NNN Brokers USA – San Francisco Commercial Real Estate Brokers: "The Scoop"

John King has read between the lines of last week’s Transit Center plan, and sees Mission Street as the new Market. Surprise! But if anybody’s been paying attention, the 50-year “move south has already occurred,” with the Yerba Buena museum district stomping out residential hotels and with Mission Bay replacing dead rail yards. Yes, says King, the development environment nowadays is harsh, making a slew of new towers sound like pure fantasy, but in the long view of things, 2009′s but a brief, development-killing blip. [SFGate]

Local firm BDE Architecture is responsible for this Nob Hill project, submitted to the Planning Department sometime two years ago (they refer to it as Russian Hill). The six-story, 65-foot-tall mixed-used building would replace a shorter auto repair shop at 1645 Pacific, just off Van Ness. It’ll be shooting for a respectable LEED Gold environmental certification, and also aims to be compatible with the possible historic district that’s been floated for nearby “Van Ness Auto Row.” The project totals 48 homes, about half of which will be studios, and the others a mix of 1- and 2-bedrooms, with a couple 3-bedroom units thrown in for good measure. And below all that in the basement level: 24 bike parking spaces and 49 car spaces in basement level (39 of which will be stackers). Objections to the project from the Middle Polk Neighborhood Association, appear to have mostly to do with its stretching up six stories, while neighboring buildings are a little more horizontally inclined.
· 1645 Pacific Ave Draft Environmental Impact Report (PDF) [Sfgov]

The blight cops are after the owners of the city’s 500-ish vacant buildings. The crackdown follows a law passed unanimously by the Board of Supes and then signed by the mayor a few months ago that would charge owners of empty or abandoned buildings a yearly $765 fee, meant to make up for things like safety inspections and administrative costs. On top of the fee, owners are also subject to a few new rules covering the way they main their buildings: they now have to make sure trespassers can’t get in, and things have to look on the whole tidy. According to the supes prez, the thinking goes that forcing owners to get their act together will be beneficial to neighborhoods — and property values! — as a whole. Plus, it’ll “prod” them into getting their building’s groove back, by putting them into use again or selling them.
· San Francisco cracks down on vacant buildings [SF Examiner]
· Blight Police Want to Beef Up After Cottage’s Untimely Death [Curbed SF]

[Photo via Brian_Brooks]

[The real Batman building in Nashville, TN, via Flickr user howieluvzus]

· Golfers vs. garter snake: decision delayed [City Insider]
· Google’s landing pages for real estate listings [Search Engine Land]
· Fun with line graphs: SF real estate values [The Front Steps]
· Goodbye boomburbs, back to clustered development? [USA Today]
· BART’s $26 million deficit [ABC 7]

“Nothing wrong with that place that a wrecking ball couldn’t cure. Oh wait, the neighborhood.” —phlavor [The Bayview's Reddest Kitchen House Returns, With a Higher Price!]

Click the image above to view the full photogallery.

Once: $4,295,000
Then: $4,095,000
Now: $3,800,000
You Save: $495,000, or 11.5 percent!

Nimble on its little asking price feet, this one. The latest chop to this 4-bed Pac Heights house at 2333 Octavia St. is enough to draw a steady downward trend line with — perhaps as a result of a very motivated seller. At over 4,200 square feet, the house is now $904 per. Predictions for the going price?
· 2333 Octavia St [Redfin]
· PriceChopper: Secluded 4-Bedroom Place in Pac Heights [Curbed SF]

Thanks to the 2008 stimulus act, the federal government has been insuring about six mortgages a week in San Francisco — compared to none for all of 2007. Traditionally, loans underwritten by the Federal Housing Administration are for the poors (“in low-cost states like Texas and Michigan”), but the bar’s been raised, allowing middle- and upper-income buyers into the game. Profiled in the NYT: three friends who each dropped $33K in order to buy a Hayes Valley building. The idea? “We’re banking on real estate. Everyone expects prices to keep going up.” Hey, that sounds familiar. [NYT]

Click the image above to view the full photogallery.

In other urban transformation news, the Balboa Park Station Area Plan that got passed back in April is just about getting its start. With a land swap between the Redevelopment Agency and the SFMTA, the city will turn the current Phelan Loop bus layover site into a public plaza, 60 affordable homes, and retail space. The bus loop would then shift east, over to the adjacent fire station. But there are even bigger ambitions in store: on top of a total of 1,780 projected new homes, the Balboa plan calls for a “freeway deck that would “create a new ‘piece of land’ over Interstate 280. … Development opportunities on top of the deck should be explored to the greatest extent practical: new buildings here would be essential in creating human-scaled development rather than a large, auto-dominated overpass.” We were just thinking the freeway needed more people.
· Balboa Park Station Area Plan [SFTOD]
· Land-swap arrangement up for approval [SF Examiner]
· Next Up in Pedestrian Makeovers: Ocean Avenue [Curbed SF]

Click the image above to view the full photogallery.

For real? The Reddest Kitchen at 1358 Shafter has updated its listing, and if we’re not mistaken, the $150K asking price has actually gone up by more than $100K, to $269,950. What’s more, the 4-bedroom horror house’s listing now has even more gory images of redrum throughout. And as a commenter last time noted, a complaint filed with the city in March says the “structure is leaning towards neighbor. Front is tearing away from building – unsafe.” Complainers. Though that might explain the drop in price from 2005′s $630,000. (Though that price raises a couple questions in itself.)
· 1358 Shafter Ave [Redfin]
· That’s Rather Hideous: The Reddest Kitchen of Them All [Curbed SF]

[Via Burrito Justice]

In the wake of the Mission’s failed American Apparel, movement has been spotted in their would-be spot at 988 Valencia*. Burrito Justice asks: “What kind of establishment would want a wall of horizontal beat-up two-by-fours?” We don’t know, but if Outerlands can do it, anyone can. The new voice of Mission Mission has a clue to add as well, saying that the owner “indicated that he was having trouble renting out such a large, unfinished space. He said that (he) was going to subdivide the space, provided no one took the whole thing, and replace the garage door with a storefront. Based on the permits, it looks like he did exactly that.”
· What’s Going On Here, AASS? (American-Apparel-Sacrificial-Space) [Burrito Justice]
· Store-punting: Nope on American Apparel in the Mish [Curbed SF]
· Hipsters Rally: American Apparel Awakens A Sleeping Giant [Curbed SF]

*UPDATE: As Burrito Justice’s johnny0 notes, the above space is actually not the would-be American Apparel space. But hark! It’s a tenant in a retail space, in this economy.