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While luxury real estate sales may be sagging in hard-hit Manhattan, the top end of the San Francisco market has remained surprisingly buoyant. Case in point: A posh Pacific Heights home once owned by actor Meg Ryan and her former husband, Dennis Quaid, just sold for $17.3 million. The deal, reports Mansion Global, is one of many “trophy homes” to sell during the pandemic in San Francisco, where large and luxurious private homes are far harder to come by than in Los Angeles or New York City.

The property—which was originally listed for just under $20 million back in April—is certainly appealing. Built 130 years ago, the Queen Anne Victorian–style home is typical of the upscale mansions dotting Pacific and Presidio Heights, two of the most exclusive neighborhoods in San Francisco.

Spanning some 7,000 square feet and offering five bedrooms, seven total bathrooms, a pair of family rooms, a living room, and a formal dining room, the home is gracious and grand. There’s also a newly completed chef-kitchen along with a top-floor “pentroom,” a leisure-focused space that makes the most of the home’s panoramic San Francisco Bay views.

Despite its age, the home has undergone a series of recent updates and upgrades. The previous owners, for instance, worked with local firm Tim Murphy Design Associates back when they first bought it in 2014. Murphy’s overhaul was comprehensive but retained key original details, including “thick crown molding and decorative millwork, as showcased in the welcoming entryway,” according to Dwell.

Article source: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/meg-ryan-san-francisco-sale

Southern Pacific Brewing, an 8,500-square-foot Mission District restaurant, bar, and brewery that’s been jam-packed since it opened in 2012, is on the market, its owner says. The spot closed to customers in early September, but will continue to sell beer at occasional pop-up events — at least until it finds a buyer.

Like many businesses across the Bay Area, the venue temporarily closed at the beginning of the pandemic. It reopened mid-August, with expanded outdoor seating and a new program of canned beer that fans could take to go. “But that wasn’t enough,” owner Chris Lawrence tells Eater SF.

“We were able to add 13 tables to our outside seating,” Lawrence says. “That was enough to help stem the loss, but the heat wave and then the fires” (the smoke from which made outdoor dining an unhealthy proposition) “forced us to pull back and rethink,” Lawrence says. After a meeting with the brewery’s investors, the decision was made: Southern Pacific closed to customers earlier this month and is now for sale.

Lawrence, a native of the city (he’s a Sacred Heart grad, before you ask), says that he’s loved operating his immensely popular business and “bringing our beer to the San Francisco community.” But he also says that this might also be a good stopping point for him and his team of investors, many of whom have left town, had kids, or otherwise moved onto their next chapter. “People’s lives have changed,” Lawrence says, “and it’s time to pass the torch of this great, successful business … although the pandemic has most people holding onto their pocketbooks, we feel it is a great opportunity.”

Southern Pacific does not own its vast, industrial building (the interior of which, incidentally, was designed by SF star architect Seth Boor), so this is a sale of the business, only, Lawrence says, including its equipment and fixtures. “It’s a cool space and could attract a larger player in the brewery space,” Lawrence says, one that would “put their name in and take over the program.” But if a buyer wanted to take over the Southern Pacific name and branding, that’s an option too, he says. (Interested parties can contact Guy Carson of Urban Group Real Estate.)

Until a deal is struck, Lawrence says that Southern Pacific will occasionally sell its canned product at pop-up events in the space, announced via Instagram as they’re scheduled. He says he’s also hoping to get his beers on local shelves — prior to opening the bar, Lawrence worked in beer sales and distribution, and says he’ll be reaching out to his contacts from that career again. “My hope is that we can get our beers in some other local restaurants and help them out,” he says.

He’s insistent that Southern Pacific’s fate is not an “another one bites the dust” kind of tale, and in speaking to him, one can already hear the wheels turning in Lawrence’s mind. “After all this ends,” he says, “there are going to be a lot of opportunities for the right people.” When he says that, he might be referring to himself — but he might as easily be talking about the chance for someone new to take over Southern Pacific’s two-story space, the home of so many happy hours, first dates, and going-away parties. It could be the site of many more happy events, after all this, Lawrence says. “We just need to find someone to continue our legacy.”

Article source: https://sf.eater.com/2020/9/15/21438409/southern-pacific-brewing-closed-for-sale-mission

“This has caused a lot of friction within our mall and a lot of tenants are upset about it and the lack of transparency,” says Kimura. “We send multiple emails, letters to our property managers and landlords and have heard nothing back.”

Attempts to reach Kinokuniya’s attorneys for this story were unsuccessful, but Kirsten Fletcher, the building’s property manager wrote that “it is difficult all around,” and cites that the building owner also owns over 50 stores in the Americas alone. “Rent is contracted and due by the tenants, no one is making money,” Fletcher replied in an email.

Fletcher also notes that one month of deferred rent was offered to Kinokuniya tenants earlier in the pandemic.

Establishing and securing the commercial and retail district of Japantown is an effort that dates back more than a century, starting from when Japanese immigrants settled into the area after the 1906 earthquake. It grew into a thriving community that spanned about 40 blocks during its heyday until Executive Order 9066 during World War II swept Japanese citizens and Japanese Americans into internment camps.

Since then, through years of economic development, buildings have been razed and the neighborhood has been reduced into only a commercial district. It’s why protecting the mom-and-pop shops in Japantown is an effort to preserve the cultural heart of the wider Bay Area Japanese American community, many of whom come into San Francisco to convene and continue important traditions. Japantown is less residential than Chinatown but it serves as a focal point for key community events and festivals, including local basketball league games, the annual Cherry Blossom and Obon Festivals and gatherings at the Japanese Buddhist church in the neighborhood.

Kristy Wang, a community planning policy director with the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) adds that keeping businesses alive in these neighborhoods is essential in preserving a cultural home base for communities, even if they move away.

She cites the exodus of San Francisco’s Black population as an example: “So many people have had to move out or decided to move out. And if you lose those businesses, then you lose a place to go back to even.”

Low says attempts to reach out to Kinokuniya’s property manager and attorneys have gone unanswered, and he’s afraid that once the commercial eviction moratorium is lifted on Monday, many of these businesses won’t make it.

“Our existing commercial eviction moratorium was based on the assumption that this pandemic would only last six months … it was a very short-term reaction,” Low said. “I think we relied too much on the good faith that landlords and tenants can work out their own problems and what we’re rapidly realizing is this is not the case.”

As it stands now, the commercial eviction moratorium states that if commercial tenants have not paid all outstanding rent after six months, landlords are able to evict them for non-payment.

Low has drafted an ordinance – and is in talks with Supervisor Peskin, as well as District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston, whose jurisdiction includes Japantown – that would extend the existing moratorium as well as add more weight to its enforcement.

Though the timeline of when this may happen is still unclear, Peskin says he hopes to arrive at a solution that will be “legally sound.”

Low adds, however, that an extension of the moratorium still won’t be enough. “The moratorium is fine just for stalling the evictions,” he says. “You have to get to the underlying problem, which is not only stopping the evictions or addressing evictions, but somehow addressing the money.”

In SOMA Pilipinas: Incubating Survival Strategies

Another population in San Francisco that is acutely familiar with being forced to relocate is the Filipino American population.

SOMA Pilipinas was formed in 2016 in part to encourage entrepreneurship among Filipino Americans in a Filipino-dedicated business corridor and reclaim space in a city that has repeatedly displaced them.

There had been a 10-block radius neighborhood dubbed “Manilatown” on Kearny Street in the 1920s established by Filipino migrant farmworkers. But as urban renewal and development sought to grow the city’s Financial District, Filipinos were slowly pushed out of the area. The tension came to a head in 1977, when the International Hotel, or I-Hotel, a residential building for Filipino immigrants, faced eviction threats, which led to large protests and coalition building with other groups, including Chinese and Japanese American activists.

Eventually, I-Hotel evictions took place and shifted Filipino immigrants to the SOMA district, where they opened up businesses and established storefronts. But they then faced additional mass displacement during the development of Yerba Buena and Moscone centers.

“SOMA Pilipinas is kind of a great hope of ‘we can finally write the narratives that we always wanted,’ ” said Desi Danganan, executive director of Kultivate Labs, a nonprofit arts and economic development organization, who helped spearhead the district.

“All of these past struggles led up to this momentous opportunity to develop our community in one of the most wealthiest progressive cities in the world,” said Danganan. Since its establishment and before the pandemic, SOMA Pilipinas had 18 businesses in the neighborhood – its main corridor is on Mission Street between Fifth and Seventh streets – and many of its owners are younger Filipino entrepreneurs and artists. The district has since lost four businesses due to the economic challenges of the coronavirus.

In a survey conducted a few months ago, more than half of the food and retail businesses in SOMA Pilipinas have lost more than 90% of their revenue, largely attributed to the lack of foot traffic from employees in nearby office buildings, including the Twitter headquarters. Nearly 70% of the businesses say they only had a handful of months left to stay afloat.

The impact on SOMA Pilipinas may mean a serious hurdle for new Filipino entrepreneurs who saw the new business district as a source of cultural empowerment. With a background in entrepreneurship and business marketing, Danganan says he realized early on that establishing an economic footprint would be critical in creating a cultural space for the Filipino community.

“Access to capital and mentorship was the biggest barrier to entry into doing business in the south of market, or SOMA Pilipinas,” he said. Through Kultivate Labs, Danganan and his team function as an incubator to help kickstart Filipino businesses.

One such business owner is Hü Gamit, a 27-year-old San Francisco native who followed in the footsteps of his late grandfather, Papay, who once owned The Gamit Barbershop on 6th Street. He grew up in his grandfather’s shop, which he says was a safe space for Filipino immigrants, and watched him bond with the local community. He established his own barber shop, Yoü by Hü, on Sixth Street in August 2019 and says it provided an opportunity to continue a family and cultural legacy – he frequently runs into SOMA community members who remember his grandfather fondly – and empower himself to contribute something new for the larger SOMA community.

“The one thing I’m most proud of is I’ve turned myself into a business. Like, I am the business,” Gamit said. “My space on Sixth Street, that’s my place, that’s like my home court.” He says it’s especially meaningful as someone who was born and raised in the city who has witnessed the power shifts and dynamics of gentrification.

But dreams of entrepreneurs like Gamit have been thwarted by the coronavirus, which has kept him from opening his shop since March.

Some food businesses in the neighborhood have been able to survive by feeding front-line Filipino health workers, an initiative designed by Kultivate Labs. But Reina Montenegro, owner of Nick’s on Mission, a Filipino vegan restaurant, feels the urgency to pivot in order to survive.

A former caterer, Montenegro has turned to building her online presence, hosting cooking classes and preparing meal prep packages, to adapt during the uncertainty. While her landlord has accommodated late payments, she says the stack of unpaid bills, rent and other costs is growing to a point where she may have to rethink her entire business structure, and not return to the brick-and-mortar model at all.

Through grants and support from city politicians, Danganan said San Francisco has been largely supportive of SOMA Pilipinas and hopes that the city continues to incorporate equity in every decision.

While he continues to triage support for the SOMA Pilipinas businesses that continue to face devastating uncertainty, Danganan says he’s always willing to place a bet on culture, especially in San Francisco: “It’s like hardware and software. Hardware is just like any kind of city infrastructure and software is the culture. And that’s what we have here.”

He recognizes, though, that the survival of cultural neighborhoods will boil down to each community’s ability to take care of itself. Danganan holds the incredible political savvy of Chinatown, cultivated by decades of activism and organizing by community leaders and activists, as an example.

“We’re heavily supported by our city government, as they should, but at some point, our community’s going to have to come together and support ourselves. It’s the only way to push us forward.”

Article source: https://www.kqed.org/news/11837511/whats-lost-in-bay-area-asian-culture-when-sf-eviction-moratorium-ends

Article source: https://oaklandnewsnow.com/maya-hiersoux-talks-with-zennie-abraham-about-oakland-ca-real-estate-in-the-pandemic/news/14/09/2020/60597/

By Scott Morris, Bay City News Foundation

SAN FRANCISCO (CSB SF) — Shortly after a devastating wildfire destroyed the small town of Paradise in Northern California in November 2018, Pacific Gas Electric hired an obscure waste disposal company to help it rebuild from the fire.

The utility giant announced that two of its employees lost their jobs over allegations they had taken bribes from the company, known as Bay Area Concrete Recycling. 

Now, an investigation by the Bay City News Foundation and ProPublica has revealed for the first time a multimillion-dollar real estate transaction linking one of Bay Area Concrete’s owners, Yadwinder “Kevin” Singh, to the PGE employee who supervised the company’s work in Paradise.

In effect, Singh transferred ownership of a home to the PGE employee, who sold it back a month later to a holding company linked to Singh. It could not be determined whether the PGE employee paid any money in exchange for the transfer of ownership. It is also unclear whether the bribery allegations by PGE are connected to the home sale between their employee and Singh.

After being told details of the transaction, one top expert called the deal suspicious. He said it could be a way for Singh to transfer money to the PGE employee while making it appear like the result of a home sale.

“It sounds like money laundering here,” said Eric Forster, a California real estate consultant who has been an expert witness in criminal cases involving real estate fraud since 1997. “What you’re describing typically is done when someone is trying to do one of two things: when someone is trying to bribe an employee or launder the money or both.

Shoshana Gordon/ProPublica, source images: Wikimedia
Commons, KellerWilliams via TourFactory.com

The real estate deal, involving a luxury home in one of the wealthiest towns in America, raises new questions about PGE’s oversight of contractors during the fire cleanup. The company pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter for the people killed in the fire and agreed to pay out $13.5 billion in damages to survivors. It emerged from bankruptcy this year with a new CEO who promised major reform.

Matt Nauman, a PGE spokesman, did not respond directly when asked about the real estate transaction, citing the ongoing investigation. In a June investigation, the Bay City News Foundation and ProPublica revealed how PGE had hired Bay Area Concrete despite its history of run-ins with environmental regulators.

“PGE takes fraud extremely seriously and has continued its own active, aggressive investigation into this matter while also referring it to law enforcement for consideration of next steps,” Nauman said.

District Attorney Michael Ramsey of Butte County, where Paradise is located, confirmed in March that PGE alerted his office to the allegations and said he was awaiting further information. Ramsey did not respond to questions about the status of the investigation.

Neither Singh nor the PGE employee, Ryan Kooistra, responded to requests for comment.

The real estate deal involves a dream home built several years ago by David Rossi and his wife, Lesley Matheson, longtime business associates of Singh’s.

In an interview, Rossi said he met Singh through a construction company Rossi founded with Matheson in 2000. They contracted with one of Singh’s companies, Economy Trucking, to do hauling work at job sites for more than a decade.

“They were really cheap; they went through various phases when they were doing all of our trucking,” Matheson said. “We paid terribly and they were OK with that.”

In 2014, with business booming, Rossi and Matheson built their dream home on a 6.3-acre lot in Saratoga. The twisty streets that climbed to their home passed destination wineries and wildlife preserves. The 5,600-square-foot home has six bedrooms, six bathrooms, panoramic views of the surrounding hills and a four-car attached garage. For two years, Rossi and Matheson lived there with their three children.

A screenshot of the house’s listing price and amenities,
as of Aug. 25. (KellerWilliams via TourFactory.com)

Rossi moved out in 2016 and filed for divorce the following year. The business suffered through their separation and divorce. By the end of 2017, they were forced to sell assets to pay off millions of dollars in debt, including nearly $600,000 in back payroll and benefits.

One of their biggest creditors was Singh’s Economy Trucking, which was owed nearly $863,000 at the end of 2017, according to business records. But with Rossi and Matheson’s companies underwater, other creditors were ahead in line and there was little hope that Economy Trucking could collect.

Soon, even their dream home was at risk as collateral for a line of credit from AvidBank. In September 2018, the bank foreclosed. Matheson was evicted along with her 90-year-old mother, who was living in a guest cottage. The bank put the house up for auction, but it didn’t receive any offers it found acceptable.

Meanwhile, Rossi said that Singh called him from “out of nowhere” and said he wanted to buy the house. Rossi said that he would have to work with the bank to make that happen, but he wanted to facilitate a sale to Singh so he could rent it from him while raising capital to buy it back.

Singh submitted a cash offer to buy the house for $3.5 million in November 2018, which Rossi said the bank accepted. Santa Clara County recorded the sale in December and assessed the home’s value at about $4.6 million based on similar sales in the area. Rossi hoped to buy it back for about $4.5 million.

But Singh had other plans. At around the same time he bought the home, the Camp Fire started in the remote foothills of Butte County. It burned for weeks, killing 85 people and destroying 18,804 structures. PGE, whose transmission lines were determined to have sparked the blaze, launched a major cleanup effort, including hiring a fleet of hydrovac trucks – special excavation equipment for digging around buried wires and gas lines. The hydrovac trucks generate potentially toxic slurry waste.

To dispose of the waste, PGE hired Bay Area Concrete to run a hydrovac dump site in Paradise. Kooistra was the PGE employee designated to oversee the operation, according to several sources with knowledge of the operation.

While the fire was burning, an attorney for Singh registered a new limited liability company, Regal Rose, at one of Singh’s business addresses. When Singh bought Rossi’s house, he put it in the name of the LLC.

In July 2019, new filings with the state showed Kooistra and his wife as the owners of Regal Rose LLC.

The next month, Regal Rose sold the house for $2 million to another LLC, Monarch Estates, which was based at Singh’s business address and listed an employee of Singh’s as its sole member. A listing agent hired to sell the house confirmed Singh is its owner.

Rossi continued living in the house during the transactions, paying $10,000 a month in rent to Singh, according to Rossi. His lease was not with Regal Rose but another holding company owned by Singh’s wife and business partner, Preet Johal.

Johal did not respond to a list of questions sent by email. In a letter, her attorney, Dawn Sweatt, said any insinuations that Johal engaged in criminal activity were false. “What is true is that PGE, a convicted felon, has taken great measures to avoid paying its creditors, not only by its filing bankruptcy, but also through unfounded accusations and excuses,” Sweatt wrote.

Rossi said he had never heard of Kooistra and did not know that Kooistra briefly owned his house that summer. Mail for Monarch Estates piled up at the house while he was living there, but Rossi said he couldn’t make any sense of what was going on.

Rossi hoped to find investors to buy the house back from Singh and turn it into a wellness center. But Singh wanted $5.5 million – about $1 million more than the assessed value – and Rossi said he eventually realized that he’d never be able to buy the house back. He moved out in November 2019. Singh put the house on the market that month. This year, the asking price was reduced to $5 million and again to $4.5 million and it remains for sale.

The kitchen in David Rossi’s former 5,600-square-foot
home. (KellerWilliams via TourFactory.com)

PGE launched an investigation late last year into allegations that Singh’s company had defrauded PGE and bribed its employees. In February, the company’s CEO at the time, William Johnson, pledged to share the results of PGE’s internal investigation once it was complete. PGE has not released any further information since then.

Meanwhile, Kooistra sold his house in California and moved to Arizona, where he founded a pool cleaning business, Monarch Purification, in May. Rossi and Matheson said they have not been contacted by PGE or law enforcement investigators.

Singh appeared well-off, Rossi said. He wouldn’t cash Rossi’s rent checks for two to three months. At one point, Rossi said Singh told him he had flown to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to attend a seminar by motivational speaker Tony Robbins.

Scott Morris is an investigative journalist based in Oakland, California. He has covered corporate crime, police misconduct, civil rights and protests since 2011.

Do you have any tips about Pacific Gas Electric, Bay Area Concrete Recycling, or the hydro-vac or trash hauling business in California? Please email reporter Scott Morris: OakMorr@protonmail.com.

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Article source: https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/08/26/how-a-massive-real-estate-deal-is-connected-to-californias-deadliest-fire/