How Far SoMa's Come
TMG Partners' Matt Field (snapped at our Creative Office Summit) is a sixth-generation San Franciscan, and when he was a kid, his parents didn't allow him to walk around SoMa. Now, Matt's about to deliver 680 Folsom in that very area (talk about rebelling). When TMG acquired the property, built in 1964, it was the "antipathy" of a good workspace, with coffee stains on the floor, low ceilings, and $7M of asbestos remediation needed. The redeeming quality was its "good bones" and big floor plates. He envisioned 680 as a Silicon Valley-type building he could bring to the city, since it's hard to get an open-plan workspace in San Francisco. The site is expanding from 375k to 525k SF, with 35k SF floor plates. Macys.com will begin moving in this spring.
DTZ compiled this crowded map to show just how many tech tenants want a Mid-Market/SoMa location. Matt, whose 680 Folsom site is about 85% leased, says the owners of other properties in the neighborhood aren't "fly-by-night" developers; they are big, institutional owners, like REITs and private families. He counts Nordstrom and St. Regis as early pioneers that planted flags in what was once a "no man's land." If someone told Matt that Market Street between 5th and Van Ness would be cleaned up, he would have predicted that it'd take 20 years. In just two to four years, he says, it will be a completely different place.
