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  #381  
Old Posted Oct 23, 2008, 3:32 AM
WildCowboy WildCowboy is offline
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A host of Alexandria projects went in front of the Redevelopment Agency yesterday after having already been approved by the Planning Commission. Fortunately, the Redevelopment Agency is now providing PDFs of attachments, so we can see renderings and elevations for all of these projects...see the supporting materials for details on the projects and links to the attachments.

Included were 600 Terry Francois (Block 30), 650 Terry Francois (Block 32), 1450 Owens (Blocks 41-43, Parcel 7), and the Blocks 41-43, Parcel 6 parking garage.
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  #382  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2008, 10:33 PM
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CVRB update from the webcam. Steel stopped going up midday Thursday and hasn't resumed yet. It's moved out of the frame of the webcam, but the entire northern portion is topped out.

Not sure what the delay is now...perhaps they moved so fast that steel fabrication couldn't keep up. Perhaps there were scheduling issues related to the foundation work (now apparently done) that was going on on the southern portion of the site.

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  #383  
Old Posted Oct 28, 2008, 8:37 PM
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Is the steel for the southern portion already onsite? Or have they installed everything they have so far?
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  #384  
Old Posted Oct 28, 2008, 9:00 PM
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I don't believe the steel is anywhere onsite. They've been bringing it in daily and laying it down there on the blank dirt patch. As you can see, they've exhausted that supply.

Edit: I take back my previous comment I had in this space about the crane...I think I was just looking at the crane from an odd perspective.

Last edited by WildCowboy; Oct 29, 2008 at 2:14 AM.
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  #385  
Old Posted Oct 29, 2008, 6:06 PM
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More steel arrived this morning, although they haven't yet started putting it up.
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  #386  
Old Posted Oct 29, 2008, 6:44 PM
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That's good news.
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  #387  
Old Posted Oct 29, 2008, 6:47 PM
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  #388  
Old Posted Oct 30, 2008, 5:59 AM
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[QUOTE=peanut gallery;3881685]SocketSite has renderings of 330/335 Berry:


These are ghastly--beyond fugly!
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  #389  
Old Posted Oct 30, 2008, 7:07 AM
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[QUOTE=viewguysf;3882732]
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Originally Posted by peanut gallery View Post
SocketSite has renderings of 330/335 Berry:


These are ghastly--beyond fugly!
Having a really bad day?

Yeah, they aren't so pretty, but if the city offered me a bargain rate (below market) condo in one of 'em I'd take it.
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  #390  
Old Posted Oct 30, 2008, 7:22 PM
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Bonus midweek pic from the CVRB webcam to show that steel is going up again. And they've adjusted the camera a bit to better capture the top of the structure.

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  #391  
Old Posted Oct 30, 2008, 9:43 PM
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Alexandria's earnings conference call revealed a couple of tidbits today:

1. 1500 Owens is now fully-committed. As you may remember, it was announced several months ago that UCSF would be taking ~40% of the building for their Orthopedics Institute. During today's conference call, Alexandria mentioned that a "multi-billion dollar equity market cap biotech company" is taking the remainder of the space.

2. Alexandria had been in discussions with two institutions for build-to-suit projects in Mission Bay, but have put those off until next year because of a complete evaporation of construction financing.


No specific word about 1600 Owens, for which they are still casting piles. Based on general comments from the past two conference calls, I assume that this project will come to a halt once the piles are done and until the financing market improves and they get an anchor tenant locked in.
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  #392  
Old Posted Oct 30, 2008, 10:41 PM
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Thanks for the updates, Cowboy.

viewguy, They're pretty blah, but they are below market rate housing afterall. I didn't expect much.
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  #393  
Old Posted Oct 31, 2008, 3:31 AM
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[QUOTE=BTinSF;3882794]
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Originally Posted by viewguysf View Post

Having a really bad day? Not at all!

Yeah, they aren't so pretty, but if the city offered me a bargain rate (below market) condo in one of 'em I'd take it.
Yes, of course most people would, especially those who are not homeowners. BUT (see Peanut below)...
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  #394  
Old Posted Oct 31, 2008, 4:02 AM
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Thanks for the updates, Cowboy.

viewguy, They're pretty blah, but they are below market rate housing afterall. I didn't expect much.
I think that we should expect more and insist upon it. I'm all for BMR housing--we need a lot more of it in San Francisco--yet we shouldn't have to look at it in twenty years (or less) as an eyesore. Valencia Gardens in the Mission replaced a hideous housing project and it is quite well done. There are other examples here and elsewhere too.

I don't want to be overly judgmental from just looking at two renderings, but these do seem to be boring boxes that are not good enough for an exciting and prominent location in this city.
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  #395  
Old Posted Oct 31, 2008, 4:41 PM
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Another example is the very nice Salvation Army housing in the Tenderloin:


We can insist all we want, but the reality is that developers won't build unless it pencils out. That means housing that is going to sell below market rates isn't going to be built with the best architecture and finishes. Clearly it can be done in some cases, but I don't think it will ever be the norm.
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  #396  
Old Posted Nov 1, 2008, 9:37 PM
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Another example is the very nice Salvation Army housing in the Tenderloin. We can insist all we want, but the reality is that developers won't build unless it pencils out. That means housing that is going to sell below market rates isn't going to be built with the best architecture and finishes. Clearly it can be done in some cases, but I don't think it will ever be the norm.
Yes, PG, this is a wonderful example. As BT and others have also pointed out numerous times, the Tenderloin has seen many nice improvements in the last four years or so.
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  #397  
Old Posted Nov 2, 2008, 3:52 AM
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couldn't they have hired some architecture students just to mix up those facades a little?
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  #398  
Old Posted Nov 10, 2008, 5:40 PM
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Another Monday morning image from UCSF's CVRB webcam. In the lower left, you can see that they've poured the base for the block of Fourth Street that borders the building.

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  #399  
Old Posted Nov 10, 2008, 11:18 PM
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It's moving along quickly. Gotta love steel.
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  #400  
Old Posted Nov 14, 2008, 1:31 PM
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Quote:
Friday, November 14, 2008
Alexandria Real Estate postpones two bio buildings
Mission Bay developer had tenants ready to go, CEO says
San Francisco Business Times - by J.K. Dineen

Alexandria Real Estate Equities will delay starting construction on two buildings at its Mission Bay biotech campus, despite having tenants willing to lease at least 200,000 square feet, company Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Joel Marcus told analysts during an earnings call.

Marcus said Nov. 3 that Alexandria has “deferred two future build-to-suits for credit institutional tenants” in Mission Bay due to the seizure in the credit markets and economic downturn.

“We could be teaming up on two new construction starts in Mission Bay for something in the range of 200,000 to 300,000 (square) feet and have no leasing challenges other than the negotiations of the lease, but we are simply not doing that,” Marcus said. “We don’t think it’s prudent, and clearly the capital markets are such that that would not be a smart move.”

The statements show not only the strength of tenant demand at the burgeoning Mission Bay life science cluster, but also reflect the reality that the national credit crisis has seeped into every sector of commercial real estate development, including biotech.

Marcus would not name the companies looking to pre-lease space on the campus in the third quarter earnings call, a transcript of which was posted on financial information site Seeking Alpha. He referred to the prospective tenants as “credit institutional tenants that need to be at Mission Bay.”

“One actually needs to be there for a variety of obvious reasons to them and to the nature of the institution. The other has a major collaboration with (University of California, San Francisco) and has a strong desire to be there,” he said in the call.

Marcus said the two firms “were flexible in their need, but would have liked us to pull the trigger.” He said the deals would be revisited next year, although he said Alexandria is “assuming this is a prolonged downturn.”

“We are going to be very cautious about making any new commitments,” said Marcus.

Alexandria declined to elaborate on Marcus’ remarks to analysts, or to specify the buildings involved.

The decision comes as major new commercial construction starts have sputtered to a halt across the United States. In San Francisco, Beacon Capital Partners recently abruptly pulled the plug on a 27-story tower it had started to build at 535 Mission St. Nearby on Rincon Hill, Urban West Associates recently said it would delay construction on phase two of its high-profile One Rincon Hill condo development at the foot of the Bay Bridge. Around the city a half dozen other highly-touted condo towers are on hold.

Despite the overall economic downturn, Alexandria’s Mission Bay biotech cluster has been resilient. It landed a 105,000-square-foot deal for Pfizer’s new Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center at 455 Mission Bay Blvd. South, one of the largest and most significant new leases in San Francisco this year. It also snagged UCSF’s new Orthopedics Institute for its speculative 1500 Owens St. Both those buildings are under construction.

The first spec lab building Alexandria built in Mission Bay, 1700 Owens St., is 100 percent occupied. Overall, San Francisco’s 1.1 million-square-foot lab market is 100 percent occupied, according to a new Bay Area life science report by Cornish & Carey.

With the early success at Mission Bay, Alexandria has spent the past two years rapidly entitling seven more life science buildings totalling 1.5 million square feet. Still, Marcus said on the earnings call that it may be hard to finance new construction even for developers with tenants lined up. He said one “top-tier lender” said they were not currently funding “three or four major construction projects, all fully leased to credit tenants.” He said based on “anecdotal evidence from our discussions with a variety of construction lenders, very little, if anything, is moving through the current pipeline.”

Rich Robbins, president of Wareham Development, which has developed 2 million square feet of biotech space in the East Bay, said biotech companies are facing the same capital issues as every other company: “It’s tough out there, no question.”

But he said Wareham’s properties are 90 percent leased and the company doesn’t plan on slowing down new construction. The developer plans to break ground early next year on 80,000 square feet in Emeryville, across from Emeryville Station, as well as on another 100,000 square feet in Berkeley.

“We have always felt very certain about needing to build 250,000 square feet of pure lab every two to three years,” Robbins said. “That has been our template, and we’re holding to it.”

Building highly specialized new lab space in an expensive market like San Francisco is a difficult undertaking at a time when “nobody knows what credit means,” said Robert Schwartz, a senior vice president with brokerage firm Colliers International.

“Alexandria is a good company and it knows biotech as well as anyone,” said Schwartz. “They are a good barometer to what is happening in the industry.”

jkdineen@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4971
Source: http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/...17/story1.html
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