SF could be in for a big 'doom loop'

[sav858]

Australian developer Lendlease pauses $1.2 bln San Francisco project

Australian developer Lendlease Group (LLC.AX) has paused work on an A$1.9 billion ($1.23 billion) office and apartment complex in San Francisco in the troubled West Coast real estate market, it said on Monday, after reporting a drop in annual core profit.

California's commercial real estate market is one of the hardest hit globally as home working culls demand for office space just as rising rates crunch property values and lift debt servicing costs.

[john3232]

Ouch!

[bus man]

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.2913...8192?entry=ttu

The Streetview link above shows the corner of Howard St. and Lexington St. in downtown Baltimore, Maryland. Those four big buildings on the corners used to be department stores. This was once the thriving retail hub of the entire Baltimore region. But those buildings have been empty and abandoned for several decades now. No one wants them. No one knows what to do with them. So they just sit there, empty and abandoned, rotting away.

I can't help but think of this when I think of San Francisco. I used to visit the city fairly regularly, the last time being in 2008. I always knew it as a thriving city, filled with people, stores, restaurants, and so on. But now I keep reading about this store leaving and that store leaving, and if this keeps up, soon all the storefronts will be nothing but boarded up shells. And years later, the occasional straggler will happen by, and wonder what happened, and struggle to imagine the abandoned dead zone as once being full of life. Just like one does when they take a wrong turn and wander past Howard & Lexington.

EDIT: part of the building on the near left has been repurposed as apartments. So it's not entirely an empty shell. Just mostly so.

[UniversalTraveler]

I would characterize SF today as an open sewer.....literally. I prefer to remember it back in the 80's when I lived on the peninsula and commuted there for work for my 1st year there. It had character and a nice vibe. Now..........no vibe. Just going down the drain at an alarming rate.

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by bus man

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.2913...8192?entry=ttu

The Streetview link above shows the corner of Howard St. and Lexington St. in downtown Baltimore, Maryland. Those four big buildings on the corners used to be department stores. This was once the thriving retail hub of the entire Baltimore region. But those buildings have been empty and abandoned for several decades now. No one wants them. No one knows what to do with them. So they just sit there, empty and abandoned, rotting away.

I can't help but think of this when I think of San Francisco. I used to visit the city fairly regularly, the last time being in 2008. I always knew it as a thriving city, filled with people, stores, restaurants, and so on. But now I keep reading about this store leaving and that store leaving, and if this keeps up, soon all the storefronts will be nothing but boarded up shells. And years later, the occasional straggler will happen by, and wonder what happened, and struggle to imagine the abandoned dead zone as once being full of life. Just like one does when they take a wrong turn and wander past Howard & Lexington.

EDIT: part of the building on the near left has been repurposed as apartments. So it's not entirely an empty shell. Just mostly so.

San Francisco ain’t Baltimore -
in so so many ways …

[tikkasf]

Originally Posted by UniversalTraveler

I would characterize SF today as an open sewer.....literally. I prefer to remember it back in the 80's when I lived on the peninsula and commuted there for work for my 1st year there. It had character and a nice vibe. Now..........no vibe. Just going down the drain at an alarming rate.

I think some areas of SF would fit that description.....but, I would disagree that every neighborhood in SF fits that description ...... those neighborhoods are the ones I spend time in......and live in one.
Regarding your comment about the SF not having the same "vibe" when you worked there in the 1980s. I think you may have a point. I did not live or work in SF until starting in mid 1989. But, I often came to SF in the 1980s on weekends from where I was living in the East Bay. I would often work overtime at my job....not to have extra money to save.....but, to have extra money to spend in SF at restaurants, cafe's, night clubs, comedy clubs, specialty shops. There used to be a comedy club in the Cole Valley area of SF, called the Other Cafe. I was a regular there back then and even dated a waitress working there. If I called ahead and told them I was coming that night, they would always have a place reserved for me to set. I would just park my motorcycle along the outside of the cafe bldg wall.

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by tikkasf

I think some areas of SF would fit that description.....but, I would disagree that every neighborhood in SF fits that description ...... those neighborhoods are the ones I spend time in......and live in one.
Regarding your comment about the SF not having the same "vibe" when you worked there in the 1980s. I think you may have a point. I did not live or work in SF until starting in mid 1989. But, I often came to SF in the 1980s on weekends from where I was living in the East Bay. I would often work overtime at my job....not to have extra money to save.....but, to have extra money to spend in SF at restaurants, cafe's, night clubs, comedy clubs, specialty shops. There used to be a comedy club in the Cole Valley area of SF, called the Other Cafe. I was a regular there back then and even dated a waitress working there. If I called ahead and told them I was coming that night, they would always have a place reserved for me to set. I would just park my motorcycle along the outside of the cafe bldg wall.

Aha! You like comedy then?
No wonder you enjoy this forum …

[tikkasf]

Originally Posted by Tulemutt

Aha! You like comedy then?
No wonder you enjoy this forum …

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/artic...0s-3252850.php

[mattja]

Originally Posted by sav858

Australian developer Lendlease pauses $1.2 bln San Francisco project

Australian developer Lendlease Group (LLC.AX) has paused work on an A$1.9 billion ($1.23 billion) office and apartment complex in San Francisco in the troubled West Coast real estate market, it said on Monday, after reporting a drop in annual core profit.

California's commercial real estate market is one of the hardest hit globally as home working culls demand for office space just as rising rates crunch property values and lift debt servicing costs.

Hayes Point is located where the old Walgreens used to be.

I find that ironic.

[tikkasf]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/15/busin...sco/index.html




I think the the deteriorating situation downtown is a major factor.......but, I also wonder if what they sell, sells that well any more?