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

Then: $6,950,000
Now: $4,450,000
You Save: $2,500,000, or 36 percent!

Steady this one goes, from nearly $7 million when it hit the MLS more than a year ago, to just under $5 mil by the end of last month — and a month later, another $500K off the top to its price today of under $4.5 million. The 3-bed, 2.5-bath manse at 1188 Lombard was notable last month for its 80s-era Michael Taylor interiors, but also, as commenter glitzy bernini dryly noted, the current proprietor has “owned this property for decades. It’s currently assessed value for taxes at $369K. And pay about $4K in taxes. And this is one reason why California is nearly bankrupt.” But we probably won’t be seeing that drastic a price reduction before the house finally moves.
· 1188 Lombard St [Redfin]
· Languishing Russian Hill House Drops $2 Million From Asking [Curbed SF]

Referencing a post at the Atlantic, UnBeige wonders aloud whether architecture is the “least ageist profession.” The Atlantic, pondering Frank Gehry’s ripe old age of 81, says he’s not the “first great octogenarian of his profession. Listen to Philip Johnson in the early 1990s. I.M. Pei is still going strong at 83, Oscar Niemeyer (maybe a bit slower) at 102. And think of Frank Lloyd Wright (whom I discussed in an earlier post on retirement) and Buckminster Fuller.” Hmm, there’s a beard-stroker. [The Atlantic, via UnBeige]

While Florida-based Turnberry Associates sits on their dead-but-not-dead 40-story luxe tower in Rincon Hill, the city turns its eyes toward sprucing up the lot itself, which has been more unambiguously dead for some time now. Back in September of last year, the Chron reported amid a flurry of talk about rehabilitating vacant lots that 45 Lansing, site of the proposed Turnberry Tower, would be the first to get something nice for passersby to look at. At the time, the urban interventionists at Rebar Group were said to be planning a kind of “supergraphic” fence for the site. But now a new plan’s afoot! According to a recent call for volunteers on Rebar’s blog, they’ll be partnering with Pollinator Partnership to plant a “native wildflower meadow downtown,” turning a “fallow lot into a beautiful living habitat for humming birds, butterflies and other pollinators.” Besides wildflowers and the like, they’ll also be installing 4-foot plywood silhouettes of butterflies, hummingbirds, and beetles. Wild.
· Interim use pollinator garden at 45 Lansing Street [Rebar]
· Oh What the Hell: City Goes Buck Wild With Empty Lots [Curbed SF]
· Rincon Hill’s Turnberry Promises a Comeback [Curbed SF]

["There's a lot going on here," via Curbed SF Flickr photog SullyStyle]

· LGBT Center to borrow money before it makes money [SF Appeal]
· Frank Gehry’s winning Eisenhower Memorial design [ArchDaily]
· Pokey One Hawthorne opens for brokers tours next month [SocketSite]
· Water-bottle boat reports from the Pacific [Bay Area]
· SoCal to Vegas high-speed rail: it’s on [Curbed LA]

Seattle was the first city in the U.S. to enact a sit/lie law, and now they’re checking the fallout here in San Francisco. Back in ’93, “civility laws” that included a sit/lie ban appeared in Seattle alongside development incentives meant to bring life back to a drug-addled area. Now: “police officers rarely write tickets for violating the sit/lie ban because people largely move on when warned, and advocates say the law merely moves homeless people around all day — keeping them less visible but doing little to get them off the streets.” [Seattle PI, previously]

Click the image above to view the full photogallery.

The 2-bed, 1.25-bath condo at 11½ Beaver’s been on the market now for going on two weeks, and is part of a two-unit building in Duboce Triangle — a “gracious,” “rarely available beauty,” in fact! It has two living rooms, a shared yard, and garage parking. For that, homeowners dues are $210 a month, and asking price is $795,000.
· Stunning Duboce Triangle Condo [Website]

Click the image above to view the full photogallery.

IwamotoScott, long known more for its high-flying speculative work, is coming down a bit closer to earth. Following their nabbing of the top History Channel prize in 2008 for imagining the city of the future — the firm pictured San Francisco covering an “underground arterial traffic network for hydrogen-fueled hover-cars” — Lisa Iwamoto and Craig Scott have done a couple projects with slightly better construction prospects. There was their fantastical Financial District tower concept in New York’s Greenwich South, but even more substantial, their recently price chopped PS House in North Beach, which King John rather astutely notes came to life minus community opposition because it’s hidden behind a restored Edwardian. There’s also “Coffered Light,” a lobby installation they designed for One Kearny. Anyway, it’s only the beginning! Says Iwamoto: “We’re hoping that this is the beginning of a substantial bricks-and-mortar practice.” Also, Craig says he wants to do libraries.
· Iwamoto, Scott move from theory to architecture [SFGate]
· North Beach’s IwamotoScott Pair Gets a Couple Chops a Month In [Curbed SF]
· Architecture Watch: Big Ideas, Bay Area Architects in NYC [Curbed SF]
· IwamotoScott Wins “City of The Future” Challenge [Curbed SF]

With an eye toward maintaining a sort of socioeconomic pact with residents of the northeast neighborhoods, the legislation that would restrict construction of new garages is just one step away from reality. A vote of approval by the Board of Supes would prohibit building parking garages in residential buildings in Chinatown, North Beach, and Telegraph Hill if they’ve had two or more “no fault” evictions in the past decade. (Typically, garages following evictions signal a move toward the higher end of the market, pushing out the poors.) [SF Examiner, previously]

Click the image above to view the full photogallery.

It’s been over six months since the award-winning Tehama Grasshopper, designed by Fougeron Architecture, hit the market at $4,128,000 — but the home, Unit 2 at 431 Tehama, is no longer on the MLS and according to its agents has been “temporarily” taken off the market. The design won numerous awards when it debuted — the adaptation of the warehouse into a residential space notably cut out a hole in the floorplate, creating an inner courtyard that brings in a “subtle interplay of light, surfaces, levels, and indoor and outdoor spaces.” The Grasshopper name comes from the third-floor penthouse addition, which is “like a grasshopper settled lightly on the building surface,” as grasshoppers are wont to do.
· Tehama Grasshopper [Website]

Mission Loc@l visits the issue of rent control in what’s generally a rehash of existing arguments, but it’s nice to see the frontman and frontwoman on the respective sides. There’s Calvin Welch, who pushed for rent control in the late 70s, who today says the sad side effect of San Francisco’s existing policy is its “built-in economic incentive to displace existing tenants.” Meanwhile, the director of the San Francisco Apartment Association says rent control makes the city a “less desirable place to live for everyone,” and thinks rental subsidies and some affordable housing program would be better. [Mission Loc@l]