Gov. Jerry Brown pointed to city redevelopment agencies as cash-wasting bureaucracies when he took office in January, and he signed a pair of bills last summer that allow them two options: Go away completely or rely much more heavily on financing from local governments.

The California Redevelopment Association and other groups sued the state in July over the bills, calling them a violation of the 2010 voter-approved Proposition 22, which prevents the state from “raiding” local coffers to make up for its mounting debt.

Redevelopment Commissioner Rick Swig said the best-case scenario might actually be the Supreme Court upholding the state’s ability to eliminate the agencies.

“If the judge overrides them, the governor is going to find a more punitive way to get rid of redevelopment,” Swig said, adding that the agency simply needs closure on the turmoil. “We’re ready to go. We’ve been ready to go.”

The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency’s interim executive director, Tiffany Bohee, echoed that sentiment.

“We are anxious to get resolution and get back to business,” Bohee said.

She added that improvements in the real estate market suggest more promise for private investment in three major projects — Hunters Point, Treasure Island and Mission Bay,  the latter of which already has the massive new Salesforce.com headquarters moving forward.

In any case, the Redevelopment Agency and Mayor Ed Lee say they are prepared to move forward on keeping the agency alive, starting with a first-year commitment of $14.5 million in local funds. Lee said some of that money would come from The City’s general fund — which pays for basic services such as streets — plus another funding mechanism that’s yet to be announced.

“We already have a plan in place to present,” Lee said, referring to the need for Board of Supervisors approval on the agency’s funding future.

Although the agency has been executing work that was under contract before the state bills passed, it has been forbidden for months from starting new projects. The agency’s budget for the 2012-13 fiscal year amounts to $110 million.

dschreiber@sfexaminer.com

Article source: http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2011/12/san-francisco-revitalization-money-hands-judges

The team has gone fully native in Santa Clara, embracing the region’s technology industry and its monied denizens. Its plans to leave San Francisco behind and build a stadium down there are gaining headway, too. Just this week, the team unveiled a fancy new sales office in the South Bay that uses the latest technology from the Valley to showcase the proposed stadium, which would open in 2015 if the team can get its finances together.

And who can blame them? Great weather. Less urban blight. Richer fan base. Who cares if they leave the city for greener parking lots?

For one, the residents of San Francisco should care. And they should blame the team for turning its back on the city that raised it. Second, the politicians that got us into this mess should care. From my understanding of events, the 49ers were prepared to build here in San Francisco until a rift arose between co-owner John York and then-Mayor Gavin Newsom. A perfectly good plan to build at Hunters Point was scrapped and the team turned to Santa Clara.

And the 49ers are not looking back. At a media briefing to tout the new high-tech sales office, powered by technology from Hewlett-Packard among others, the team’s chief operating officer, Paraag Marathe, put it bluntly: “We are building a manifestation of what the 49ers represent and what Silicon Valley represents.”

He also said the team wants its stadium to be a “landmark of Silicon Valley.”

Not a whole lot of talk about San Francisco there. Or the East Bay. Or Marin. Until we asked.

“We’ve got a lot of respect for the city of San Francisco,” said Marathe, a thoroughly likable and seemingly competent executive. “But our season-ticket holders aren’t limited to the city. We believe we’ll be as close to the season-ticket holders as we’ve ever been.”

That’s probably true. Especially if you open your sales operation in a Silicon Valley office park and build a stadium in Santa Clara. I don’t envision too many people from San Rafael or Martinez driving an hour and a half to see what the view from their seats might look like. And then driving an hour and a half back.

To be fair to the 49ers, one has to admit the new stadium design looks great. The place will seat 65,000. It will have 165 luxury suites housed in a five-story, glass tower. On top of that tower will be a grassy area from which some select fans will be able to view the game. My only quibble would be in the class structure of the design. It’s skewed to the rich. But that’s the name of the game, especially in Silicon Valley.

The 49ers also argue that there are 13 freeway interchanges at the new facility, compared to four near Candlestick. And the team received a huge boost on the parking side of the equation recently when Great America was sold to new owners who have pledged 10,000 spots to the 49ers on game days.

“It’ll probably take less time for a fan in San Francisco to get here and back than it does at Candlestick,” Marathe said.

Not sure if I buy that, but it all seems to be falling into place in Santa Clara, except for the money. The 49ers have now raised nearly $189 million of the $987 million it will take to build the park. That’s a big gap, but Marathe said the team believes the NFL’s new collective bargaining agreement will pave the way for financing help from the league.

So, where does that leave San Francisco? Out of the picture.

It will be interesting to see whether the residents of San Francisco – who are losing their NFL franchise, make no mistake – will make this a viable issue in the upcoming mayoral elections.

So far, no one seems to care that the five-time Super Bowl champions are leaving town.

Classy closure: It was all class and good vibes at the Giants‘ last game of the season this past week, despite the team’s disappointing finish.

The stands were packed for the season-ending loss to the Rockies, proving that the Giants’ bandwagoners from last year have become true orange and black. And when and if the 49ers leave town, that loyalty will only grow.

Perhaps the classiest moment of the day came when manager Bruce Bochy pulled left fielder Pat Burrell out of the game in the late innings, allowing the hometown slugger to take the field before getting called back into the dugout, where he was met with a standing ovation from the crowd and a series of hugs from teammates.

Burrell was overcome with emotion and had to walk it off in the clubhouse tunnel.

“I could see him biting his lip,” said Aubrey Huff later that day as he packed up his gear in the clubhouse. “It was an emotional moment.”

Indeed it was. The Giants sold out every home game this year, drawing more than 3.3 million fans to set a club record. The fact that everyone at the last game knew this could be Burrell’s final moments on the field as a major-league ballplayer shows that these aren’t just rich dilettantes, going out to see and be seen.

The Giants have grown a knowledgeable, real community, right here in San Francisco.

The man in the middle: With the announcement of a merger between Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows this past week, the natural question was: How can these adjacent resorts connect their slopes?

The answer lies with a man named Troy Caldwell, a one-time hot doggin’ ski champ who now owns a crucial piece of real estate between the two sites.

Caldwell’s land, known as White Wolf, is actually a private little ski area that connects the back side of Squaw Valley’s KT-22 area with the Alpine Meadows parking lot. A few years back, Caldwell famously put up 17 lift stanchions on his very own run, which he calls KT South, with plans to operate his own ski lift. He even obtained a permit that allows him 25 skiers per day, all friends and family. But he never finished the project and never operated an actual chairlift.

Now, Caldwell finds himself in the middle of a Tahoe megamerger, and he holds the keys to linking the two properties. Last year, after purchasing Squaw Valley, KSL Resorts contacted Caldwell with an eye toward purchasing his land. So far, no deal is in the works.

In order to open White Wolf as a connection between Squaw Valley and Alpine, the resorts would have to put in an additional chairlift to go over the ridge that divides White Wolf from Alpine.

Caldwell and his wife, Sue, live in Alpine Meadows, where they have built homes. He bought the acreage, which includes portions of KT-22 that he leases to Squaw, from Southern Pacific in 1990. Though there have been rumors of him selling White Wolf to KSL, he told my colleague Sam Whiting, “We’ve never had any firm offers. I’m sure they would like to buy it, but I want to be involved all the way through this thing.”

He estimates that a mountain connection between Squaw and Alpine is 10 years away. If they ever do link up, Squaw and Alpine would be the biggest ski and snowboarding resort in the nation, with over 6,000 acres of land. And that could be a real boon to the area’s bid for the 2022 Olympics.

Al Saracevic is The Chronicle’s sports editor. You can e-mail him at asaracevic@sfchronicle.com.

Article source: http://blog.sfgate.com/49ers/2011/10/01/does-san-francisco-even-care-if-49ers-leave-town/

Pamela Lakey, SSL Law Firm partner

Image: Hillary Jones-Mixon/The Recorder

As the real estate recovery hobbles along, partners at SSL Law Firm are surprisingly upbeat.

During the worst of the downturn, older San Francisco land use and real estate firms like Cassidy Shimko Dawson Kawakami and Ellman Burke Hoffman Johnson folded and big firms have shed lawyers from their real estate departments. By contrast, the 10-year-old real estate-focused SSL boutique has notched its biggest gains. Five lawyers joined the San Francisco firm from Ellman Burke at the start of 2010. Since then, six more have joined from bigger firms.

With a total of 26 attorneys, SSL has grown into among the biggest real estate groups housed in the Bay Area. “SSL is a counter-trend,” Orrick, Herrington Sutcliffe real estate partner Michael Liever said. “They’ve really carved out a nice niche for themselves.”

The firm boasts marquee public company clients like Apple Inc., Salesforce.com, JPMorgan Chase and Boston Properties, and recently had a hand in big deals like the Hunters Point Shipyard redevelopment project and Facebook Inc.’s move to Sun Microsystems Inc.’s old Menlo Park, Calif., campus. The partners acknowledge they don’t draw Big Law paychecks, but say they have a lot more control over their professional and personal lives.

SSL was founded in 2001 by three in-house counsel from Spieker Properties. Sara Steppe was general counsel and Pamela Lakey and Dana Stone were associate GCs. When Spieker merged with Equity Office Properties, the trio opted not to relocate to Chicago, deciding instead to open their own shop: Steppe, Stone Lakey. Equity Office Properties was their first client.

Lakey, whose career trajectory included two years at Steefel, Levitt Weiss and two at Brobeck, Phleger Harrison, said the plan was to build on the firm’s leasing work foundations and become what she calls a full-service real estate firm, handling land use, environmental, bankruptcy and other real estate-related matters. She said she had no idea it would happen so suddenly, though. “We thought we’d gradually hand-select people who worked with our model — business lawyers and deal makers,” said Lakey, who has been co-managing SSL with Sally Shekou since the firm’s early days. “But the change in the Ellman Burke firm turned out to be good fortune for us.”

Though the firm is small, SSL lawyers routinely appear opposite Big Law attorneys. In the Facebook deal announced earlier this year, SSL, led by Lakey and Shekou, represented property manager RREEF. Attorneys from Orrick; Paul, Hastings, Janofsky Walker and others handled various other aspects of the deal. SSL handles commercial leasing for Apple and is starting to handle retail leasing for the company, led by partners Jodi Fedor and Lisa Maxwell.

The firm also has been adding renewable energy clients, with partner Christine Griffith handling matters for NextEra Energy Resources Inc. in the Montezuma II Wind Energy Project in Solano County, for example.

SSL is also one of the largest women-owned firms anywhere. Although Steppe and Stone have retired from the firm, nine of its 11 partners are female.

The firm waited a few years before becoming certified as women-owned. Kyla Chin, who joined the firm from Morrison Foerster, said the partners wanted to get established first. “We didn’t want to be stigmatized by it,” she said. Certification by Astra Women’s Business Alliance in 2005 helped the firm land work from utilities ATT and PGE Co., partners said.

SSL’s exclusive focus on real estate is distinctive, said Shartsis Friese real estate partner David Kremer, who worked opposite the firm on the Facebook deal. “The fact that they have chosen to limit their practice only to real estate is unusual,” he said. “I don’t think that exists anymore.”

Kremer said Bonnie Frank’s and Jeffrey Ebstein’s The Real Estate Law Group in Sausalito follows a similar model, but that firm has only six attorneys. In San Francisco, 26-lawyer Greene Radovsky Maloney Share Hennigh and 35-lawyer Stein Lubin have a strong real estate focus, but handle other matters like securities, tax and business services. The same is true for 50-lawyer Miller Starr Regalia in Walnut Creek.

Kremer said SSL also stands out for the amount of experience each partner has. “Most of their lawyers all had many years of real estate practice under their belt elsewhere before they joined SSL,” he said. “It’s a unique collection of people.”

IN THE SWEET SPOT

Around a conference table in a small 27th floor office at 575 Market St., the partners at SSL — mostly women in their 40s — explain the business and cultural benefits they see in their firm: The sense of ownership, the lack of required office face time and the growing client list of well-known public companies. “You have control over the work you do, whom you do it for, and your hours,” said Fedor, one of the Ellman Burke transplants.

“We’re all in the prime of our careers,” said Griffith, who also joined from Ellman Burke.

“We have the contacts to develop great business opportunities, and the energy and drive to get the best results for our clients. It feels like we’re in that sweet spot.”

Part of their success owes to relatively low billing rates, which have become more of a draw for cost-conscious clients. Partners charge between $300 and $450 an hour. The firm has been attracting new clients — such as California State University, which works with Griffith — and new types of work from existing clients. In addition to the firm’s work for Apple and its retail leasing, JPMorgan Chase is now sending them land entitlement and approval matters, for example.

Partners at the firm bill 1,700 to 1,800 hours a year on average, and often work from home. “Everybody has the capability to work remotely and we don’t babysit that at all,” Lakey said. “And I think that clients like that we’re uber-available.”

The economic downturn also seems to have made SSL more attractive to lateral candidates from bigger firms. “It used to be that big firms were the safe place to be,” said Shekou, who joined SSL from Heller Ehrman in 2002. “When I was leaving Heller a lot of people told me I would be wrecking my career by going to some small, no-name firm.”

Shekou says she’s OK with the fact that she’s not likely to work on a huge corporate merger or an enormous portfolio deal. She joined because she liked the energy of the firm’s young women who were controlling their own destiny. And she hopes the vibe doesn’t change. “We’ve been approached to become a bigger firm’s real estate department,” she said, “but it has never appealed to us because it’s so nice to keep our little group the way it is.”

STEADY GROWTH

The group is less little than it was just two years ago. After Ellman Burke closed, Leslie Browne and Michael Brody first moved to Buchalter Nemer, but changed their minds and came to SSL during the last year. Environmental lawyer Zachary Walton left Paul Hastings in early 2010 to help open the S.F. office of Downey Brand. One year later, he joined SSL. “Larger firms claim to be nimble and responsive to the business needs of their clients, but they are not,” Walton said. “At SSL, we don’t have a bureaucracy that needs to approve your relationships with your clients, giving you the freedom to enter into arrangements that make the most sense for you and your clients.” And he says he isn’t a slave to the billable hour. “I work with two associates and they’re busy, but you don’t have to keep four full-time associates at 2,000 hours each busy,” Walton said.

He also enjoys the absence of management looking over his shoulder, evaluating him. “What you make is based off the work you do. I don’t have an executive committee or a chief administrative officer with a spreadsheet that shows how many hours you billed, and here’s how you ranked against xyz,” said Walton, who estimates he’s on track to bill about 1,700 hours this year.

There are downsides to working at a small firm like SSL, too. One of the biggest limitations is the pay, said Shekou. Though partners make at least $100,000 a year, Shekou says they don’t make anywhere close to what first-year associates make at the most prestigious firms. “You have to be willing to have a trade-off. You don’t see those huge salary draws, but at the same time, you’re not expected to work those kinds of hours,” Shekou said. “I’m at peace with that.”

Another challenge typically faced by small firms is the perception that its lawyers aren’t the same caliber as big-firm attorneys, Shekou said. That’s unfortunate, she said, because most of SSL’s partners have Big Law experience, and SSL is bigger than most big-firm real estate departments. “But still, we’re not a MoFo or an Orrick, and those are tremendously well-established, venerable firms that people respect and know,” Shekou said.

Still, over the past year and a half, SSL has added about 14 lawyers, including a few contract attorneys, Lakey said. “Every time we say we’re done growing and we just want to sit down and do our job, somebody totally amazing crosses our path. You don’t say no to really great lawyers who are going to be great team members.”

Lakey said there’s no desire among her partners to diversify beyond real estate, at least not anytime soon. “Now is the time to sit down and do our jobs really well,” she said. “We’re not intending to become another MoFo.”

Subscribe to The Recorder

Article source: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202500521405&WomenOwned_Real_Estate_Boutique_Grows_and_Thrives