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Bay Area retail development surges

Mon, 30 Sep 2013 02:25:09 +0000

The Bay Area is enjoying its strongest surge of retail expansion in years, fresh evidence that the wounds inflicted by the Great Recession are healing.

Developers are building retail projects at a brisk clip, demand for retail space has surged and vacancy rates have dwindled, and merchants are scouting for sites to open stores, according to realty experts who track the retail sector.

“This is definitely the strongest market for retail in the Bay Area since the downturn, no question about that,” said Garrick Brown, director of research with Terranomics, a realty brokerage that specializes in retail properties and tenants. “There is a lot of demand all over the Bay Area for retail space.”

At the end of June, the nine-county Bay Area had about 1.3 million square feet of retail sites in the pipeline — defined as actually under construction or about to launch construction — according to Terranomics. That is up from 1.1 million in mid-2012 — and well ahead of the 150,000 square feet in the retail pipeline in mid-2009, which was the year after the worst of the financial crisis of 2008, Terranomics experts said.

“We are leasing everything we can touch,” said David Taxin, a partner with Meacham/Oppenheimer, a commercial realty brokerage. “I’ve been doing this for a long time and this is definitely the strongest demand by retailers in years.”

All of this stems from the perceived economic strength of the region.

“You have the demographics and the economy, job creation and the relatively low unemployment rate,” Brown said. “That’s what retailers are looking for. They want a sure thing, and the Bay Area nails it on all fronts.”

In another sign of the health of the market, vacancy rates are declining steadily for retail spaces in the Bay Area. At the worst part of the current cycle, vacancy rates peaked at above 7 percent during 2010. Now the rate in the nine-county region is 5.8 percent, according to Terranomics.

In some spots, the demand is even higher. San Mateo County, San Francisco and Marin County are all regions where demand outstrips supply.

“On the Peninsula and in San Francisco, there is really nowhere to build, and the development process is very difficult, even if there are places to build,” Brown said. “The East Bay and Santa Clara County are the most welcoming for retail development.”

In Santa Clara County, the largest retail center now under construction is Village Oaks in South San Jose, a 320,000-square-foot complex that will be anchored by Target and Safeway. In the East Bay, the biggest retail projects under construction are a 140,000-square-foot Target store at Alameda Landing Shopping Center in Alameda, and an 80,000-square-foot Foods Co store in Oakland’s Foothill Square. San Francisco’s largest project is the 270,000-square-foot Market Street Place.

Retailers as big and familiar as Target, Safeway and Whole Foods are on the hunt for new space. But they are joined by a wide range of other stores, from Walmart and its neighborhood markets to Jamba Juice and Five Guys.

“We are ramping up our real estate efforts again in the Bay Area,” said Adam Smith, executive coordinator for store development with Whole Foods. “We are back where we were in the early 2000s, actively pursuing sites and leases.”

During those peak years, Whole Foods opened about five stores a year in the Bay Area. That’s down to about two stores a year. Whole Foods has 30 stores here.

Calling it “a great market for us,” Smith noted “the Bay Area is the birthplace of the natural and organic food movement.”

Whole Foods just opened its first store in Fremont, and is building a store near downtown San Jose at The Alameda and Stockton Avenue that should open during the second half of 2014. It also recently disclosed plans to open a new store in Dublin and its second store in Walnut Creek.

Target has been active with store openings in San Jose and the East Bay, and it is even finding sites in crowded San Francisco.

“The Bay Area is a region Target has an eye on,” said Matias Cavallin, a Target spokesman. “The economy here is really allowing us to gear up for more store openings.” Target has 54 stores in the Bay Area.

Bay Area cities welcome the heightened activity, because the increase in retail sales helps fill municipal coffers.

“During the downturn, when taxes were lean, we really felt the pinch,” said John Lang, chief economist with San Jose’s Economic Development Department. Now, he said, “retail sales are growing, and we are seeing a growth in tax revenue.”

During the 12 months ending in June, San Jose generated roughly $13 billion in taxable sales, up 3.4 percent from the same period that ended in June 2012. It also was 21 percent above the $11.03 billion in taxable sales during the trough of the retail downturn, the 12 months ending in June 2010.

Some of the shoppers at the opening of the new Whole Foods in Fremont appeared to be confident about their own economic circumstances.

“Over the last year, the economy has improved a lot,” said Jessica Thompson, of Union City. “I feel better about spending money.”

Contact George Avalos at 408-859-5167 or 408-373-3556. Follow him at Twitter.com/georgeavalos.

Article source: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_24193668/bay-area-retail-development-surges

Bay Area home values up 28 percent, luxury home prices leap 11 percent

Thu, 12 Sep 2013 01:03:36 +0000

This home at 3800 Washington St. in the Presidio Heights neighborhood of San Francisco is on the market for $21 million. It has eight bedrooms, seven bathrooms and 17,895 square feet. Prices for homes above $1 million grew by 11 percent during the past year.

Blanca Torres
Reporter- San Francisco Business Times

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The Bay Area’s housing market continues heating up, but for how long?

Home values in the Bay Area rose by 27.8 percent during the past year to an average of $628,200 in July, according to Zillow, a real estate information site. Zillow calculates home value appreciation for all homes, not just homes that have sold or are on the market.

Click on the image for a slideshow of Bay Area homes that are on the market or have risen significantly in value.

San Francisco ranked third nationwide for home value appreciation after Sacramento with 33.1 percent growth to $274,600 and Las Vegas with 30.8 percent growth to $151,600.

Nationwide, home values crept up by 6 percent during the past year to an average $161,600 — about 25 percent of San Francisco’s average (kind of makes you want to move doesn’t it?).

“The U.S. housing market recovery has proven it is on very sound footing,” said Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Stan Humphries. “We have entered a new phase in the recovery when we can begin to turn away from ugly recent history and turn toward what the housing market of the future will look like and how it will act.”

The housing market has improved significantly, but I’m not sure the Bay Area’s performance will continue to rise at the rapid pace we’ve seen in the past couple of years.

Also, the market here is increasingly shifting toward the high-end and away from first-time and entry-level buyers.

First Republic Bank reported today that luxury home prices in the Bay Area jumped 10.9 percent during the second quarter of this year compared with 2012 to an average of $2.9 million — the highest since the fourth quarter of 2008 and approaching the all-time highs of 2007.

Blanca Torres covers East Bay real estate for the San Francisco Business Times.

Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2013/08/bay-area-home-values-up-28-percent.html

San Francisco median home price hits plateau?

Fri, 30 Aug 2013 06:19:28 +0000

Three most expensive homes on the San Francisco MLS

Tue, 16 Jul 2013 21:18:43 +0000

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Winning the award for 3rd most pricey home on the San Francisco MLS is the Jackson Street abode you see above, nearly 9,000 square feet with 6 beds and 6.5 baths. Readers should note the home’s listing price, $17.5 million, breaks down to asking $1,984 per square foot. Not that this would scare luxury buyers in San Francisco; the home itself went pending just six days after it listed, according to Redfin property records. We don’t know yet what it will actually sell for, but we doubt it’s much less than what the sellers ask given the alacrity of the transaction.

Coming in 2nd is this palatial affair hulking over Washington St.

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This property is so big, it has two MLS listing pages, one for the main house and one for the guest house. Neoclassical outside and over-the-top on the inside, the home offers almost 18,000 square feet, 8 beds, 7 baths, and the aforementioned guest house at an additional 2,600 square feet. All this, plus a corner lot Presidio Heights location, set this home at an astonishing $21 million. Not so astonishing anymore, maybe, not after Yammer founder David Sacks paid $20 million for the not even finished 2845 Broadway. However, no one has rushed to snap up this one, hot luxury market or not. The home listed for $25M in May of 2012 and was reduced in March to $21M.

Coming in 1st is this home, lined up with traditional billionaire mansions on Broadway, but looking quite different from its peers.

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We can only thus far see plans for the interior and multiple floors, but the exterior rendering is remarkable, as is the view, and the price. Asking $28,950M, 2712 Broadway is officially the most expensive home listed on the SF public MLS. It offers 6 beds, 6 baths in 11,607 square feet, which calculates to $2,494 per square foot. Too pricey even for that stretch of street? Time will tell.

Buyers want, and can afford, high-end

Meanwhile, luxury properties enjoy a continued popularity in 2013. Paragon Real Estate Group shows this in a recent 2nd quarter report:

Going up! Demand for pricey homes going up, and prices with it. Courtesy Paragon Real Estate Group

How high is too high?

When, and at what price, will buyers balk? Or is the appetite for luxury in San Francisco insatiable?

Article source: http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2013/07/16/three-most-expensive-homes-on-the-san-francisco-mls/

San Francisco parking spot sells for $82000

Sat, 13 Jul 2013 20:59:56 +0000

(AP) SAN FRANCISCO – Parking spots apparently aren’t immune from the recent surge in San Francisco real estate prices.

A spot in the city’s trendy South Beach neighborhood sold last week for $82,000, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Thursday ( ).

The 8- by 12-foot parking space is in an enclosed garage in a condominium building near the San Francisco Giants’ ballpark. A Porsche SUV was parked in it on Thursday. The Chronicle said the unidentified buyer did not respond to interview requests.

While it may seem like a lot of money, real estate agents said parking could be a good investment in densely packed San Francisco, where vehicle spaces go for a premium. They can add as much as $100,000 to the purchase price of a property or be rented out at rates of $400 to $450 a month _ the going rate in South Beach.

“We had a very good response right out of the gate,” said Sean Sullivan with Climb Real Estate, which sold the spot. “It was only in the market two weeks.”

Sullivan said he sold a parking spot in the same building at the height of the last real estate boom for $95,000.

Overall, the city has seen real estate prices climb. Home prices in San Francisco grew by 22.2 percent in March compared with a year ago, second only to Phoenix among U.S. cities, according to The Standard Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index released in May.

Home prices in the wider, nine-county San Francisco Bay area posted a 12th straight month of double-digit price increases last month, according to research firm DataQuick. DataQuick said Thursday that the median price for new and existing houses and condominiums reached $519,000 in May, up 30 percent from the same period last year.

Condos in the South Beach area are going for $1,000 a square foot, the Chronicle reported. At 96 square feet, the parking space was a relative bargain at $854 per square foot.

Sullivan said the building where the parking spot was sold was built before the city restricted spaces to one per unit. It is one of the few buildings that allows nonresidents to own a spot.

The owner has a deed and must pay property taxes and homeowner association dues.

The sale was all cash.

Article source: http://wnyt.com/article/stories/s3066080.shtml?cat=300

Parking Spot Sells For $82K In San Francisco Building

Mon, 24 Jun 2013 07:58:38 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS/AP) – It seems parking spots aren’t immune from the recent surge in San Francisco real estate prices.

A spot in the city’s trendy South Beach neighborhood sold last week for $82,000.

The 8- by 12-foot parking space is in an enclosed garage in a condominium building just a block from ATT Park. The unidentified buyer did not respond to interview requests, but a Porsche SUV was parked in the space on Thursday.

While it may seem like a lot of money, real estate agents said parking could be a good investment. It can add as much as $100,000 to the purchase price of a property, or be rented out at rates of $400 to $450 a month — the going rate in South Beach.

Sean Sullivan, who sold the space, said the spot has an ideal location with Instagram and other tech companies nearby.

“We had a very good response right out of the gate,” said Sullivan, an agent who works for Climb Real Estate. “It was only in the market two weeks.”

Sullivan said that he’s previously sold a space for even more. In fact, he sold a parking spot in the same exact building at the height of the last real estate boom for $95,000.

Overall, the city has seen real estate prices climb. Home prices in San Francisco grew by 22.2 percent in March compared with a year ago, second only to Phoenix among U.S. cities, according to the Standard Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index released in May.

Home prices in the wider, nine-county Bay Area posted a 12th straight month of double-digit price increases last month, according to research firm DataQuick. DataQuick said Thursday that the median price for new and existing houses and condominiums reached $519,000 in May, up 30 percent from the same period last year.

Condos in the South Beach area are going for $1,000 a square foot. At 96 square feet, the parking space was a relative bargain at $854 per square foot.

Sullivan said the building where the parking spot was sold was built before the city restricted spaces to one per unit. It is one of the few buildings that allows non-residents to own a spot.

The new owner has a deed and will be required to pay property taxes and homeowner association dues on his little slice of South Beach.

The sale was all cash.

Article source: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/06/13/parking-spot-sells-for-82k-in-san-francisco-building/

San Francisco Parking Spot Sells for $82000

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:20:57 +0000

Parking spots apparently aren’t immune from the recent surge in San Francisco real estate prices.

A spot in the city’s trendy South Beach neighborhood sold last week for $82,000, the

“We had a very good response right out of the gate,” said Sean Sullivan with Climb Real Estate, which sold the spot. “It was only in the market two weeks.”

Sullivan said he sold a parking spot in the same building at the height of the last real estate boom for $95,000.

Condos in the South Beach area are going for $1,000 a square foot, the Chronicle reported. At 96 square feet, the parking space was a relative bargain at $854 per square foot.

Sullivan said the building where the parking spot was sold was built before the city restricted spaces to one per unit. It is one of the few buildings that allows nonresidents to own a spot.

The owner has a deed and must pay property taxes and homeowner association dues.

The sale was all cash.

Copyright Associated Press

Article source: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/San-Francisco-Parking-Spot-Sells-for-82000-211467521.html

Will Shutterfly flutter into Bay Meadows? Nets are up

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 06:27:30 +0000

Station 2, the HOK-designed building Shutterfly will likely occupy at Bay Meadows

J.K. Dineen
Reporter- San Francisco Business Times

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Shutterfly is looking at possibly moving its corporate headquarters to Bay Meadows in San Mateo, but corporate officials cautioned that nothing has been signed yet.

Several Peninsula brokerages sources stated that the digital personalized photo firm is looking at taking all the office space in Station 2, one of five office buildings slated for the 83-acre former racetrack. The five-building campus will total 763,000 square feet.

Gretchen Sloan, Shutterfly’s director of corporate communications, said that no lease has been signed and that the company continues to look at its options across the Bay Area. The company is growing and currently has 40 job openings, according to its website.

Station 2, located at the southwest corner of Delaware Street and 28th Avenue, is an L-shaped structure composed of two rectangular wings — one parallel to 28th Avenue and the other adjacent to the Caltrain rail line. The building includes large floor plates on levels two through four, with space for retail and active use on a portion of the ground floor. A landscaped courtyard links the building’s two-story office lobby to Delaware Street. Parking is hidden below the building and within its lower levels at the rear of each wing. The building includes 177,000 square feet of office space and 11,000 square feet of retail, which will include a 3,000-square-foot restaurant.

The architect is HOK.

Shutterfly is currently located in Redwood City at 2800 Bridge Pkwy.

Bay Meadows master developers Wilson Meany and Stockbridge Capital Group have submitted building permits for foundation and grading on Station Blocks two, three, and four. The developers have also pulled a superstructure permit for Station Block Two, the building Shutterfly is looking to take, according to Darcy Forsell, an associate planner with the city.

Shutterfly makes photo books, personalized holiday cards, announcements, invitations and stationery, as well as custom home decor products and photo gifts

The potential Shutterfly lease comes as Bay Meadows is making tracks on multiple fronts. This week Wilson Meany and Stockbridge announced that they have started construction on Field House, a 108-unit apartment complex. In addition TRI Pointe Homes and Shea Home are well underway on 156 for sale town homes, 97 of which have been permitted. The 30 homes released so far sold out immediately.

Bay Meadows will also include a 12-acre park and a campus for the Nueva School, an independent school that is building a 2.76-acre high school.

On May 28th Forsell gave San Mateo planning commissioners an update on the project and said that she expects the three Bay Meadows office buildings could be under construction this summer.

A Shutterfly deal at Bay Meadows would be a huge boost for the development, which a decade in the making, is an ambitious effort to build a dense, mixed-use, transit-oriented community in an area that often resists density and change.

J.K. Dineen covers real estate for the San Francisco Business Times.

Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/05/bay-meadows-lands-first-big-corporate.html?page=all

The Million-Dollar Home Challenge

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 05:09:09 +0000

Greek Titan

Talk about getting some bang for your buck. This 1873 classical Greek revival home is priced at $899,900 and measures 11,544 square feet, roughly three times the Painted Lady’s space.

This historic home located in York, Pennsylvania has hosted presidents, cabinet members and even military generals within its spacious walls. It has 10 bedrooms, six bathrooms and nine fireplaces.

The 1.85 acre estate comes with a carriage house that’s been converted into a four-car garage. The house also includes an elevator, a barn and 10 chandeliers.

But does bigger always mean the better value?

“Better value without a question, metrics say is York,” she said. “But you really have to go with what’s going to appreciate most in the next five years and if you ask me, there’s no question it’s Painted Lady. Painted Lady is in a top suburb of Chicago, it’s an exciting place to live, right near Chicago. And that’s going to get the buyers.”

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100662286

Inner Parkside home has great light, location

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 01:51:15 +0000

(01-15) 12:11 PST San Francisco — Twice a week, The Chronicle features a home on the Bay Area market that caught our eye for its architecture, history or character. More photos at www.sfgate.com/columns/walkthrough.

Address: 2595 15th Ave., San Francisco

Asking price: $1.099 million

Description: This Mediterranean-style corner home in the Inner Parkside area has abundant light and a sunken living room with a wood-burning fireplace. The kitchen has been recently remodeled and features a breakfast nook, pantry and high-end appliances. Located on the lower level, the master bedroom has its own bar and fireplace. The upstairs bedrooms share a remodeled split bathroom and a water fountain decorates the backyard. Three cars can fit in the home’s garage and the property is walking distance from West Portal boutiques and restaurants. Open houses are scheduled Wednesday and Thursday from 5 to 6:30 p.m.

Don’t miss: Original stencil work on the open-beamed ceiling.

Built: 1932

Size: 2,232 square feet

For more information: Helena Zaludova, Paragon Real Estate, (415) 738-7010; helena@paragon-re.com

The Walk-Through is produced by Sentinel Media Services specifically for The San Francisco Chronicle. Send submissions to: realestate@sfchronicle.com

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/walkthrough/article/Inner-Parkside-home-has-great-light-location-4196494.php

homesmillbrae.com » Square Feet

Bay Area retail development surges

Bay Area home values up 28 percent, luxury home prices leap 11 percent

San Francisco median home price hits plateau?

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Three most expensive homes on the San Francisco MLS

San Francisco parking spot sells for $82000

Parking Spot Sells For $82K In San Francisco Building

San Francisco Parking Spot Sells for $82000

Copyright Associated Press

Will Shutterfly flutter into Bay Meadows? Nets are up

The Million-Dollar Home Challenge

Inner Parkside home has great light, location