On the heels of advertised incentives, five listings for condos at Arterra have been added to the MLS (#303, #411, #446, #521 and #1113). And we can’t help but notice that while unit #303 was originally listed for $539,000 in December, it was relisted yesterday for $509,000 (an apparent drop of 5.6%).
∙ Listing: 300 Berry #303 (1/1) – $509,000
∙ Listing: 300 Berry #411 (2/1) – $713,000
∙ Listing: 300 Berry #446 (2/2) – $825,000
∙ Listing: 300 Berry #521 (1/1) – $599,000
∙ Listing: 300 Berry #1113 (2/1) – $799,000
∙ Incentives (And Insight?) At Arterra (300 Berry) [SocketSite]
∙ Arterra (300 Berry) Hits The MLS [SocketSite]
Do you think there have been reductions at Arterra? [Hands pressed against cheeks with a “oh my gosh” look].
C’mon, this is just the beginning.
This would very much appeal to me, except for the fact that it is right on King Street and right next to the Caltrain depot. Is there any way to know if these units are facing King or Berry?
I am pretty bullish on this neighborhood, looking a few years into the future. Its great for transportation, is developing a lot of nice parks in the area and should soon have a lot more amenities. But, I’m not sure if Arterra would be the condo development of choice for me, in that area.
If you are interested in the neighborhood, why don’t you go and have a look?
I’m bullish on the neighborhood too…..But I’m bearish on these particular condos.
[Removed by Editor]
“If you are interested in the neighborhood, why don’t you go and have a look?”
I have looked at the neighborhood. I walk around the creek frequently and really like the direction its going. I for one do not think that the buildings look horrible, although I do think that they could have a bit more variety. I see that shops and restaurants are going up in the area (not just chains). I think that once all of the condos on both sides of Mission Creek are done, this will be a fabulous neighborhood. However, my main comment about Arterra was just that I didn’t like how it was directly across King street from the Caltrain station.
anonymous, i’d be interested to hear why you are bearish on these particular condos.
“anonymous, i’d be interested to hear why you are bearish on these particular condos”
DesignGuy, I’m not the anonymous that posted that they’re bearish on these particular condos, but I did post the comment right before you.
I can see why someone would be bearish on the condos in terms of exact location (King St & Caltrain), along with a lagging sales, so if you’re looking for a quick return, you may not see that as much as with other developments. However, I would think that long term, this is more due to personal preference, instead of a poor investment opportunity. I think that the amount of money being poured into that neighborhood would cause any development long-term to be a goldmine.
Totally, why would anyone build green, so stupid. I was hoping for a brown building.
And why add to the housing stock, we’ve got plenty of cheap housing in the City. Leave well enough alone.
Just a bunch of dumb, greedy developers building housing for everyone in exchange for a sub-par return.
Arterra’s location and floor plans would be sub-par, as you put it Anon 6:30PM; not just the developers return.
Do you Mission Bay lovers realize how much traffic there is during ball games down there? And how crowded the trains get? Any mode of transit – even on foot on certain blocks – would drive you bonkers!
I actually work pretty darn close to all this action {China Basin Building} and I am kinda 50/50 on living there. Yes there are pretty nice places being built and the area is up and comming BUT #1 I think that the Canal {not really a creek} on some days smells awful and the further down toward the house boats the worse it gets, #2 Traffic isnt all that bad during ball games however parking and crime are pretty bad during on and off season games at the park, and #3 There are already some less than desireable people living in the NEW area thanks to BMR’s and people who are renting out the speculators homes with HUD $$ {see item #2 on crime}. Those would be my top three but in addition the train yard is not just noisy and earth moving when the trains go by but the diesel emmisions are nasty enough to not give myself Cancer to live there for a price reduction and finally all these beautfull views toward the southern waterfront will be gone after the rest of Mission bay develops thanks to UCSF. Just my .03…well maybe that was .05
[Editor’s Note: As Dan comments below, “People moving into BMR units in new developments are ordinary working San Franciscans — just because they can’t afford a million dollar condo, doesn’t mean that they are a criminal element.”]
“There are already some less than desireable people living in the NEW area thanks to BMR’s and people who are renting out the speculators homes with HUD $$ {see item #2 on crime}.”
Didn’t Mission Bay do something a bit different by putting all the BMR units into one building or area (instead of 15% in each new development), or something like that? How bad is the crime with these BMRS?
Trains sucks, I used to live near one in Emeryville and you cannot get any sleep when the train went by at night.
“Trains sucks, I used to live near one in Emeryville and you cannot get any sleep when the train went by at night.”
That also is probably dependent on the type of residence you live in. Older places tend to have poorer insulation and sound protection. I cannot imagine any of these brand new developments not having triple paned windows, to all but drown out the noise. Of course, if you like to sleep with your windows open, that’s an entirely different story.
“#3 There are already some less than desireable people living in the NEW area thanks to BMR’s and people who are renting out the speculators homes with HUD $$ {see item #2 on crime}.”
Can you back this up in any way? I’m not sure what you mean by “less than desireable people”– is that a euphemism? And I doubt that speculators are buying condos in Mission Bay to rent out via Section 8 (not that it would be a bad thing). People moving into BMR units in new developments are ordinary working San Franciscans– just because they can’t afford a million dollar condo, doesn’t mean that they are a criminal element.
[Editor’s Note: Dan, we hope that you won’t mind but we’ve added an emphasis (bold) to your last sentence and co-opted it for use above.]
I don’t think that the crime in the neighborhood is a result of the BMR housing. It is a city afterall. Mission Bay is not alone in terms of car break ins or even robberies. I don’t find it a particularly dangerous neighborhood, as far as SF goes, but if compare it to a small town, well, yes, you will find a lot of crime.
“People moving into BMR units in new developments are ordinary working San Franciscans– just because they can’t afford a million dollar condo, doesn’t mean that they are a criminal element.
[Editor’s Note: Dan, we hope that you won’t mind but we’ve added an emphasis (bold) to your last sentence and co-opted it for use above.]”
This raises a great point on this subject because I for one would rather live in a neighborhood where, although we all be within reasonable proximity of one another on socio-economic level (keep in mind I said “reasonable proximity”, not the “same”), if the existence of a development like Arterra (which is not my cup of tea, I went with “that other” development) means that the neighborhood can become more ethnically diverse, I say all the better.
I agree with those above that say, just because a project has BMR units, doesn’t automatically mean that they become the “projects”, for lack of a more politically correct term.
I would just add that I have friends who live in “prime” areas like the Marina and Pac Heights. They’ve complained about car theft/break ins, windows getting broken, etc. One even got mugged on Union Street. Happens in all neighborhoods.
“One even got mugged on Union Street. Happens in all neighborhoods.”
Thank you. Yes, you’re never going to get completely free of petty crime living in a 49 square mile urban city. In fact, that raises another issue that has bothered me big time since moving here in ’04. Why is there little or no police presence in this city?
People that live in NYC that I know always talk about having that little bit of extra police presence that makes people feel a little safer in the commercial areas that surround their neighborhoods. I think they have Guiliani to thank for that. I rarely ever see police cars or cops on foot in the heavily populated commercial areas of this city. Why is that?
I live on Beale St. between Folsom and Bryant and although this has never happened to me (I keep my car in a garage) in the 3 years that I’ve lived there, I can say that at least every one or two weekends a car has had its window smashed in by someone looking to steal a stereo, iPod, computer, etc. Where are the police patrols? I consider that area to be pretty safe generally. Nothing more than a spattering homeless people here and there, but that’s it.
I live in the new Avalon building direction across from the train station and muni stop. My windows face the inner courtyard toward ATT park and I can honestly say I rarely ever hear the rumbles of the trains. Occassionally I’ll hear the bells or if I try really hard I’ll hear a train pulling in, but for the most part it’s a non issue for me.
When I first moved in last Oct I was worried about the noise (contruction, trains, etc…), but to my surprise the courtyard is very quiet. It helps that the building is brand new and relatively solidly built. I think anyone thinking of buying or renting a unit near the station should get a Berry facing or courtyard facing unit cuz any unit facing directly out into King St would be noisy…
Also, given I’m a new res in this area, what kind of crimes are we talking about? (other than car break ins). I notice some homeless folks around and lots of constructions workers, but I don’t see a criminal element here. Am I missing something?
“I live in the new Avalon building direction across from the train station and muni stop. My windows face the inner courtyard toward ATT park and I can honestly say I rarely ever hear the rumbles of the trains. Occassionally I’ll hear the bells or if I try really hard I’ll hear a train pulling in, but for the most part it’s a non issue for me.
When I first moved in last Oct I was worried about the noise (contruction, trains, etc…), but to my surprise the courtyard is very quiet. It helps that the building is brand new and relatively solidly built. I think anyone thinking of buying or renting a unit near the station should get a Berry facing or courtyard facing unit cuz any unit facing directly out into King St would be noisy…
Also, given I’m a new res in this area, what kind of crimes are we talking about? (other than car break ins). I notice some homeless folks around and lots of constructions workers, but I don’t see a criminal element here. Am I missing something?”
No, you’re not missing anything. Your assessment is pretty on. I’ve heard that that new Avalon building is nice. I live on the Avalon building over in Rincon Hill.
However, someone mentioned this earlier, and I will caution you that I don’t even think their assessment did it justice. Be prepared for hell beginning in April. Every Giant home game will be an absolute nightmare for you unless you are able to strategically plan to not go out of your apt. during the hours beginning immediately before and immediately after a home game.
Even though I live far enough away from the ball park to be able to stay out of that insanity, I still have to be strategic if I want to go to that Safeway or jump on I-280 to go somewhere.
It’s absolutely horrible. People everywhere, many of which are drunk. Scalpers everywhere shouting “I NEED TICKETS!!!” (Yeah, right).
I hope you made it a 6 month lease.
“Every Giant home game will be an absolute nightmare for you unless you are able to strategically plan to not go out of your apt. during the hours beginning immediately before and immediately after a home game.”
So that means, double-headers aside, you will have somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 non-consecutive days/nights of living hell.
Regarding BMR’s in San Francisco. I have a long term friend who is in a BMR unit. He is a thirty year+ employee of a (the) major newspaper in San Francisco. Other BMR residents in his building (new and covered on this site) are school teachers, etc. These are not welfare people, Section 8 or anything negative at all. These are people with good educations, often advanced degrees, who choose to dedicate themselves to great jobs that pay merely average amounts. My friend for instance still needed almost 100K in cash and a mortgage at about 250K. That would get you anything you wanted in the midwest.
“Regarding BMR’s in San Francisco. I have a long term friend who is in a BMR unit. He is a thirty year+ employee of a (the) major newspaper in San Francisco. Other BMR residents in his building (new and covered on this site) are school teachers, etc. These are not welfare people, Section 8 or anything negative at all. These are people with good educations, often advanced degrees, who choose to dedicate themselves to great jobs that pay merely average amounts. My friend for instance still needed almost 100K in cash and a mortgage at about 250K. That would get you anything you wanted in the midwest.”
Thanks, redseca2, that was my point exactly. People need to realize that all the typical rules regarding standards of living go right out the window in this city. The cost of living in the Bay Area (as mainly reflected in housing costs) makes the need to provide BMRs an absolutely critical. If you go to one of those cost-of-living calculators that shows how much you need to earn if leaving another state (let’s say, Houston, Texas) to move to SF, it basically tells that you need to make 300% more money to maintain your standard of living, yet, as redseca2’s example indicates, many times the person will get a 25% or maybe as high as a 50% increase in pay in whatever industry they work, and it just won’t cut the mustard given the cost of living in the Bay Area.
The person that may have been able to afford a relative “mansion” in Houston, Texas can now only afford to buy a 2-2 unit at Arterra and hopefully qualify to buy a BMR.
I’ve lived here for three years and apart from the car break-ins there’s very little crime. Check out the CrimeMAPS database and you’ll see that South Beach has nearly the lowest crime in the city: http://www.sfgov.org/site/police_index.asp?id=23813.
Ballgame traffic is easy to work around, not “hell” by any means.
The reason there’s little crime here is because there’s no neighborhood. After rush hour it’s totally dead. That’s the main drawback for me — there’s no SF soul here. We probably have the lowest non-chain store percentage in SF. People go from their garages to work, possibly double parking in front of Starbucks for a few minutes. It’s extremely rare when I patronize a local business, and I never go out here.
Back up my claim?? I didnt realize it was a claim other than stating what I see. And to be quite honest I will admit I do not know that they are BMR or Section 8 owners/tenants but it is my best guess based on what I see. I actually have considered moving just so I am right near my work and I really enjoy the view and the new park on the side of the 4th street bridge is nice but as I pointed out crime is nasty {i park near the Bridge every day as do many others and there is always glass on the groung} Between the crazy’s walking around on King near the train depot and the ticket scalpers from the Bayview it doesnt seem all that appealing to me. Also I think the overall quietness of the area around Berry makes it just as attractive as Pac Heights and the Marina {where I live now} for the car break in’s and thefts.
Again i have lived in SF my whole life from the Sunset to Potero Hill and Chinatown and now the Marina but this new area does look appealing until I started actually spending time there.
what does “green building” imply?
“Every Giant home game will be an absolute nightmare for you unless you are able to strategically plan to not go out of your apt. during the hours beginning immediately before and immediately after a home game.”
We looked at 188 King twice on game days and it was amazingly not bad at all. (We passed, thank God, on 188 King due to the fact that they forgot entirely about closets…as in there are none and now they’re rentals. Tsk, tsk.)
I agree with 11:41 AM on the police issue. I’ve never seen police doing anything resembling a “beat” in the Rincon Area where I live. In fact, there was a very serious accident one day and it took half an hour for them to show up. Being so close to downtown and commercial areas, there HAS to be more of a police presence in SF than that. And to the prior posts about a lot of broken window glass in SoBe and Rincon, that is so true. I saw a poster in another thread talk about getting mugged at Mission & Beale. Seriously, I’m worried that if I were mugged in SoBe or Rincon NO ONE would be around to see it, and even if I could manage to call 911 the cops wouldn’t show up for days, if at all…well, except on game nights when they all come out in droves to collect overtime.
I have been checking this site for a few months since I’ve decided to join the “first time home buyer” club, and I decided to pitch in my POV on the police presense.
The police only show their precense where its needed (beat/walk/bike even horse!) since the force doesnt have enough man power to have police in neighborhoods where the most violent crime is auto theft/break ins (the sf vs ny comparision for police presence is not fair, two totally different beasts). Car jackings happen in every neighborhood, knowing a few car jackers in my teens (now in my roaring twenties), they prey on victims from the TL to nob hill, sunset to soma all the way to the suburbs, it doesnt matter. The homeless have always been present in the areas of tl, 6th to soma on out, so that shouldn’t be a surprise for anyone. If the crime in Mission Bay or Soma is that serious, a 911 call will get police on the scene within 5-10 minutes.
As for myself, I was born and raised in the southern part of the city, lakeview, excelsior, sunnydale, 3rd st. I’m a fresh state grad working (dot com, yes there are some still alive since ’00 live since ’93) in the TL 6th area (Tulan!) looking for a bmr or affordable (yeah right) condo. Im not on a sales team, and im far from a bum. Dont get it twisted if im in your building.
I want to add that this week, the city council voted to overturn Newsom’s veto of adding additional police foot patrol throughout the city. I’m not sure how extensive this will be, but it does appear that they are trying to solve this problem of a lack of police presence.
I think I can solve the lack of police presence. Tax every protester $1, and every out of town protester $10 (except those from Marin, who will get an additional surcharge). Use that money to fund more neighborhood police (not more to protect tourists — although that is important for our economy — or keep protesters from vandelising). Wait, that won’t work. We’ll just end up arresting more people, letting them go, and then prosecuting the police who arrested the criminals.
The only time I’ve seen a police officer in rincon (I’ve lived here 10 years) is when I’ve called (average response time is 4 hours, even to report an active burgarly).
“Ballgame traffic is easy to work around, not “hell” by any means.”
Ok, fine……we’re going to play the “word” game again. Fine, it’s not “hell”, but it’s definitely “sub-optimal” and not worth the hassle given the alternative areas in the vicinity where one could choose to live and not deal with this annoyance.
“Ballgame traffic is easy to work around, not “hell” by any means.”
It’s easy to leave the traffic mess, just hop on the N Judah, Caltrains, or the new T line and off you go away from the ballpark!
“It’s easy to leave the traffic mess, just hop on the N Judah, Caltrains, or the new T line and off you go away from the ballpark!”
Great solution. And if you need to go somewhere that is not covered by the muni rail, which is like 95% of the time considering just how little the muni rail covers in this city? Your solution to that?
Look, living by the ball park is terrible during baseball season, end of story.
“Look, living by the ball park is terrible during baseball season, end of story.”
I totally visualize all these out of town relatives and old friends I hardly keep touch with who are baseball fans suddenly calling to say they have season tickets. If you say you will be out town they will want your parking space too.
I lived on King St for almost 2 years before I had to move due to work. I lived in the Avalon Phase 1 tower (pretty high up) and then lived in the midrise in Avalon Phase 2. Both the times I was facing King St & Cal Train depot. Getting to the points I want to make:
1) It’s absolutely fun living in the area as you can commute using Caltrain or Muni/Bart to most of the places in Bay Area (East/Valley)
2) Very convenient to catch a cab anytime of the day.
3) There’s always a police car right in front of the caltrain depot
4) Safeway is very conveniently located
5) Noise from the street or trains was never a problem (in the high rise as well as the midrise where I was on the 4th floor and very close to the street)
6) Ball games (including the phase when BB was close to breaking the record) were “NEVER HELL”. You would only hit some delays driving into the city via 280 (traffic flow was usually well managed)
7) Lastly I used to park in Lot A of the ball park (had a 24X7 permit) and never had my car broken into.
You do see scalpers and homeless people but they are visible anywhere in the city. I think it is comparatively safe as compared to lot of other neighborhoods in the city. I was seriously considering buying a condo in the area and still might. I think it’s very easy to hit all the hotspots in the city from this neighborhood either by Muni (Bus & Transit) or conveniently available cabs. Overall I would say a nice neighborhood for the asking price as I see it only improving from here on.
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Interesting comments. I currently rent in one of the condos in the area. A flipper/speculator came up short so we were able to score a nice apartment relative to the rents in the Avalon. We live on Berry across from the Aterra. The noise from the CalTrain yards is non stop in the evening. The trains idle all night long; so there is the incessant din of the engines. Add to that the cars flying by onto and off the 280 and you get the feeling that you’re at the Indy 500. During game day, and other ATT Park events, the area is over-run with the scalpers and what we in NYC call the “bridge and tunnel” people. Most are well behaved and family oriented but with the crowds also come the knuckle draggers and wanna be hip hoppers and foul mouth kids from the burbs. King Street needs to be power washed to clean up the residue from the pizza, subway, Quizno goop that is dropped or thrown on the ground. And speaking of the ground, you have to be a very careful walker. I live in Park Terrace and is should be called Poop Terrace. The sidewalks in the area are a river of urine, and dog droppings are everywhere. A walk along the promenade on China Basin Inlet is obstacle course of an occasional vagrant, and dog crap…there’s no polite way to say it. Every building is “marked” with dog urine and after the game, some of those lovely bridge and tunnel folk also mark the area too…you get the picture. Another writer is correct; there is no life here at night. Folks drive into their buildings, watch their large screen LCD TV and that’s it. There are a few shoppes along King that are bordered by Borders (how appropriate) and Safeway. It would be nice if the folks in the area frequent them; rather than just drive by.
As for the China Basin Inlet, it is pretty stinky. There’s a new park, yet to open under the 280 overpass which is quite nice; but I’m sure will be a magnet for miscreants in the area.
If you want city living with access to transportation and highways…this is as good as it gets. If you are a pet owner, it’s paradise as you can walk your dog across China Basin Inlet to a lovely park which so far has not been destroyed. As to an investment…it’s years away in my opinion.