CalPERS to Boston: Sorry, we can’t pay for the mess we left behind
Last week, we took note of CalPERS pulling the plug on an $800 million condo and hotel complex in Boston. Loss to CalPERS:$91.2 million. Adding insult to injury — to whom we’ll let you decide — CalPERS...
View ArticleSanctions and wages: Lembi responds
Got a call back from a Lembi Group attorney on Thursday’s item about Lembi being hit with $30,000 in sanctions for failing to provide documents in a tenants’ class action suit, and reports that Lembi...
View ArticleHuntington Hotel for sale
San Francisco’s “iconic” Huntington Hotel, along with the Galleria Park and Carmel’s La Playa Hotel and Cottages-by-the-Sea, are to be sold, according to San Francisco’s Holliday Fenoglio Fowler LP,...
View ArticleS.F. hit parade: The Cannery latest to hit the skids (Update)
I’ve been told by a knowledgeable real estate source that The Cannery is being put up for sale. Those involved in the reported sale would not comment, or could not be reached. More details when my...
View ArticleIt was bound to happen: Lembi boutique hotels auctioned off
From the San Francisco Business Times: Three Personality Hotels have been foreclosed. The Hotel Vertigo, Hotel Frank and Hotel Metropolis were auctioned off earlier this week. They were purchased by a...
View ArticleParkmerced in default
The commercial real estate meltdown has caught up with one of the largest apartment complexes in the country — San Francisco’s Parkmerced. The complex’s owner is due to announce that the loan on the...
View ArticleDefault comes to Mission Bay
This from The Registry, a Bay Area real estate journal: A private, Houston-based real estate investment company has filed a notice of default on a loan backed by a high-profile Mission Bay office...
View ArticleBuying into S.F.’s “solid office market”
Highridge Partners, a southern California real estate investment company, has bought 255 California Street for $42 million in an all-cash acquisition. The 14-story, 74,000-square-foot office building,...
View ArticleWalter Lembi dies
San Francisco realtor Walter Lembi, a partner of the Lembi Group, which at one time owned more than 300 apartment buildings in San Francisco, died Tuesday afternoon. Lembi, 63, died from from cancer of...
View ArticleCityPlace headed for the auction block
Unless there’s a last-minute pull back, the once-vaunted CityPlace retail project, which was supposed to be the centerpiece of a revived mid-Market, goes under the auctioneer’s hammer on the steps of...
View ArticleSpotify moves into S.F.’s Warfield
Here’s a musical match that makes sense: Spotify and the Warfield. The fast-growing Swedish music streaming company is moving into the Warfield building on San Francisco’s Market Street, where it will...
View ArticleRitz Carlton sold for $161 million; Hyatt-union beef is over
The 336-room luxury hotel atop Union Square is now in the hands of Thayer Lodging Group, which will spend up to $17 million on renovations over the next two years, the Annapolis, Md., hotel investment...
View ArticleFor CalPERS, a Russian shopping center is “a good addition to our portfolio”
Here is what prompted State Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, to come up with a resolution, introduced today, calling on the state’s public pension funds to cease investing in Russia on account of its...
View Article(Much) more Chinese real estate money heading here
San Francisco’s Kidder Matthews is partnering with a Chinese real estate consortium “to act as a bridge for Chinese business investment which wants to come to the Bay Area.” The partner in question is...
View ArticleCost to build a home in San Francisco? High six-figures
Appropos my colleague Kathleen Pender’s post on how much income you need to buy a house in San Francisco, this from a local real estate developer: Out of pocket cost to build a single unit of housing...
View ArticleStanford University’s endowment haul: $18.7 billion
Yes, you get what you pay for. Forbes annual list of America’s”Best Colleges” is just out, with Stanford University at #2 just behind Williams College in Massachusetts, but ahead of Harvard, Yale,...
View ArticleHere’s what it costs to buy a house around the Bay Area
Here’s a list of median home prices in various Bay Area cities as of Aug. 11, from Paragon Real Estate Group. Median is that price at which half the sales occurred for more and half for less, which...
View ArticleSan Francisco hotels selling like hot cakes
If you want to buy hotel in the city, you’d better be prepared to pony up, and move fast. Sales totaled $500 million in the first half of 2014, a 133 percent increase over the same period last year,...
View ArticleStanford Court hotel changes hands, joins Mark Hopkins, Fairmont
And the Stanford Court makes three. The southern California investor that acquired the Fairmont in 2012 and the Mark Hopkins in February now owns Nob Hill’s third grand dame hotel, the Stanford Court....
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