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

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Earlier this month we noted that the full court press had begun on Presidio Landmark, pushing particularly hard on the former hospital’s cosmic nexus of a few special traits: eco-friendliness, nature-friendliness, history-friendliness, and luxury-friendliness. We’ll admit, it makes for a damn unwieldy Venn diagram. Yesterday, Curbed took a closer look at the apartment building, set to come online later this summer as part of a larger overhaul of the Presidio’s Public Health Service District. Developer Forest City says there are now some 200 people on the building’s waiting list, some of whom have already been taken on tours of the site, unfinished though it may be.

Thanks to the “non-historic” wings that were removed early last year, Forest City was able to put in some extra square footage (following a rule banning any new net square footage). Those extra square feet come in the form of three extra floors added to the building’s rear T wing, and in the separate seven-unit townhouse building. Following the Secretary of Interior’s guidelines for historic buildings, the design of the three-story addition stands apart from the rest of the former hospital, while humbly, as they say, deferring to it. The T wing also defines two private courtyards for the Presidio Landmark, one on each side — one features a long fire pit, the other a hot tub. We didn’t get to see them, but the in-house gym, yoga and Pilates studio, and chef’s kitchen reside on the building’s lower level, still unfinished.

The Belles Townhomes, named for the street they abut, are a little further off from opening date. At the moment, the Euro-inspired units are still covered by scaffolding. Forest City says the townhomes are the first residential construction to occur in the Presidio. Unlike the Landmark, whose adaptation was headed by architecture firm Perkins+Will, the design for the Belles Townhomes was first handled by LivingHomes and KieranTimberlake — a team that churns out eco-modern houses — before being handed off to local firm WRNS Studio (who you might recall was called in for a last-minute redesign of Don Fisher’s Presidio art museum). The townhomes have their own garages in the rear of the building, as well as private patio areas and balconies, and all but one have private roof decks. (Update: per below comment, “the townhomes are a KieranTimberlake LivingHome! It’s our design. WRNS is doing the construction administration.”)

Because Forest City’s essentially moved into a preexisting building with the Landmark, they say, they’ve had to deal with existing layouts and circumstances — as a result, there are 30-some floor plan configurations. As the SF Business Times reported last week, rents start at $2,125 for a junior 1-bed, $2,875 for 1-beds, and $4,325 for 2-beds.
· New York Times Alludes to Very Specialness of Presidio Landmark [Curbed SF]
· Hospital-Apartments Dubbed Presidio Landmark, Coming This Summer [Curbed SF]

["foaming at the couch," via Curbed SF Flickr photog crow_soup]

· Foreign investors consider snapping up SF hotels [SFGate]
· Price chop epidemic! [Inside SF RE]
· Botanical Garden: now charging out-of-towners [SF Appeal]
· L.A. museum drama: down to two architects [UnBeige]
· Vacaville’s first-in-the-U.S. EV “quick-charger” [Autopia]

“Flat is the new normal, to borrow a phrase people have used recently. If we could come out of this (housing collapse) and have housing be quite flat for the next four or five years, that would be a reasonable outcome.” So says the chief guy on the Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which indicates that the Bay Area’s ticked up by 16.2 percent in the first quarter of the year, compared to the same time period last year. Still, to some extent, for cities like SF, Los Angeles, and San Diego, “this is a rebound from the bottom.” [SFGate]

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A few years in a intensely used kitchen can lead to some pretty gnarly walls — a problem that Ashbury Heights’ 220 Downey will head off straight away with its incredible aluminum foil walls. That unmistakable feeling of living inside a freshly polished tin box? Totally worth the convenience of wipe-down walls and ceilings! And given the strange attention lavished on the detailing, the kitchen almost seems to walk a fine, fascinating line between wonderful and hideous (though mostly the latter). Anyway, the rest of the 5-bed, 4-bath Vic may be decent enough to reserve judgment on the house on the whole. Even if the front face does show a little hint of the kitchen’s, shall we say, distinct personality. Asking price is $2,350,000. (Not including cost of remodeling the kitchen to make it less headache-inducing.)
· 220 Downey St [Website]

Much is up in the air for Mission Rock, the neighborhood just south of AT&T Park that’s yet to be. The Port of San Francisco just unanimously approved the multiyear plan to turn a swath of parking lot into a fully functioning neighborhood, complete with a 5-acre park, 10 commercial and residential buildings, and an ambitious-looking pedestrian promenade linked to a future version of the F-Market/E-Embarcadero streetcar. But they’re still looking at a moving target. The project’s already been downsized from its 2008 version, which according to the Chron had a 5,000-seat music hall and entertainment district. There’s also the question of that very speculative Warriors stadium, which could be built somewhere on all that empty space, pending an actual sale of the team and an agreement to build the thing. But the Giants, who just lost a couple investment partners a few months ago, are nonetheless all game and in it for the long haul — “we’d like to see development that is synergetic to the ballpark and that fits in with the neighborhood,” whatever that means.
· S.F. Port OKs Mission Rock development plan [SFGate]
· Giants Stonewall on Warriors Arena, But the Plan Needs a Rethink [Curbed SF]
· Seawall Lot Megaproject Goes a Little Less Mega [Curbed SF]

Parkmerced owner Stellar Management says its 3,000-unit constellation of garden apartments is headed toward default, with $500 million in loans due in October. Guess we’ll take them at their word that everything’s fine — that residents won’t be impacted (“phone calls will be answered”), and that they’re continuing with their work on a 20-year plan to triple the size of the community. Parkmerced’s engaging in a “not uncommon” move with a “special servicer to support the payments of the loan.” [SF Business Times, previously]

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While we’re on the subject of Richie Rich properties, the 5-bed, 4-bath house at 3491 Pacific has been on the market for just over a month now. It’s “positioned on one of Presidio Heights’ finest blocks on the wall,” and faces north to the Presidio, with a southern deck and garden. The property started off at $4.95 million in late April, but was just cut yesterday to $4,600,000, a shave of $350,000 or 7 percent.
· 3491 Pacific Ave [Redfin]

Most of us are quite familiar with Prop 13, the 1978 amendment that froze property taxes and allowed increases of only 2 percent a year, as long as a property wasn’t sold. A story on the just-launched Bay Citizen explores some of the disparities this has caused on the Gold Coast, a few blocks of very, very nice houses on Broadway, from Divis to the Presidio. Maryon Lewis, for example, pays 58 cents per square foot on her roughly $21 million house, while Bebo founder Michael Birch pays $42.65 per square foot on his $29 million house — 73.5 times more. In fact, Birch is paying the highest taxes on a single residence in the city. [Bay Citizen]

Following Gavin’s signing yesterday of his own widely touted fee-deferral “stimulus” program for new developments, the SF Examiner has a tantalizingly vague story saying that the second tower of One Rincon Hill is “poised to finally be built.” This, after news hit in fall 2008 that the second tower would be put on hold indefinitely due to inclement financial weather. What’s changed? Either 80 or 85 percent of the impact fees that developer Urban West Associates owes the city can be deferred now to completion of the project — the combination of that, plus another law on transfer fees, could “bring $19 million in savings” for the 46-story second tower, says a consultant. “It will lower costs and make construction start that much earlier.” How much earlier he doesn’t say, but it sounds like the shackles could be loosening sooner rather than later on this beast. Given the debacle over the fees that Urban West was accused of not paying the last time around, the developer may want to tread carefully this time. At least around reporters!
· Second Rincon Tower poised to finally be built [SF Examiner]
· Development Stimulus Passed, Project Fee Deferrals Begin in July [Curbed SF]
· One Rincon Hill: We Didn’t Really Promise to Pay [Curbed SF]
· The Ripple Continues: Rincon Hill Suspended [Curbed SF]

["Frozen in Carbonite," via Curbed SF Flickr photog SullyStyle]

· Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s hat trick: finalist for L.A. museum [A/N Blog]
· Can people really apply for their own parklets? [SF Appeal]
· SFJAZZ stirring jazz hopes here [NYT]
· State of the TIC market: not so great, but in stable condition [Inside SF RE]
· John King reviews Mission parklet, will be watching its “use and abuse” [SFGate]