Looks like the Academy of Art University’s getting a move on its classic auto collection already. On Christmas Eve, one lone car appeared behind the plastic wrap at 950 Van Ness (though it might have been moved there a bit earlier than that). Eventually, according to a rep for the university, the entire auto collection will be housed at the new location at Van Ness and O’Farrell, down the street from its current location at 1849 Van Ness.
· Academy of Art Auto Collection Bound for Old Mercedes Showcase [Curbed SF]

Click the image above to view the full photogallery.

Lest we forget the pre-Infinity, pre-Millennium era, the slightly stodgier St. Regis still has doors open to big-ticket spenders. The hotel/luxe condo hybrid currently has a number of 2- and 3-bedroom ads on Craigslist, if curiously listed under the Financial District. The 2-bedroom one featured above on the 23rd floor totals 1,580 square feet, has two master suites, a “stunning glass wall” between living room and master bedroom, and an option to take it all furnished. Monthly rent: $8,000.
· Modern & chic exclusive St. Regis condo w/5-star hotel amenities! [Craigslist]

Petitioners are linking arms against a possible Beale Street terminal for high-speed rail. Not everyone’s on board, though. Commenter andyduncan had some harsh words for the planned Transbay Transit Center, and on Christmas Eve no less: “The station as designed will not fulfill it’s original goal of providing a downtown terminus for Caltrain, imposes unnecessary operational and physical constraints on HSR, and does all of these things at a staggeringly inflated cost. … Instead of lambasting a ‘schizo’ CHSRA, why aren’t you asking your politicians and city planners how they managed to screw up something this big and this expensive? Ask them why they listened to politicians instead of engineers when they rejected any location other than the basement of the existing (Transbay Terminal).” [Train Lovers Fed Up With Beale Street Shenanigans, Start Petition]

[Via Treasure Island Community Development, Chron]

So San Francisco’s finally forking over no small amount of money to buy Treasure Island from the Navy — is the plan to redevelop the island actually workable? Critics point to the sinking island and the threat of rising sea levels, but the project apparently has the thumbs up from the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, a body that’s previously spoken out about the dangers of rising waters in the Bay Area. What makes Treasure Island OK, they say, is all the prep for water issues that’s already been baked into project plans. The island will be surrounded by a dike that will double as a waterfront trail (“Treasure Trail,” anyone?). The settling dirt from the fake island will be packed and stabilized, and the “town center” will also be built higher than San Francisco’s current sea wall, not to mention 300 feet inland. And finally, according to Michael Cohen, Gavin’s front-office man on this, “It’s all supported by revenue the project generates.” Island fun world, here we come!
· Treasure Island utopia gets reality check [SFGate]
· No Money, No Prob: Buy Treasure Island on an Installment Plan [Curbed SF]

[Happy holidays friends, via Curbed SF Flickr photog camarografo]

· Garden guru guy makes nice stone mosaics [NYT]
· Spreading holiday cheer, streetcar-style [Market Street Railway]
· Emergency declared for Pacifica apartments, boulders needed [CBS 5]
· Meanwhile, San Mateo’s trying to go leashless [SF Examiner]
· Berkeley jumping on plastic bag ban bandwagon [SJ Merc]

Available “for the first time in four years,” says the listing for a 2-bed second floor unit at 1738 Haight St., also “the only new building in the area,” built in 2005. The 1,100 square-foot apartment has 1.5 baths, walk-in closets (“HUGE”), and we hear a newly gutter-punk/street-tough-free neighborhood. The Craigslist ad is also keen to note, besides the Cha Cha Cha and Aqua Surf shop, the Whole Foods planned for the corner of Haight and Stanyan in late 2010. Rent: $2,600.
· High-End, Large Unit [Craigslist]

To date, the reason behind the California High Speed Rail Authority’s continued exploration of a Beale Street terminal for the state’s fast train is still a little fuzzy. Yes, environmental impact reports generally require alternatives, even undesirable ones, to be fully fleshed out. But work on the alternative continues to surface, even threatening to demolish the Watermark for the right of way. And the famously schizo authority has been on record more than once saying that stopping the train before it gets to the Transbay Transit Center at 1st and Mission is just fine. Enough is enough, say a throng of petitioners: they demand now that the rail authority cease and desist, and return to sanity by having its trains go to the big new station that everyone’s pouring their hearts, souls, and money into.

As a strong supporter of building High Speed Rail throughout the state and into San Francisco’s downtown Transbay Transit Center, I am appalled at your consideration of the Beale Street Alternative. This study is not only wasteful, it risks over $400 million in federal funding for the Transbay Transit Center and is harming property values in the South Beach neighborhood of San Francisco.

Your study of the Beale Street Alternative was proposed to you by a lobbying and law firm on behalf of an unidentified special interest. This location has already been rejected as a technically and economically infeasible terminus for High Speed Rail in San Francisco. San Franciscans overwhelmingly voted for Proposition 1A to bring high speed rail to our Transit Center. Your study of the Beale Street Alternative, widely thought to be pushed by Board Member Quentin Kopp, is a wasteful expenditure of limited Proposition 1A money that should be applied to construction of the project.

With the passage of Proposition 1A, we believe that your study of the Beale Street Alternative is illegal. The voter approved mandate codifies in State law that the northern terminus for high speed rail will be the Transbay Transit Center.

The Transbay Transit Center is a federally approved project currently in construction in downtown San Francisco that has received the support of the San Francisco electorate on multiple occasions. Over $2 billion in funds have already been secured, independent of Proposition 1A. This Center is designed to accommodate high speed rail to downtown San Francisco.

The existence of this project is reason enough to drop your study of the Beale Street Alternative. Additionally, the Beale Street Alternative would likely result in the taking of more than 1,800 current and future residential units in the South of Market area. Your study alone has made many of our homes unmarketable by the required disclosure of your irresponsible study into any potential home sale. In contrast, the approved downtown extension to Transbay will take only 2 dozen residences. Given San Francisco’s housing crisis, this is a far more reasonable approach.

Meanwhile, the Transbay Joint Powers Authority has applied for $400 million in ARRA funds to build the rail box in the Transit Center. While this application has the support of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Mayor Gavin Newsom, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Dianne Feinstein, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, we understand that the Federal Rail Authority has expressed concern about your Beale Street Alternative. We are worried that the Beale Street Alternative is not about adequately addressing environmental issues, it’s about political brinkmanship.

It’s time to put high speed rail to San Francisco back on track.

As a supporter of high speed rail and Proposition 1A, I demand you halt your irresponsible study of the infeasible Beale Street Alternatives. I also ask that you hold a formal meeting of the California High Speed Rail Authority in San Francisco, to hold yourselves accountable to the people whose properties and projects you are jeopardizing.

· Save High Speed Rail in San Francisco [Change.org, via SF Citizen and Curbed Inbox]
· Watermark on the Tracks [Curbed SF]
· Rendering Revelation: Transbay Transit Center & Funicular Extravaganza [Curbed SF]
· High-Speed’s On Again for Transbay, Was Never Off? [Curbed SF]
· High Speed Rail: 4th and Townsend’s the New Downtown [Curbed SF]

[Arterra via Flickr/mark.hogan]

San Francisco’s newest neighborhood is now home to some non-fugly buildings, if Chron critic John King’s word holds true. You won’t find any of the city’s trademark Victorians, but King says the hood has its moments — fairly new ones that finally make it sort of OK that most of the other buildings there are bland boxes. Not every building can stand out, he says, but a small handful of them do, to some success. His nominees for least worst buildings of Mission Bay: the extremely orange and blue LEED-proud Arterra, and the AvalonBay towers with its “emphatic forms.” Also of note: the “expressive” central green at UCSF Mission Bay, a pumping station (part of a series) designed by Tom Eliot Fisch, and some nice first-floor unit treatments at Crescent Cove, by David Baker. Aww… we’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again. Our little neighborhood’s growing up.
· Good design starts to bloom in Mission Bay [SFGate]

Are flood of commercial real estate loan defaults coming?

Submitted by SHNS on Thu, 12/24/2009 – 14:54

• By ROBERT SELNA, San Francisco Chronicle

Optimism about a national economic recovery, fueled by rising stock prices and an improved residential real estate market, is tempered by the widespread belief that a raft of commercial real estate loan defaults is just around the corner.

Fears of a commercial real estate mortgage meltdown are bolstered by persistent unemployment, which has led to office and retail vacancies, rising commercial loan default rates and hundreds of bank failures.

A wave of commercial mortgage foreclosures would probably translate to more empty storefronts and offices, decreased municipal property tax revenue and fewer bank loans available to start and expand businesses.

But while most commercial real estate experts agree that in 2010 there will more loan defaults, scores more bank closures and limited construction lending, many observers do not believe that commercial mortgage defaults will derail the recovery.

“Things are not rosy, but the outlook for commercial real estate as the next shoe to drop after the residential mortgages just really isn’t what we see,” said Steven Buster, president and chief executive officer of Mechanics Bank in San Francisco.

Buster said that while there is a perception that the commercial real estate market will soon collapse in the way the residential market did, the two markets are fundamentally different.

In recent years, many home mortgages were extended to buyers who never had enough income to cover their debt. In contrast, commercial real estate fundamentals did not change, Buster said.

In general, lenders did not issue loans to businesses without adequate income to cover their mortgage payments.

While many residential properties that fell into foreclosure were deeply underwater (meaning their loans were much larger than the value of the property), fewer distressed commercial properties have such a large imbalance.

Buster and others said that troubled borrowers will get significant relief from recent efforts by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to help banks modify commercial loans in a way that extends the terms and does not cut into the lenders’ capital.

If borrowers can hold on to their properties in the coming months, the strengthening economy should bolster their prospects, experts say. Rebounding businesses eventually will need to hire workers and need more office space, pushing up rents, the theory goes.

Matthew Anderson, a partner with Foresight Analytics, a real estate research and forecasting firm in Oakland, Calif., said predictions of a commercial loan default deluge may be overstated.

“The scenario in which banks work with borrowers to tread water is looking more likely,” Anderson said. “The economic recovery is real and starting to take hold, and late next year we may see more demand for commercial space.”

Still, the numbers do not look good. More than half of the $1.4 trillion in commercial mortgages coming due nationwide in the next five years are underwater.

Anderson predicted that 600 of the nation’s approximately 8,000 banks will fail between the third quarter of 2009 and the end of 2011. He noted that about 130 banks closed in 2009.

The new FDIC guidelines are similar to those on home mortgage restructurings. They are intended to keep commercial properties from spiraling into a foreclosure cycle that could suck in local and regional banks.

“Part of the intent of these rules is to allow banks to push off taking action on bad loans so that property owners can continue to stay in the property with the hope that as time goes by the values will recover,” said Marc Young, a partner with the Morrison & Foerster law firm in Los Angeles who focuses on real estate. “It’s kind of a kick-the-can-down-the-street mentality.”

Buster said pessimism about commercial real estate is coming from property owners who have seen their values disappear on paper, but that the values will inch up as the economy regenerates.

“The economy is turning and we are out of the recession,” Buster said. “We’ll have to grin and bear it for a time, but the fundamentals of the economy are reflected through real estate.”

Chronicle staff writer Carolyn Said contributed to this report. E-mail Robert Selna at rselna(at)sfchronicle.com.

["Christopher Drive," via Curbed SF Flickr photog Octoferret]

· Case-Shiller’s Case: “serious double dip” possible [NYT]
· Repairs at Pacifica bluff almost complete, whew [CBS 5]
· Supe gossip: Bevan Dufty loves real estate… agents [NBC Bay Area]
· Neighborhood watch: beware of lion [WBTC]
· Tavern on the Green: if we can’t have it, neither can NYC [USA Today]