This Week's Bay Area Deal Sheet

The Metreon in downtown’s Yerba Buena neighborhood has hit the market, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

JLL has been tapped to sell the leasehold interest of the 313K SF shopping center as the exclusive adviser to the landlord, private equity investor Starwood Capital Group.

The four-story shopping center at 135 Fourth St. is nearly 92% leased, with Target and an AMC movie theater as its anchors.

“Metreon represents a generational opportunity to acquire an iconic urban retail asset with immediate and long-term opportunities to add value and to shape the future of downtown San Francisco,” according to the listing.

Starwood purchased the retail and entertainment complex in 2012 as part of a $1.2B transaction involving eight shopping centers once owned by the Westfield Group, which also owned the city’s infamous Westfield San Francisco Centre in Union Square.

Sony developed The Metreon as a corporate theme park for $115M in 1999. At the time, the complex had PlayStation and Microsoft stores, a large children’s play area and a 15-screen Sony Imax theater. 

SALES

A San Francisco building in Showplace Square has traded for $13M less than its asking price. 

Tokyo-based Toda sold a 208K SF office building at 600 Townsend St. for $62M, roughly $300 per SF, The Real Deal reported.

Dallas-based Lincoln Property purchased the asset. JLL’s Rob Hielscher, Erik Hanson and Adam Lasoff were the listing agents. 

Constructed in 1989, the property is 92% occupied, according to TRD. Tech companies PagerDuty and SS&C are among the occupants of the building, which has been refurbished with a solar-power overhaul, a new lobby and an outdoor patio.

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Boston-based private equity investor Bain Capital listed a 127K SF asset at 352 Shaw Road in South San Francisco for an undisclosed price, the San Francisco Business Times reported. JLL has the listing.

Redco Development partnered with Bain to purchase the property in February 2021 in a sale-leaseback with production and design firm Blueprint Studios for $39M, or $307 per SF. Redco told the SFBT it is no longer involved in the property.

LEASES

One of San Francisco’s newest neighborhoods on the waterfront has become a magnet for local professional sports teams. 

For starters, the San Francisco Giants and Tishman Speyer jointly own a sprawling 634K SF property under development in Mission Rock.

And the Golden State Warriors just inked a 50K SF lease on two floors of the project’s Building B, a 295K SF office and lab-ready building, the SFBT reported.  

FINANCINGS

Capital One provided $90.5M in financing to the East Bay Asian Local Development Corp. to develop a 97-unit transit-oriented affordable housing project near the Lake Merritt BART station in Oakland. The project, known as Chinatown TOD, will be for residents 55 and older. 

Financing included a $41.2M low-income housing tax credit equity investment and a $49.3M construction loan. Enterprise Community Partners was the LIHTC syndicator.

EBALDC held a groundbreaking for the new asset on Thursday. Once completed, the vacant site at East 12th Street and First Avenue will offer 91 rentals for low-income residents, including 23 units for people who previously didn't have housing. 

PERSONNEL

Mary Hines and Jennifer Vergara have joined CBRE as vice chairs of its life sciences practice in the Bay Area. The tenant and landlord reps came over from Newmark.

Combined, the pair has completed more than 12M SF of life sciences transactions over the past 45 years.

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Colliers has appointed Christian Prelle as executive vice president and head of office agency for the San Francisco Bay Area. Prelle will be responsible for expanding Colliers’ office agency practice and lead strategic initiatives for the firm from its Redwood City office. 

Formerly with Newmark, Prelle has completed more than 420 transactions totaling more than $3.5B during his career, primarily as a landlord rep.