We did not anticipate the degree of velocity that this submarket is showing — it’s clearly very, very strong,” said Andres Szita of Laurus Corp., which bought the building for $27 million last September.

Some 14 months after Twitter signed a lease to move its headquarters to the former Western Furniture Mart building at 1355 Market St., the neighborhood continues to explode.

Last week, audio innovator Dolby Laboratories announced that it had agreed to buy 1275 Market St. for $109.8 million and would renovate and occupy the entire 385,000-square-foot building, which was left vacant when the State Compensation Insurance Fund moved out last year. In addition to Dolby and Twitter, tech-related firms moving to Mid-Market include Yammer, One King’s Lane, ZenDesk, Zoosk and CallSocket. Taken together, the firms will occupy more than 1 million square feet of previously vacant space.

And property owners have not been shy about taking advantage of the suddenly popular but still gritty neighborhood. Since the second quarter of 2010, asking rents have jumped 57.1 percent, from $27.82 percent to $43.70 per square foot, according to Jones Lang LaSalle. And for the first time JLL — with other brokerages sure to follow — is creating a separate report focused on the Mid-Market submarket, just as it does for established areas like the Central Business District and South of Market.

“I think Mid-Market has officially become its own submarket, and it’s here to stay,” said Mark Geisreiter of the CAC Group, which is leasing 1145 Market St. for the Laurus Corp.

The well-publicized Mid-Market surge is also attracting financial groups that work with tech. At 998 Market St. — the famously crime-ridden corner of Sixth and Market — Sand Hill Road venture capital firm Benchmark Capital signed a deal to take two floors. Already other VCs are sniffing around. At 1161 Mission St., Colliers International is marketing a 70,000-square-foot building. Five venture capital firms have come through the space, according to Michael McCarthy, who leases the building for the owner.

“If I had told you six months ago that the 1100 block of Mission would be seeing love from VCs, you would have had me committed,” said McCarthy. “I thought it would take Twitter moving in and more gentrification in the neighborhood before people would start to follow. I missed it by about six months. All of a sudden it’s real" . . . .

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci....html?page=all

[SF1977]

55 Ninth, aka AVA at 55 Ninth, broke ground today! The design has been revised by Solomon, Cordwell, Buenz.

AvalonBay Celebrates Ground Breaking of AVA at 55 Ninth
JULY 12, 2012 by PUBLISHER in NEWS RELEASES



SAN FRANCISCO, CA. (July 10, 2012) — AvalonBay Communities, a NYSE-listed real estate investment trust (REIT), today hosted a ground breaking ceremony for its newest San Francisco apartment community, AVA at 55 Ninth. The community is AvalonBay’s seventh in the San Francisco metropolitan area and its sixty-seventh in California. It is also the State’s fourth AVA branded community, designed to attract Gen Y renters. AvalonBay’s first AVA community in San Francisco, AVA at Nob Hill, the redevelopment of an existing AvalonBay community, was opened July 2011.

An enthusiastic crowd of over sixty attended the ceremony and reception, which was held at the site of the new development in the heart of the increasingly popular Central Market neighborhood. Mayor Edwin Lee and AvalonBay executives, led by Meg Spriggs, Vice President for Development, addressed the gathering, pointing to the future community as the latest addition to one of the City’s fastest growing and newest “hot spots.”

Source and article: http://news.theregistrysf.com/avalon...a-at-55-ninth/