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

Anyone who’s ridden BART questions the decision to upholster the seats and carpet the floor. Thankfully, plans for the new cars don’t include heavy cloth upholstery. Instead, BART’s opting for a more practical upholstery, like a vinyl or hard plastic. But don’t get too excited, the new cars aren’t expected to materialize until 2017. [Bay Citizen]

Today’s House of the Day over on Curbed National has 50,000 square feet of grandeur and a backstory to boot, having been owned by publishing titan William Randolph Hearst and honeymooned in by JFK and Jackie O. Beverly House, as the Beverly Hills manse is called, was originally listed for $165M by its current bankruptcy-stricken owner and has plunged to a paltry $95M. [Curbed National]

Click the image above to view the full photogallery.

First on the market last year and asking $3,000,000, this 5-bed, 6.5-bath house in the woods of Piedmont was re-listed this week at $2,850,000. Properties get re-listed every day of the week- but this one’s a spectacular flashback. Built in 1971, it was the second house designer Val Arnold had done for this family, the first being in Palm Desert; most of his work was done in the Palm Springs area. And apparently his design partner on the job was Arthur Elrod, the Palm Springs decorator who would become more famous for commissioning architect John Lautner to design a futuristic house overlooking the desert than he would for his own career. Arnold was at some point immortalized by Architectural Digest as one of the ten most important designers in America. Whatever- he seems pretty much forgotten today (at least by the Internet) but back in the day he was a favorite of AD’s now-retired editrix Paige Rense. Here, he’s made some sort of mad francophone barn conversion from the ground up- stone walls, wrought iron, huge hearths, velvet.

In brief: three stories with the entrance and three bedrooms on the ground floor, plus a completely insane bar room with walls covered in Moroccan tiles that opens to the pool area. Upstairs, there’s a living room, dining area, kitchen and family room, which sounds simple enough except you have to pass through that immense three-story stair hall with stone walls and a wrought iron and brass railing. These people did not shop at Home Depot. Top floor is a master suite with two baths (sadly, not shown) in onyx with gold fittings. We can’t decide if we love that bar or the skylit family room more. With the exception of the ground floor bedrooms, most of Val Arnold’s furnishings and decor survive, including that beast’s skull on the sideboard. Check out the gallery and revisit the past, plus you can see the house this Sunday, January 28, from 2pm to 4pm.
· 145 Lexford [Heidi Marchesotti/MMcD]
· 145 Lexford [Redfin]
· Lautner’s Elrod House Renting to Private Members Only [Curbed LA Archives]

Click the image above to view the full photogallery.

Hot on the heels of the America’s Cup map being published comes word that a studio’s up for grabs on the 14th floor of 1000 North Point, the curved Mid-Century modern residential tower in Russian Hill. “Your front row seat to the World Cup 2013!” the listing reads. The views of the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges and Aquatic Park are unending. At 410 square feet, the studio is tiny. But are you buying the condo for the view or to practice your gymnastics routine? The deets: it’s $489,000, which is a mind-numbing $1,193 a square foot. Monthly HOA dues are $493. The kitchen’s been recently remodeled with granite counters and stainless steel appliances. Readers, is a view of the action worth over $1,000 a square foot? Cast your vote below!

· 1000 North Pt [Redfin]

· A-Cup: The Rising Tide Raises All Boats! Realtors Perk Up [Curbed SF]

Supervisor Scott Wiener raised a brow when he got word of the shenanigans to preserve much of the the Golden Gate Park and a branch library in North Beach. On Tuesday he called for a hearing to better understand the balance between historic preservation and the continued modernization of San Francisco. “We, as a city, need to embrace historic preservation while also recognizing that historic preservation is not the only policy goal for our city,” he told the board. The hearing hasn’t been scheduled yet, but he asked that the Planning Department and MTA testify. [City Insider]

Spider Dan, the man who scaled the Millennium Tower in an effort to bring attention to fire safety, was found guilty by a San Francisco Superior Court jury on Tuesday. Dan Goodwin, aka Spider Dan, was found guilty of two misdemeanors for his stunt at the tower on September 6th. The third misdemeanor count of trespassing was thrown out because Judge Teri Jackson said the police told Spider Dan to step onto the tower’s balcony after his climb so that he could be arrested. He had followed police orders, she said. Goodwin faces up to a year in hail jail and $1,000 in fines. Next time maybe write an angry letter instead? [SF Gate, previously]

Click the image above to view the full photogallery.

Was:$164,900

Now: $149,900

You Save: $15,000

We love a good sh*tshack over here at Curbed, and even though this beauty has been on and off the market quite a bit, we still wanted to draw your attention to its awesomeness. After a scant four days after re-listing, the price has already been dropped to $149,900 for this 3-bed, 2-bath house in Bayview, just a few blocks from 3rd Street and its Muni line. This is a true fixer-upper, complete with plywood windows, so there’s a lot of work to be done here. The building itself is 920 square feet, with some sort of “back area” on the lot (we are hesitant to call it a yard from the Google Maps view of things). The kitchen looks like someone got in a Cops-style fight in it, so there may be more than cupboards to replace – who is up for patching holes in the wall? As for the bedrooms, we beg of you, please do not paint over the waves. They are the cheeriest part of this whole joint.
· 1524 Newcomb Avenue [Redfin]

[Fort Mason Path via Curbed Flickr Pool/Sergio]

· Driveway owners to rent out their spaces to parking seekers [Richmond SF Blog]
· In case you were wondering what a Mission hipster looks like [Uptown Almanac]
· Churches being lost to foreclosure [WSJ]
· Sutro, you’re just too gorgeous [We Built This City]
· Whitney’s unbuilt plans for the Cliff House and Lands End [Ocean Beach Bulletin]
· Berkeley’s hidden hillside park [Berkeleyside]

The Alameda County Transportation Commission is moving pushing forward with the East Bay Greenway, a project to build a bike path underneath the BART tracks between Oakland and Hayward. The path will be twelve miles long. The project has already received $1 million in funding though Measure B, said James O’Brien, the project’s manager. The project’s cost is estimated to be $30 million to $35 million. [Contra Costa Times]

[Knocked over via Curbed Flickr Pool/Octoferret]

· 7 reasons to love San Francisco [SFist]
· Red flags for “bargain” properties [SF Gate]
· The hidden gardens of San Francisco [SFist]
· Postponed Great Highway closure begins today [SF Appeal]
· Supervisor Wiener calls for hearing on improving J-Church reliability [Streetsblog SF]
· Muni rider behaving very, very badly [Muni Diaries]