Manhattanization of San Francisco - part 2
Posted by Pat Kitano at 9/11/2007 10:49 PM 
Categories: Commercial Real Estate, San Francisco Bay Area
Categories: Commercial Real Estate, San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco moves closer to building its "Grand Central Station of the West" with the jury recommendation to the city's Transbay Authority's board of directors:
That team, led by developer Hines and Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, is offering $350 million for the right to build an obelisk-like, 1,200-foot office tower at First and Mission streets alongside a new Transbay Terminal. The team also designed a new terminal that would be topped by an elevated park the length of five football fields.The comments on Socketsite about the "butt plug building" make entertaining reading, and they express the public reaction (chagrin and awe) to the city going from quaint to gaudy.
San Francisco's dot.com bloom in the late 90's and subsequent bust unleashed a flurry of high profile Manhattanization projects this decade:
- The new Downtown replete with 30,000 new condo units on the books
- Home to the new Stem Cell Research center that will continue to bring in biotech
- The biggest upscale urban mall west of the Mississippi
- Gavin Newsom, who just feels like he wants to turn SF into Manhattan
So Manhattanization continues. Our Manhattan friend Noah at Urban Digs characterized NYC as a "marketplace of vultures" with everyone waiting for any shoe to drop, but he states the fundamentals of the market don't support a drop, let alone a freefall:
With the exception of 1% rental vacancy rates, all these factors are in play in San Francisco. I heard on KCBS radio yesterday, San Francisco has a 38% homeowner rate, one of the lowest in the nation. It's consistent with the fact that San Francisco's newest public schools face underenrollment because the city also has the lowest proportion of children, 14.5 percent, than any other large city in the U.S. Over the past decade, Manhattan once again started attracting families and I predict the same with San Francisco (items 7 and 8 above are kicking in). New jobs from a revitalized downtown will increase the demand for single family housing which is in limited supply... that's because San Francisco consists mostly of rental properties and every new unit being built are in high rises.Fundamentals I see that are crucial in maintaining the NYC housing market RIGHT NOW include:
1. Very Tight Inventory
2. Strong Jobs
3. High Salary's & Bonuses
4. Weak Dollar Increasing Foreign Buyer Demand
5. Rental Vacancy Rates Below 1%
6. Skyrocketing Rental Rates
7. Trend To Live Closer To Where You Work
8. Urban Lifestyle Demand Very High
related article: Manhattanization of San Francisco - part 1
Technorati Tags: san francisco, manhattanization, transbay terminal, transbay tower, westfield mall, soma, socketsite, urbandigs
If downtown is reborn, the city will probably encroach into the Tenderloin. Like New York City, there will be a movement to scrub the city like they did in Times Square
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Wow, that building looks breathtaking! Makes the San Antonio look pretty bad
I've never been to NY or SF, but the San Francisco skyline looks just as nice as NY's.
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