Built in 1912, the 15,000-square-foot Our Lady of Guadalupe Church at 906 Broadway was designated San Francisco Landmark #204 back in 1993.

The Archdiocese of San Francisco sold the church along with the adjacent 4,700-square-foot residential building, uphill at 908 Broadway, to an investor for $2.3 million in 2013.

And in 2016, Startup Temple Holdings, backed by a Russian tech entrepreneur turned Silicon Valley venture capitalist, purchased the buildings for $7.0 million and opened Hack Temple (“Hackt”), an event venue for “international thought leaders” and a “gospel of innovation” within the existing space.

Plans to formally covert the church into an educational facility, “for international technology startup founders and teams entering US market and aiming to raise capital in Silicon Valley,” were drawn.

The aforementioned Landmark designation was subsequently amended by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors to include a whole host of the church’s interior features and further limit any alterations.

And the church, which is zoned for residential use, is now back on the market with a $7.5 million price tag, a price tag which doesn’t include the residential building at 908 Broadway which is also on the market and is being offered together or separately with an additional $5.5 million ask.

10 thoughts on “Landmark “Hacker” Church Back on the Market for $7.5M”
  1. I loved this little jewel box of a church. it was the original church of the Hispanic population of San Francisco. Back in the day, North Beach was the Latin Quarter. There was a plaster Pieta in one of the chapels that had prayer written in Spanish on little scraps of paper tucked under the base.

      1. Nope. The Latin Quarter developed in North Beach. Hispanic migrants to San Francisco after the Gold Rush lived in North Beach. Why do you think they named this church after the patron saint of Mexico. The Italians came later. When my g-g-g-grandfather emigrated to San Francisco from Sinaloa, Mexico in 1857 and he lived on Greenwich Street at the foot of Telegraph Hill.

          1. Mission Dolores is the original church of the indigenous people. Ever seen a picture of it in the mid 19th Century? It was surrounded by farm fields. The village of Yerba Buena was centered around Portsmouth Square. Grant Avenue, or “Calle de la Fundacion” as it was known back then is the oldest street in San Francisco.

  2. “Hackt?” I am looking forward to the demise of this Silicon Valley bollsheet kultur. It’s profane, hideous and chock full of philistinism. I miss San Francisco.

  3. With the additional constraints imposed by the amended landmark designation the current seller isn’t going to get $7.5 million. While that amount would be cheaper that that other residential converted church at 601 Dolores (which ended up being pretty profane and so presumably comparable to what will ultimately happen here if the buyer makes this into a residence) , the “dumb money” has already departed the marketplace.

    The 2016 seller is sitting somewhere comfortably now, chuckling. I hope the “Startup Temple”-s financial backers have pockets deep enough to sustain substantial holding cost-related losses while this languishes on the market.

  4. The Diocese sold a residential building and massive church in North Beach for $115 a square foot in 2013?

    Sounds like someone’s friend or relative got a backroom deal on that one.

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