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 (KRON) — A driver in a car riddled with bullets fled a Marin County Sheriff’s Office deputy at high speeds over the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco early Tuesday morning, according to authorities. The suspect, identified as Martin Zuniga Jr., 26, was later located in Novato and arrested.
The deputy first observed the suspect driving at approximately 100 mph on Highway 101 near the Richardson Bay Bridge. After pulling over the car, the deputy “noticed approximately 14 fresh bullet holes in the vehicle,” the sheriff’s office wrote. Zuniga allegedly told the deputy that he had just been involved in a road rage incident near Novato, but he refused to get out of the car and give a statement.
Zuniga “abruptly put the car into drive and fled the scene,” the sheriff’s office wrote.
The pursuit led to the Golden Gate Bridge, where the deputy disengaged due to unsafe speeds across the span, according to authorities. The car was later found abandoned on the streets of San Francisco.
At approximately 6 p.m., detectives located Zuniga in downtown Novato and placed him into custody. The sheriff’s office said at the time of the arrest that he was in possession of a loaded .40-caliber pistol with a high-capacity magazine and suspected cocaine.
Zuniga was booked into the Marin County Jail for:
- Reckless evading
- Violently resisting law enforcement
- Felon in possession of a firearm
- Felon in possession of ammunition
- Addict in possession of a firearm
Anyone with information regarding a shooting or road rage incident in the evening or early morning hours of June 15 and June 16 is asked to contact the Marin County Sheriff’s Office at 415-479-2311.
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A San Francisco supervisor’s proposal aims to address supermarkets closing in the city and the price of groceries climbing.
Supervisor Bilal Mahmoud introduced the Affordable Groceries Act at Tuesday’s San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting. The proposal borrows an idea from New York’s mayor, but with a local flavor.
“It could be partnering with a food bank to take over one of these vacant lots,” Mahmoud said of his proposal. “Or it could be buying the property and giving it to a grocery, at lower market, which is what Mamdani is doing in New York.”
Inflation has pushed supermarket prices up by about 3% compared to last year.
Adding to the affordability issues are new rules implemented in April by the Trump administration for SNAP, which is called CalFresh in the Bay Area. Many are expected not to qualify under the new rules.
Meanwhile, a combination of factors have prompted some big name grocers to close their doors in San Francisco.
Safeway in the Fillmore neighborhood closed in February of last year. In November, the Lucky Supermarket in the Bayview neighborhood shuttered.
There are community activists who said the two closures have created a bit of a food desert in those neighborhoods.
Mahmoud’s proposal would address the two problems by incentivizing grocers and pharmacy operators to open new outlets in the city through streamlining the approval process. It would also penalize outlets that close stores by taxing operators that shutter them and still hand on to the leases, which keeps new operators from moving in.
The proposal would then use those funds to open city-backed grocery stores.
Mahmoud said he has modeled his proposal with local markets that also accept vouchers from EatSF in mind. The whole idea is to provide access to all residents — regardless of income — to healthy food in their neighborhoods.
Tanis Crosby, executive director of the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank, said food insecurity is worse now than during the pandemic.
“The reality is that here in the Bay Area, cost of living is really high,” Crosby said. “So it’s really important that we look towards what are the solutions we can take. Because it’s not about insufficient food that creates insecurity, it’s policy.”
If the proposal is passed by the Board of Supervisors, it would be put on November’s general election ballot.
Voters would have to approve the streamlining and tax idea, and the fund for city-backed grocers.
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