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

[Via Boor Bridges Architecture — click for big]

We learned a week ago that the 17th Street Plaza in the Castro, officially designated “temporary” for over half a year, is actually going to stick around longer. That’ll mean going from the makeshift street furniture currently adorning the plaza to stuff that’s less likely to melt in the rain. Above, courtesy Boor Bridges Architecture and Flora Grubb, is a preliminary sketch of what the beefed up plaza’s going to look like — subject, of course, to further modification and budgetary limitations. Doesn’t look too different, but planters will be concrete, and otherwise way more substantive. Street surface will be patterned, and it looks like a swinging, vegetated gate will close and open for streetcar access. If the little figure by the gate is any indication, there should be widespread rejoicing.
· News in brief: Castro 17th Street plaza to get makeover [eBAR]
· Castro’s 17th Street Pavement-to-Parks Plaza Is Ready to Commit [Curbed SF]
· Castro Ped Plaza Launches Amid Much Sitting, Strolling [Curbed SF]

Click the image above to view the full photogallery.

At three bedrooms, Unit A at 150 Henry St. in Duboce Triangle looks like it might be a score for the buyer who’s got $460,000 on hand. It’s a street-level unit with access to the garden out back, and it brags of its 97 Walk Score points. A couple of the bedrooms look like they might be a little “cozy,” but with a little creative furniture arrangement, that could be fixable.
· 150 A Henry St [Redfin]

First-time commenter killbotkondo has some insights to share on Nove, the nine luxury condos on Guerrero that will be hatching soon: “Handel’s dad owned this parcel for a long time. He was an architect also and always planned on doing something but unfortch passed before he could. His son got the plot and being an architect as well, designed what you have here. Great architecture ? Meh. Quality of materials and overall design ? First rate. And whom, you ask can afford this ? I’m working with 4 clients right now that are in searching in this price range that make good salaries but the clincher is the rising value of their stock options from Apple and Google. They HAVE to buy or there gonna get killed next year at tax time.” Don’t like luxury condos? Blame the Google-Apple-industrial complex. [Nove, Nine Handel-Designed Luxury Condos Between Noe and the Mish]

[Somewhat old photo via CTG/SF]

While Mission man Gus Murad battles to keep his rooftop space at Medjool, the LGBT Center is reportedly enlisting his help in opening up a rooftop space of their own. According to the Bay Area Reporter, the nonprofit community center has a land use attorney on hand to explore the possibility — one inspired by nonprofit restaurant Delancey Street and encouraged by the local supe. It seems there haven’t been any handshakes or signatures yet, but Gus has a “unique idea” about how to structure an eatery setup with the center, using an LGBT workforce and doing some kind of revenue and profit-sharing. He’s actually among up to five parties who are interested in doing something with the center, which is considering opening a space on the first floor, or the fourth, or both. The impetus from this all comes from the nonprofit’s cash-flow issues — renting out the space to other parties doesn’t quite cover costs as previously imagined, so they’re being a little more “creative.”
· LGBT center in talks to open rooftop restaurant [eBAR]
· Medjool Roof-Douches Are Plotting a Return [Curbed SF]

They grow up so fast, our baby living roofs. The fuzzy green top on the California Academy of Sciences roof has reportedly “evolved” since the center’s opening 17 months ago, when it was still all raw and new. The mounded landscape is still tended by gardeners, who pull out trees that pop up now and then, but it’s otherwise changing on its own, guided by microclimates created by architect Renzo Piano’s fake knolls. Says an in-house botanist: “In time, some species are going to thrive in certain habitats while others won’t do as well.” Ah, the laissez-fair approach. [SF Examiner]

Two points on the supermarket front today. First, that Fresh & Easy, big UK retailer Tesco’s beachhead into the U.S., has recently signed a contract to open a supermarket in the Bayview. Following a lukewarm response to its SoCal blitz, Tesco decided to ease up on expansion a year or two ago— but if this news is any indication, it looks like the “7-Eleven meets Whole Foods” chain is beginning to feel its way northward. The relatively new brand had actually at one point considered entering the Tenderloin market as well — as the ground-floor tenant at a currently iced mixed-use project — which really brings us to the second gro-sto point.

According to Golden Gate [X]press, the North of Market Community Benefit District has been lobbying chains like Safeway, Trader Joe’s, and Grocery Outlet to try the TL, all to no avail. (Given that Fresh & Easy first expressed interest, and then backed the hell out after a walking tour, the others’ responses probably shouldn’t be surprising.) The big grocers generally cite crime as the reason, though a community rep insists that “the crime here is much more perceived than reality.” In the meantime, TL shoppers who want food of the non-Flamin’ Hot Cheetos variety will no doubt have to make do by trekking out of the neighborhood.
· Low-income areas lack sufficient grocers [GGX]
· Grocers hard to find in San Francisco’s poorer areas [SF Examiner]
· Tenderloin Supermarket’s Among Projects Put on the Backburner [Curbed SF]
· Rendering Reveal: The Future Home of a Tenderloin Grocer [Curbed SF]

["Reflect Globally," via Curbed SF Flickr photog Nick.Fisher]

· Kissing up to Larry Ellison for yacht race in the bay [SFGate]
· NYC’s Critical Mass fallout: SF next? [SF Examiner]
· Berkeley considers rebooting their downtown plan [Daily Cal]
· Retail’s waking from its slumber [SFBT]
· BART’s $70M flub is Muni’s stocking stuffer [SF Appeal]

The future’s so in right now: just a few weeks after Metropolis publishes their forward-looking feature on what’s next in infrastructure and architecture, Popular Science enters the ring with their entrants. Among their ideas for the world of transportation, bridges that “flex on the fly,” and “trackless elevated trains” that shoot through a system of rings. The idea just keeps coming back. [Pop Sci via The Dirt, previously]

Earlier this month, Inside SF RE teased us with the imminent arrival of Nove, the collective name for nine luxury (and LEED-certified!) condos on the border of Noe Valley and the Mission. Latest we hear, the units are just about at the finish line— which would explain the properties getting pre-shopped on Craigslist. According to the new website, the condos were designed by Handel Architects, who we might remember as the people behind the Millennium Tower and BLŪ. The nine condos are split equally amongst three lots, each of which gets two condos and one townhouse. Eight of the condos are 3-beds, while one is a 4-bedroom. While Inside SF RE put in a preliminary range of $1.2M to $1.5M for the 3-beds earlier this month, it looks like they may be starting out at $1.1M, judging by the Craigslist ad.
· Nove [Website, via Craigslist]
· Preview: Nove’s Noe/Mission Luxury Condos [Inside SF RE]