In the next few years up to 6,000 new San Franciscan’s will move to an old part of San Francisco in new condominiums ranging from half a million - $2,000,000 and rental apartments upwards of $3,000 a month.
What neighborhood is this? Not a neighborhood, but one of the world's truly great thoroughfares, San Francisco’s own phoenix, Market Street.
Looking at a map of all the new condominium buildings just built or being built at sfcondomap.com, a leading website for all the information on the new condominium buildings in San Francisco, you notice a straight line of buildings streaming from where South Beach and SOMA meet Market Street not far from San Francisco Bay heading west towards Twin Peaks.
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(click to see map at sfcondomap.com)
Mission Bay and South Beach are not the only new exciting areas of San Francisco. Market Street shows us that even the old can be the "new" new.
New life for Market Street began in 1989 with the Loma Prieta earthquake and the removal of the double decker Central Freeway that cutoff the Ferry Building and the Embarcadero from Market Street. With it down and the Ferry Building revitalized into a world class destination, Market Street has since begun to flourish again.
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(Ferry Building with Canary Island Palms in the front and San Francisco Bay behind)
2005 saw the completion of since critically acclaimed Octavia Boulevard about two miles west, the first multilane boulevard built in the United States since the 1950's.
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(Octavia Boulevard)
The only thing missing in this new landscape are the new condominium buildings that will soon take their place up and down Market Street between The Ferry Building and Octavia Boulevard. From architecturally significant historical landmarks to modern sleek glass towers, Market Street will again become a living oasis in the middle of San Francisco itself.
Today, mint conditioned historic trains of old-Europe and the US carry residents and visitors up and down Market Street under newly planted Canary Island Palm trees between Twin Peaks and San Francisco Bay.
(1939 Italian Trolley in mint condition both outside and in)
In 2006 Mid-Market property and business owners voted on and enacted a Community Benefit District covering Market Street from 5th – 9th Streets. This is a well organized and well funded effort by the private business and property owners to work with the city to provide both security and services to the area in a proactive community outreach basis. The group is being headed by the capable Daniel Hurtado, who previously saw success while the Director of Programming for Washington D.C.’s successful Golden Triangle Business Improvement District.
This Spring (2008), work is scheduled to start on one of the most beautiful art-deco buildings in San Francisco. The San Francisco Mart is going to be converted from an furniture/design-only fortress to an open air retail and office campus named Market Square with approximately 100,000-200,000 sqft of retail space and 700,000-800,000 sqft of office space.
The building on Market Street between 9th and 10th Streets will include restaurants, shops "with a translucent glass dome, creating an enclosed public courtyard and garden" (J.K. Dineen SF Business Times 06.25.07). This will provide the neighborhood with a world class shopping destination in one of the most beautiful buildings on the West Coast and should be complete in 2009.
(San Francisco Mart, soon to be Market Square)
Market Square will provide a key anchor to the Westfield Shopping Center at Market and 5th Streets where shoppers have Bloomingdales, Coach, Hugo Boss, Nordstroms and many others to choose from.
Already two of the world’s most exclusive luxury brands, the Ritz Carlton and the St. Regis, have sold residences on or near Market Street in excess of $1,200 a square foot.
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(St. Regis at Mission and 3rd)
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(Ritz Carlton)
Locally renowned specialty builders such as the Martin Building Company have also found success in the Market Street corridor with their well selling Mint Collection residences occupying 3 historic buildings on Jessie ½ block south of Market St. at 5th. Here, polished cement floored units sold for over $1,000 sqft.
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(Martin Building Company’s Mint Warehouse near Market and 5th Street)
Within a block of the Mint Collection, both 942 Market, The Garfield Building, and The Wilson Building nearby, are being converted into condominiums. Built in 1907 and 1901 respectively, these historic landmark buildings will house residences that will represent the best of new construction with the old world finishes. The Garfield will start selling its 28 condominiums in February of 2008.
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(The Garfield at Market and Mason)
At 1177 Market Street (between 7th and 8th), Trinity Properties has just broken ground on their first building at the site which will soon house 1,900 apartments and thousands more people.
A new construction project, The Hayes will bring 128 modern units to the Gough/Market local in a mid-rise building just a few blocks down, while Argenta and two other new buildings will bring almost 1,000 new units with perhaps over 2,000 people to the area where Market meets Polk, Fell and 10th to Mission Street in tall glass towers.
In the roughly 2 mile stretch from the Ferry Building to Octavia Boulevard, approximately 5,000 new residents will soon be living, shopping, walking dogs, waiting for trains and all the other things that people do where they live.
And of course cafes, shops and other businesses will follow as well.
In our analysis, there is definitely a market for housing on Market Street. In fact, there are several distinct markets that seem to have success.
The high end luxury market as evidenced by the St. Regis and the Ritz where name recognition and luxury finishes were key. At the Martin Building Company’s Mint Collection, smaller unique boutique-like finishes were important to buyers.
Success is also evident in the lower to middle income ranges as evidenced at The Hayes (a mid-priced development) where sales have been steady.
We expect that more projects will be undertaken as current ones come to market and sell out. There are numerous projects that could potentially do well along Market Street including both conversion of old buildings and brand new construction.
The current new building list:
| Millennium Tower |
419 condos |
| The Montgomery |
107 condos |
| St. Regis |
102 residences |
| Ritz Carlton |
101 residences |
| Soma Grand |
246 condos |
| Mint Collection |
77 condos |
| The Garfield |
30 condos |
| 973 Market Street |
67 condos |
| Argenta |
250 condos |
| 10th/Market |
700 condos |
| 1415 Mission |
156 condos |
| King Diner |
135 apartments |
| The Hayes |
128 condos |
| 1177 Market |
1,900 apartments |
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