San Francisco, CA
San Francisco Bay’s only private island is on sale for $25 million — but there’s a catch
- San Francisco Bay’s only private island is on the market for $25 million
- Red Rock Island lacks basic infrastructure like power and running water.
- Owner Brock Durning wants to sell the island as he hasn’t visited in several years.
San Francisco Bay’s only private island is on the market for $25 million — but there’s no electricity or running water, reported The Wall Street Journal.
Red Rock Island is six acres in size and only accessible by boat or helicopter, the island’s listing agent Chris Lim told WSJ.
Photos of the island show a mound with reddish soil dotted with foliage and surrounded by water. The island is a mile from the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, located on Interstate 580 between Contra Costa and Marin counties.
“This is about collectible real estate,” Lim, president of Christie’s International Real Estate, said.
The island lacks any infrastructure — there’s no power, running water, or shelter, Lim told WSJ, noting that desalination, solar panels, and satellites can be put in.
Brock Durning, the current owner, inherited the island from his father, who purchased it from his business partner for less than $50,000 at the time, Durning said.
Durning’s father had previously planned to convert the island into a 20-story hotel, casino, and yacht harbor in the 1960s, the San Francisco Chronicle reported in November 2014. But the plan never materialized following a public outcry, per the report.
Durning told WSJ he’s putting the island on sale as he lives in Alaska and hasn’t visited in several years.
“There’s no reason to hold on to it,” Durning said.
The island has been put up for sale several times in recent years for between $5 million and $22 million, Durning told WSJ. In September 2015, the island’s asking price was halved from $10 million to $5 million, before being raised to $25 million this month.
Several other private islands have been put up for sale in recent months. In September, a private island in Solano County, California was put on the market for $75 million. And in August, a private island in Maine with a cottage and lighthouse was listed for $400,000.
Lim did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside office hours.
San Francisco, CA
San Francisco Fed president Mary Daly: We want to finish the inflation fight
Listen and subscribe to Opening Bid on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
The market is spooked by an inflation-concerned Fed not smashing the pedal down to slash rates and appease bullish investors.
The vibe is not lost on San Francisco Fed president Mary Daly, seen often as a policy dove who’s a voting member on the FOMC this year.
“Well, it was a close call, frankly, and it took a lot of deliberation as it often does with myself and my team, and then also with the FOMC participants. Ultimately, I decided that it was appropriate to reduce [interest rates] 25 basis points — that will be 100 basis points of recalibration. And I see that as right-sizing the policy rate level to the economy,” Daly said on Yahoo Finance’s Opening Bid podcast (video above).
Added Daly, “So I see the recalibration period now as completed. We now are back to the time we can make our decisions more slowly. Data-dependent, using the data to affect the incoming forecast and, you know, determine how many rate cuts we’ll ultimately do next year. We’ll have to be agile and data-dependent.”
On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve reduced interest rates by 25 basis points to a range of 4.25% to 4.5%. It marked the Fed’s third straight rate cut of 2024, which began with a blast — a 50 basis point reduction on Sept. 18.
Daly voted for the reduction in interest rates. The lone dissenting vote — a rarity under the Jerome Powell-led Federal Reserve — was newly appointed Cleveland Fed president Beth Hammack.
Hammack preferred not to cut interest rates.
“I mean, we might get really positive inflation news and we’ll react to that if we do. But I do think that we want to make sure we finish the job,” said Daly, who noted getting inflation to 2% helps build trust and credibility for the Fed.
“So we are resolute to get that job done and that will mean restricted policy through the year [in 2025] in all likelihood.”
But what spooked a market that has been bidding up Big Tech stocks such as Apple (AAPL) and Meta (META) with reckless abandon in December was the Fed not committing to aggressive rate cutting in 2025.
The consensus among Fed officials is now for two rate cuts next year, down from the four forecast in September. The outlook for inflation is further clouded by potential moves by the incoming Trump administration, such as possible tariffs on China.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average promptly finished Wednesday’s session down more than 1,100 points. Stocks stabilized Thursday and Friday, with the latter supported by a slower increase than expected on the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index.
San Francisco, CA
San Francisco Mission Bay coffee shop deals with break-ins as it seeks to open
A coffee shop in San Francisco’s Mission Bay hasn’t even opened yet, but has dealt with at least two break-ins over a 24-hour span.
The owners though say it’s not going to deter them from opening their business and hopes their plan will help drive some of the crime away.
Owners of Silicon Valley Coffee got a taste of how businesses are struggling with crime in San Francisco. On Sunday, Matt Baker and Vance Bjorn came in to work on their new store but ended up finding two people on their property with needles scattered everywhere.
The owners called police, officers talked to the suspects, but didn’t make any arrests.
“Little disappointed, little shaken up,” Baker told CBS News Bay Area. “We went home and came back the next morning just to find that we were robbed and everything we had back there was gone. Including our, ironically enough, our brand new security system.”
The incident might have scared off other business owners but not these two.
“We want to work with the community, with the local representation and work with them to find solutions so that other businesses don’t have to go through this,” he said. “We’re putting a lot on the line out here to redo this space and that was a big setback for us.”
When Baker and Bjorn say they’re putting a lot on the line, they mean it. They are pouring in their money to open up this location on 4th Street, knowing that they will have to close when developers decide to break ground on a towering complex with about a thousand rental units. This maybe a temporary site for Silicon Valley Coffee but it’s a project the owners couldn’t say no to.
“This is an incredible opportunity,” said Baker. “It’s not every day an entire coffee shop, a restaurant, a giant patio in a prime location just lands in your feet and they ask you, can you help to make it better.”
So not only are they committed to seeing their business grow, they’re hoping their business will revitalize the area.
“We really think that the best way to solve these issues is by making this corner vibrant again,” Bjorn said to CBS News Bay Area.
The old site of the Creamery is not the only part getting a facelift. These signs of stores closing will come down, the area will be cleaned up and lights will be put up to make this corner of 4th and Townsend more inviting. Baker and Bjorn are determined to make a difference, one cup at a time.
“Coffee is about community,” said Bjorn. “Historically coffee shops have brought people together and this neighborhood needs to be brought together.”
San Francisco, CA
San Francisco coffee shop broken into before opening doors
A new coffee show in San Francisco has yet to open its doors, but it is already dealing with crime concerns.
The owners of Silicon Valley Company said someone broke into the property twice in a matter of days.
“The property has been neglected for the last five years, so we knew we were going to have challenges renovating it,” said Matt Baker, co-founder of Silicon Valley Coffee. “On Sunday, we got here and realized that our back gate had been smashed open and that there were people possibly on-site in one of the back condos.’
Baker and co-founder Vance Bjorn said they knew they would take on a big project revitalizing the space but didn’t expect the business to be broken into twice.
Christie Smith has the full report in the video above.
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