Renée Frojo
Reporter- San Francisco Business Times

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While I’d rather not put a negative spin on San Francisco’s gangbusters economy, it’s hard to ignore the fact that it’s putting pressure on nonprofits to either pay up, get creative or get out.

As I wrote in this week’s paper, rising rents are pushing nonprofits out of the city and into the East Bay in search of affordable space. But what about local nonprofits that need a San Francisco address? How are they facing skyrocketing rents and landlords that refuse to renew their lease in hopes of attracting higher-paying tenants?

Well, “it’s really nuanced,” said Leiasa Beckham, a real estate consultant with the Northern California Community Loan Fund, in trying to explain the kinds of solutions that nonprofits in the city are coming up with to find more stable, affordable rent.

According to Beckham, some nonprofits with enough funds are looking into buying their own space. But because these projects are currently undergoing complex lease negotiations, she wouldn’t specify who is doing what.

Other scrappy nonprofits, she said, are looking for shared space concepts, co-locating to buildings with reasonable rents or renting spaces from other nonprofits in shared-space buildings — a model that has been used by nonprofits for some time.

But as rents continue to rise and real estate throughout the city — including the historically affordable areas of town — becomes increasingly desirable, even shared office spaces have become harder to find and develop.

“The real estate market is really prohibitive to centers expanding or replicating here,” Katie Edwards of Tide’s Nonprofit Centers Network, a peer learning community for nonprofits that share space, told me.

Renée Frojo covers hospitality, restaurants, retail and nonprofits for the San Francisco Business Times.

Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/02/san-franciscos-prosperity-puts-a.html