San Francisco, CA

S.F. office tower that was sold at a steep discount lands first new tenant

Published

2 years ago

January 9, 2024

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.

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Some 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

Thousands in one San Francisco neighborhood heading into another day without power

Published

6 hours ago

December 23, 2025

Press Room

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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San Francisco, CA

San Francisco blackout: What we know

Published

18 hours ago

December 22, 2025

Press Room

A fire at a Pacific Gas & Electric substation in SoMa knocked out power to as many as 130,000 customers starting Saturday, leaving thousands in the dark heading into the holiday season and a week of intense storms. Here’s what we know about the outage and state of restoration.

What happened?

The fire began shortly before 1:10 p.m. Saturday at PG&E’s Mission substation at Eighth and Mission streets, initially affecting 40,000 customers. As firefighters worked to suppress the blaze, crews de-energized additional portions of the electric system for safety, causing outages to peak at approximately 130,000 customers.

The fire damaged critical equipment, including a circuit breaker — a safety switch designed to de-energize the system when problems are detected. Firefighters faced unusual complexities suppressing the fire in the multilevel building, including ventilating carbon monoxide before crews could safely enter.

When did power come back?

Firefighters made the building safe for PG&E crews to enter by 6:15 p.m. Saturday. Restoration efforts began immediately. Nearly 32,000 customers were reconnected by 8:45 p.m. Saturday, and about 100,000 — roughly 75% of those affected — were up by 9:30 p.m.

By noon Sunday, 90% of affected customers had power restored. PG&E initially projected full restoration by 2 p.m. Monday; however, a spokesperson said the utility was extending restoration times (opens in new tab) for the remaining 4,400 customers without power. No time frame has been announced.

A PG&E map Monday afternoon shows lingering outages in the Civic Center and SoMa neighborhoods, as well as scattered pockets in the Outer Sunset and Marina District. | Courtesy PG&E

What sparked the fire?

PG&E says it doesn’t know. COO Sumeet Singh said Monday that the extensive equipment damage makes it difficult to determine a root cause. The utility has hired Exponent, a Bay Area-based engineering firm, to conduct an independent investigation.

“We will determine what occurred to ensure it never happens again,” Singh said at a press conference outside the damaged substation.

Was the equipment properly maintained?

PG&E completed preventative maintenance at the Mission substation in October and conducted its most recent bimonthly inspection Dec. 5. Singh said neither inspection identified any problems.

A man wearing a PG&E hard hat and safety vest speaks at a microphone stand with various news outlet logos, while others in safety gear stand behind him. — PG&E COO Sumeet Singh offers an apology Monday outside the damaged substation at Eighth and Mission streets. | Source: George Kelly/The Standard

Why were the estimated restoration times wrong?

Many customers were irate as they were repeatedly given estimated restoration times that came and went. Singh acknowledged the failure and said PG&E’s estimation systems typically perform well, with more than 91% accuracy systemwide.

“It obviously did not work effectively in the circumstance over this weekend,” Singh said. “We are committed to understanding exactly what happened, why it happened, and owning the fixes.”

Were other substations damaged?

Residents have observed a large presence of workers at a substation at 24th Avenue and Balboa Street since Sunday, but the utility has not shared details on what is being done there.

Six hulking diesel generators, which one worker said cost $600,000 to operate daily, were parked outside the substation Monday afternoon. The generators are needed to feed power to the grid while both substations are not fully operational. Crews said they are expected to run for at least two to three days.

Two workers said the substation is undamaged and still online, but its output is diminished because it is fed power by the much larger substation at Eighth and Mission.

However, another said one of the substation’s transformers blew out after a power surge following the fire, and the generators are needed to compensate while workers “update the system” of the west-side substation.

How will customers be compensated?

PG&E plans to offer an expedited claims process for affected customers to seek compensation for losses, including spoiled food, lost business revenue, and hotel costs. Singh said details will be available soon on the utility’s website and through customer service.

He declined to specify compensation limits or provide immediate financial relief, saying customers would need to file claims that PG&E would process quickly. The utility opened a community resource center in the Richmond and partnered with 211 to provide hotel accommodations and food vouchers for vulnerable customers.

Could this happen again?

Singh said PG&E has identified no vulnerabilities at other substations and has made significant upgrades systemwide. Two strong storms forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday (opens in new tab) could bring 4 to 10 inches of rain to Northern California; he said more than 5,500 PG&E workers and contractors are positioned to respond.

The outage occurred 22 years to the day (opens in new tab) after a mass blackout at the same substation in 2003, raising questions about aging infrastructure that Singh did not directly address.

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San Francisco, CA

Fortune Tech: The sheer scale | Fortune

Published

1 day ago

December 22, 2025

Press Room

Good morning. Extremely lean and mean (well, merry, really) for the rest of this week as we head into our annual winter break.

We’ll hang things up for the year on Dec. 24 and pick things back up on Jan. 5.

Happy holidays. (Yippee-Ki-Yay.) —AN

Want to send thoughts or suggestions to Fortune Tech? Drop a line here.

What happened when Waymo robotaxis met a San Francisco blackout

A Waymo robotaxi unable to detect traffic lights after a major power outage in San Francisco, California on December 20, 2025.

Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu/Getty Images

An extraordinary experiment happened over the weekend in San Francisco.

What would a fleet of autonomous vehicles do when a widespread power outage knocked out traffic lights across one-third of the city?

We quickly found out—and the results were plastered all over social media.

On Saturday afternoon, Waymo vehicles throughout SF opted to stop where they were or pull over and throw on their hazard lights—“blocking intersections” and “compounding gridlock,” observed the San Francisco Standard—leading the Alphabet-owned robotaxi operator to suspend service throughout the city. (It resumed Sunday evening.)

In a statement, Waymo said that its vehicles are “designed to treat non-functional signals as four-way stops” but “the sheer scale of the outage led to instances where vehicles remained stationary longer than usual.”

As locals worked through the outage, a moderate debate about the robotaxi fleet continued online. Was it so wrong to expect Waymo’s vehicles to play it safe when infrastructure stopped working? After all, aren’t human drivers predictably chaotic when things go sideways? What exactly should robotaxis optimize for: traffic flow or citizen safety?

And: Just how safe is stopping if you prompt traffic to go around you?

Waymo resumed service Sunday evening, no doubt grappling with these questions (and what city officials might have to say about them). “We are already learning and improving from this event,” it said. —AN

More tech

—Pirates scrape Spotify. Activists Anna’s Archive release hundreds of terabytes of music and metadata via torrent files.

—Shield AI: Sitting at a global inflection point for fully autonomous warfighting.

—SoftBank cashes out to back OpenAI. The Japanese conglomerate is looking under every rock to fulfill its “all in” OpenAI funding promise.

—Chaos at CISA. A failed, unsanctioned polygraph by its acting director has the U.S. cybersecurity agency in disarray.

—PE firms acquire Clearwater Analytics for $8.4 billion. Permira and Warburg Pincus lead the investor group seeking to buy the fintech firm.

—Uber goes to London. A robotaxi trial in partnership with Baidu will begin in the first half of next year.

—Data center deals reach $61 billion worldwide in 2025, according to S&P Global.

—Chatbots’ uncanny valley. Making AI agents more human-like creates cognitive dissonance and trust issues, researchers say.

—Daylight between David Sacks and tech lobbyists. Tech reps say the AI czar’s push to use Trump’s executive order to suppress state AI regulation is the right idea, wrong execution.

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