San Francisco, CA
S.F. office tower that was sold at a steep discount lands first new tenant
The Swig Co. and SKS Partners purchased 350 California St. in downtown San Francisco in August at a steep discount. Now, the office building has its first new tenant.
Google Street ViewSome five months later, the longtime home of the Union Bank at 350 California St. has landed its first new tenant.
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The Swig Co. and SKS Partners — the joint venture that acquired 350 California St. for $61 million at the end of August — announced Tuesday that it has signed a long-term lease with affordable housing developer Bridge Housing, which is planning to relocate its headquarters to the building.
“The San Francisco market’s reset creates a tremendous opportunity for nonprofits, growth companies and other mid-size users to solidify their place in the city’s office ecosystem,” said Paul Stein, managing partner of SKS. “This is good for tenants and landlords as well as the long-term outlook for our local economy moving forward.”
Bridge was founded in San Francisco in 1983 and is currently headquartered two blocks over from 350 California, at 600 California St.
In a statement provided to the Chronicle, Bridge CEO and President Ken Lombard described 350 California as a “first-rate building with extensive amenities that will provide a comfortable, healthy and productive environment for the BRIDGE Housing team as we pursue our affordable housing mission.
“We look forward to beginning a new chapter of our long legacy in San Francisco in our new corporate home,” Lombard said.
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The developer did not immediately respond to a message seeking additional comment, and it is unclear what motivated the relocation at this time.
According to 350 California’s new owners, Bridge will move its headquarters to the building’s 16th floor, which spans about 16,105 square feet.
“One of the reasons we like the building, and a motivating factor for us as an investor, is that we believe the 16,000-square-foot floor plates hit a sweet spot sought by the widest range of tenants in the current market and for the foreseeable future,” said Connor Kidd, Swig’s CEO.
The tower itself encompasses roughly 300,000 leasable square feet, a third of which is still occupied by its previous owner, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.
MUFG acquired a stake in what was Union Bank starting in the 1990s before selling its operations to U.S. Bancorp last year. The global financial group first listed 350 California for sale in 2020, and at that time sought $250 million for the building.
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But like most other buildings in San Francisco, the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent rise in office vacancy in San Francisco has caused building values to plummet. In the months leading up to the pandemic, the city recorded a vacancy rate in the single digits — by year-end 2023, vacancy spiked to 35.9%.
MUFG selected Swig and SKS as the building’s buyer in May, and at the time agreed to a short-term lease back of some of its office space.
The building’s high-profile sale came as two other office towers traded in what is known as fire sales to local buyers with “patient capital” — in other words, investors who aren’t expecting a quick profit, but instead are looking further down the road.
And in September, Peninsula-based investor Roger Fields picked up the 355,000-square-foot 550 California St. property that once housed Wells Fargo Bank for just over $40 million, or $114 per square foot — less than half of what it was worth nearly two decades ago.
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San Francisco, CA
Holiday travel at San Francisco airport being affected by winter weather
With rain and wind in the forecast, it may make some people’s holiday travel a little more difficult.
At San Francisco International Airport, more than 400 flights have been delayed. Maggie Nelson’s was delayed coming into the airport.
“It seemed like everyone was in a panic or a hurry to get anywhere,” said Nelson. “The plane was crowded. There was a lot of turbulence.”
Nelson flew in from Redmond, Oregon, usually a quick flight to SFO, just under two hours, but she ended up being delayed nearly that long.
“Originally, we were supposed to take off at 2 p.m. and then our flight got delayed to 2:50 p.m., and then it got delayed again,” Nelson explained. “I don’t think we took off until 3:30 p.m. because of high winds or something.”
California is in the middle of an intense storm period. Two systems bringing heavy rain and strong winds, and Nelson could feel all of it.
“The turbulence was pretty bad,” said Nelson. “There was a point where I got nauseous. I was like ‘Are we there yet? Is this over?’”
While she’s grateful to be on solid ground, Shon Alkaslasi was about to take off or at least try to.
“United sent a text that wind might affect operations,” said Alkaslasi.
He arrived early, just in case of holiday traffic, now he’s anticipating he may be delayed. He’s travelling home to Los Angeles, another area in the middle of the storms.
“I would say I’m not the biggest fan of turbulence so I am a little bit nervous about that,” Alkaslaski detailed. “But if they say it’s totally safe to travel, I’m not usually concerned but the feeling of bumps on a plane is just not the most comfortable and I’ll have to deal with it.”
Airport Duty Manager Crystal David said overall things haven’t been too bad, but West Coast flights, like Alkaslasi’s and Nelson’s, are the ones most likely to be impacted.
“SFO is on a ground delay program throughout the night, through midnight and so right now it’s about 127 minutes because of winds,” said David. “Mostly it’s the west coast flights are that are being affected right now with delays of up to 35 minutes for the west coast traffic.”
She said the delays could continue into the morning, when even stronger winds are expected. She recommends travelers check in with their airlines.
But for Nelson, she’s just glad she made it home.
“I used to live a lot closer so it’s a lot harder to come home now so when I do get to come home, I try to take advantage of that and appreciate it,” said Nelson.
San Francisco, CA
Executive chef of new buzzy San Francisco restaurant Bourbon Steak visits ABC7
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — ABC7 got in the holiday spirit Monday with the executive chef of San Francisco’s buzziest restaurants that just opened in October — to a lot of fanfare.
We’re talking about Bourbon Steak, inside the Westin St. Francis Hotel.
Legendary celebrity chef Michael Mina’s latest opening brings him back to San Francisco, and everyone came to celebrate: a cable car, Mayor Daniel Lurie, and Warriors superstar Stephen Curry — a partner in this venture who created the bourbon bar Eighth Rule inside the restaurant.
But they’re not just about style. They are first and foremost about steaks.
Because they are on the menu for so many holiday gatherings, we are delighted that Bourbon Steak executive chef Kevin Schantz joined us on ABC7’s “Midday Live.”
Watch the full interview in the player above.
If you’re on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live
Copyright © 2025 KGO-TV. All Rights Reserved.
San Francisco, CA
Thousands in one San Francisco neighborhood heading into another day without power
While many people in San Francisco have their power back, there are still thousands without it.
At a press conference Monday afternoon, Mayor Daniel Lurie said 4,000 PG&E customers in the Civic Center area are still in the dark. One of them is Parvathy Menon.
“We haven’t been able to take showers or use the bathroom,” said Menon. “Our electricity is out. I think all our food started rotting about a day in.”
She lives at 100 Van Ness. She said she’s grateful she’s going out of town tomorrow, but even that’s posing some problems.
“I actually have to pack for a trip tonight, and we’re doing it in full darkness,” Menon explained. “We are using our phone lights, we are using our laptops to charge our phones.”
Her apartment is pitch black, except for the small amount of streetlight coming through the windows. She said the apartment complex has been doing all they can to help, like providing some food and water.
They have a small generator to power some lights in the lobby and one elevator for the nearly 30-story apartment building.
Menon said she is most upset about the lack of communication from PG&E.
“Initially, when this started, we were supposed to get power back within the day, then it went to the next day and now they just stopped calling us completely,” said Menon.
San Francisco City Hall was closed for the day because of the outage, but Mayor Daniel Lurie held a press conference with Supervisors Matt Dorsey and Bilal Mahmood.
Lurie said what residents have gone through is unacceptable, and he’s lost trust in PG&E’s estimated times for repair.
“They gave us a timeline that they believe in, but it’s not one that I can have confidence in any longer,” Lurie said. “So, we don’t have full faith that 6 a.m. is the time tomorrow.”
“Shame on PG&E for having this happen,” said District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey. “This is a company that has had a lot of reliability issues and the jury is out on what happened, but if this is negligence, I think it’s going to be really important for people to understand they have rights as customers.”
Leaders encourage everyone who lost anything to file a claim with PG&E; they could be eligible for reimbursements. Mahmood is calling for a hearing after the new year to get some answers for PG&E.
“What went wrong, why weren’t they able to address it this weekend and what steps are they taking to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” said Mahmood about the question he has for the utility company.
PG&E said the outage happened after a fire at its Mission Street substation left significant damage, but the cause is still under investigation.
Meanwhile, Menon has been refreshing social media looking for good news, but she’s starting to lose faith.
“They’re really doing nothing to help us here, so I’m losing hope,” said Menon.
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