Fire Sale: $300 Million San Francisco Office Tower, Mostly Empty. Open to Offers.

[Zorro]

350 California Street was worth $300 million four years ago. It might sell for 80% less now, brokers say, in a market where office vacancy rates have soared.

Before the pandemic, San Francisco’s California Street was home to some of the world’s most valuable commercial real estate. The corridor runs through the heart of the city’s financial district and is lined with offices for banks and other companies that help fuel the global tech economy.

One building, a 22-story glass and stone tower at 350 California Street, was worth around $300 million in 2019, according to office broker estimates.

That building now is for sale, with bids due soon. They are expected to come in at about $60 million, commercial real-estate brokers say. That’s an 80% decline in value in just four years.

This is how dire things have become in San Francisco, an extreme form of a challenge nationwide. Nearly every large U.S. city is struggling, to some degree, with reduced office-worker turnout since the pandemic spurred remote work. No market was hit harder than San Francisco, for reasons including its high costs, reliance on a tech industry quick to embrace hybrid work, and quality-of-life issues such as crime and homelessness.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/san-francisco-commercial-real-estate-office-buildings-471742ea?st=xg2doxoxcxchk64&reflink=share_mobilewebshare

[Zorro]

2. Nope

[BeerBarrelPolka]

3. Thanks

You just saved me from placing a bid

[NBachers]

5. No that's Millennium Tower on Mission Street. 350 California is north of Market St; Millennium Tower

is south of Market Street.

https://practical.engineering/blog/2021/11/10/what-really-happened-at-the-millennium-tower

[MichMan]

4. The City should buy it and turn it into a hotel to house the homeless

[Bobstandard]

7. agreed nt

[Sympthsical]

8. Depends if someone's cousin is the broker

Otherwise . . . eh. What's the point?

S.F. spends billions - with a nice capital B - on homelessness. It all just kind of ebbs away into various pockets. Mysteriously.

It's the one thing George Carlin was ever wrong about when he said, "There's no money to be made on the homeless."

Oh, indeedy, there is. Let SF guide the way.

[HeartachesNhangovers]

9. When I lived in SF, one of the local papers published a report that showed that

even though the city gave away hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to local homeless services organizations every year, it wasn't anyone's job to verify that the money was spent as intended or that any positive results resulted from the expenditures. Apparently that wasn't seen as a big deal since I never heard that the city denied this or commited to any kind of reforms.

Homeless services in SF - nice work if you can get it.

[Sympthsical]

14. There was a long article recently in the Chronicle

Just skimming through it, it's "Yep, sounds about right."

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/affordable-housing-sf-funding-audit-problems-17878614.php

[Phoenix61]

10. Renovating it for that would be incredibly expensive.

Basically a full gut and rebuild. At 60 million someone may think it would make great condos.

[JI7]

11. Some guy wanted to do that in Los Angeles and locals complained

[KentuckyWoman]

12. We have a bunch around here.

They keep trying various carrot or stick to get bodies in the office with little success.

My corner of the world is desperate for more apartments but the cost of re-plumbing alone makes it a poor option. I wonder how long they sit neglected before they get imploded and replaced.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

13. this fancy building