From a plugged-in tipster with respect to Turnberry’s development at 45 Lansing:
They just sold a 50% stake in the project to another group led by Mike Zoi. Expected to start construction early 2009.
Once again, cater-corner to One Rincon Hill, 45 Lansing is slated to become a 40-story tower consisting of around 300 217 uberluxury condominiums (“the most upscale development the new neighborhood has seen, with “exotic” marble baths, Italian Snaidero cabinetry, Gaggenau cooking appliances, Jacuzzi hydrotherapy tubs with built-in TVs, individual security systems, and 12-foot penthouse ceilings”).
UPDATE: Additional details via GlobeSt.com:
While the financial details of the partnership were not immediately available, GlobeSt.com has learned that…$275-million represents the total development cost of the project, versus a gross sell-out value of approximately $350 million. Turnberry president Bruce Weiner tells GlobeSt.com that all the necessary entitlements and approvals have been finalized, permits have been pulled and impact fees paid and that excavation for the subterranean garage should begin in the first quarter of 2009 and that the entire project should take 30 months to complete.
Due to turmoil in the credit markets, Weiner says final construction financing has been delayed. “That said, the major banking participants are fully committed and the consortium is being assembled,” he adds.
∙ True Luxury Condos At 45 Lansing? [SocketSite]
∙ Out With The Old: 45 Lansing And The Lot Around Watermark [SocketSite]
∙ Turnberry Sells 50% Stake in Condo Project [GlobeSt.com]
“… with “exotic” marble baths, Italian Snaidero cabinetry, Gaggenau cooking appliances, Jacuzzi hydrotherapy tubs with built-in TVs, individual security systems, and 12-foot penthouse ceilings”
I don’t quite see why this bling is so emphasized. Even though high end stuff, its cost is insignificant compared to the purchase price. You could start with a bland Home Depot/Sears supplied interior, rip it all out and replace with the high end stuff listed in the quote, and that would not make much difference in the $1M+ price tag. The appliances and finishes will eventually wear out and need to be replaced anyway. The building and location however will live on forever.
The only exception is the 12′ ceilings. That has real and enduring value.
I sure hope this project goes forward with construction in 2009. RH needs more residents.
To quote the Downfall real estate parody, a new “luxury” development in an “up and coming” area…
I find it hard to believe that this will start anytime soon, but I am hopeful.
“”I don’t think anyone is going to put shovel in the ground to start a major project, residential project in the next two to three years at a minimum,” said Alan Mark, who has marketed some of the top condo buildings in the Bay Area.”
http://cbs5.com/local/construction.stop.buliding.2.850873.html
Whoops!
count me as one who is surprised by this development. (figuratively and literally!)
It’s a bold move… but it’s hard to have reward without risk.
They risk much because as far as we all know ORH2 is only on hold and not cancelled… and Infinity2 is built and empty. thus, it has at least 2 prime competitors for a shrinking homebuying populace.
that said: perhaps the new owner bought at such a huge discount that they can undercut ORH and Infinity on pricing, due to a lower cost basis. also labor and materials are likely to be cheaper during the recession than they were during boom times.
risky but i’m glad they’re trying. more supply=lower COL.
Labor won’t be cheaper as it is for the most part set by Worker’s Comp rates, which are set by the union. Materials hopefully will be cheaper.
sparky:
so the union doesn’t allow for lower wages if there is a severe recession with high construction sector unemployment? (honest question, I have no idea how construction labor costs work in SF)
Labor could and should become cheaper. This is a lesson we have to learn from the missteps of Great Depression. Salaries have to be re-negotiated. A good reason unemployment was low during the past 6 years is the growth brought by asset inflation. Manufacturing jobs have left already, but it was compensated by more construction jobs and everything that comes with sustained growth: auto industry, services, more govt services etc…
Now that the growth engine is temporarily turned off, there is no reason for high salaries at every level. Housing is getting cheaper, which will cushion the blow for many, and inflation could turn negative as energy/food starts to cost less.
Milkshake,
“I don’t quite see why this bling is so emphasized”…probably because the neighborhood sucks?
This is good news. I’m surprised this is going forward.
While the neighborhood might “suck” overall, Lansing Street in itself was at one time kinda charming. Not sure it will be with a 40 story tower on it, though.
this is a great location for another “tower on the hill”..this is good urban planning for density.
look at Van Vancouver. see how they cluster towers in great urban locations. we can do it and will create great areas for a certain type of urban dweller.
all you bears need to look farther into the horizon.
More details on this:
http://www.globest.com/news/1282_1282/sanfrancisco/175007-1.html
Turnberry could be a nice marquee name for SF — can’t wait to see these built. Not sure who is left to buy them though.
look at Van Vancouver. see how they cluster towers in great urban locations. we can do it and will create great areas for a certain type of urban dweller.
Right next to the approach of a VERY busy bridge is NOT a good urban location. Unfortunately, the only kind of urban dweller this area is good for is one who never walks anywhere. Harrison/First is probably the least pedestrian-friendly area in the entire city.
Zoi looks like a gambler – hope it works out for him. This is like the good old days where the 2nd (or 3rd) owner was the one that made money. Turnberry can now focus on Las Vegas.
nequidnemis lives at [Removed by Editor], a bland OC structure which is smack in the middle of the Cathedral Hill neighborhood, an “up and coming neighborhood” over 40 years in the making and still not developed to its full potential. Either he (she?) is bitter or giving insight from his (her?) own neighborhood experience.
“I don’t quite see why this bling is so emphasized.”
2 reasons. First, the average buyer is probably not going to put $50k of home bling on their credit card (not to mention time and the pain of redmodeling), but mortaging that amount has substantial appeal.
Second, a developer buying in bulk can obviously do it cheaper than retail. If right now I could receive $50k of home improvements for a $25k increase in mortgage principal outstanding, sign me up!
They will need to pick up the cost of landscaping the Chevron station downstairs into the most beautiful gas station in the country, with a green roof ana a grove of palm trees!
@ Whoops!
The developer may have reasons for making this announcement, but activity at other major developments would cause one to question its accuracy.
I wouldn’t be so quick to discount the comments of Alan Mark in this situation. His normal posture is to be a booster of condos in San Francisco.
There were initially going to be 305 units priced from 1.8-4.0 million. Now that number is basically down by a 3rd, making the average units larger as it is still 40 stories. I guess the price per unit now has to be higher.
The luxury finishes are nothing to boast about, you would expect that from condos over a million anyway. Yet the thinking has been anything is worth a million just because of an SF address.
Good to see the building is going up though, however, it will block some of the views from ORH.
The 76 (*NOT* Chevron) needs to go, I hope they sell that thing. The icing on the cake was a big spray painted piece of plywood on Tuesday that read “Yes on 8,” surprisingly spelled correctly and hand crafted by the truck driver who was refilling the station.
CatHill is a development we can surely learn how NOT to build. The Rincon Hill neighborhood is already 10x beautiful than the concrete prison walls of Gough and Geary.
Ex-Sfer,
It needs to be a dual action of the unions and the insurance companies which set workers comp. based heavily on union pay. So union won’t lower pay and drop someone into a higher worker’s comp. category since it would be much more expensive. So the timing of these 2 entities working out lower $’s and the unions going for it will be a very long time.
I’m happy to hear this development is moving forward … it will help fill the gap between One Rincon Hill and other towers a few blocks away. I’m anxious to see how the bids for the Redevelopent Authority’s two pieces of land along Folsom Street go … Rincon Hill may not be for everyone right now, but it remains a “slam dunk” for the long term. Anxious to see new neighbors in the Millennium (along with folks from existing occupied buildings).
Several months ago I heard a rumor the gas station was for sale. Just a second-hand rumor though. There was also a planning dept document that showed a new development on that corner. In fact, it looked like a portion of 45 Lansing’s podium extended to the corner. Could have just been creative license.
On the other hand, the station just had its tanks redone. Don’t know why they would do that if it was going to be sold and redeveloped. Plus, all those high-end residents will have to have somewhere to get their gold-plated limos refueled. Might be another selling point.
Since gas stations have become rarer than hen’s teeth in SF, I’d say that 76 station is actually a big plus.
I bet it will eventually disappear, though, unless it’s possible to build something on top of it. From an economic point of view it is an underutilization of the site. And we all know what happens to those.
Pretty soon we’ll have to drive to Daly City or SouthSF for a tank of gas.
for a tank of gas… or move to the Castro, where you will find SIX, yes SIX gas stations, in a 3 block radius. When the big one hits, I’ll be happy that gas stations are leaving this city and that I don’t live near one. Remember, in 1906 there were no gas stations.
Are gas stations really an earthquake risk ? I’d think that there is little risk of a quake triggering a gas station fire since most of the fuel is underground and not exposed to enough oxygen. At worst the tank might crack and the fuel could seep into the soil.
I’d worry more about that huge bonfire-in-waiting that is SF’s densely packed wooden housing stock. I’m sure that SFFD has an emergency plan and lets hope that it is adequate to suppress multiple fires without the benefit of the power grid or unclogged streets.
How do natural gas pipelines catch fire? Aren’t they underground as well?
Milkshake,
The risk with earthquakes is the cracking of underground tanks combined with rupturing of the surface concrete/pavement. You’d have dense gas fumes in the surface and high chances of fire from those fumes. Fire would then probably make its way into the cracked tanks. I suggest you run for the bay if that happens.
But the double-tank overhaul that was imposed his past decade in CA to all gas stations (the cost of which is why many went out of business by the way) will help prevent this. Originally this law was there to protect ground water from rusting tanks but it’s an extra safety in case of a disaster.
sf – underground natural gas pipes don’t catch fire. The risk is that a pipe within a building ruptures and that catches fire when sparked by something else, igniting the whole structure. That’s why water heaters are supposed to be strapped down. They’re top heavy and can easily flop over even in a small quake. A fallen water heater might sever its own gas line.
But an underground gas line might rupture causing a scenario much like what San FronziScheme suggests could happen with underground gas tanks. So long as the flammable stuff stays underground there is little risk because there isn’t enough oxygen available underground. The problems occur when the stuff gets in contact with air forming 2 of the 3 essential ingredients for fire (fuel, oxygen). All that is needed to start a fire at that point is a source of ignition : spark, pilot light, hot muffler, smoker, etc.
A ruptured gas line initiated the Marina fire in 1989. Suppression was thwarted because the nearby hydrant system also failed. The SFFD had to pump water in from the bay (one big advantage of the city being surrounded by water on 3 sides !)
Sorry for dragging this thread so OT. So in an effort to bring this back in line I’ll posit that the newer areas of SOMA will be less likely to burn after the big one for a number of reasons : modern fire suppression, less wood, wider streets.
I will hope for the best. We didn’t have bridges or gas stations back then, all of this car centric mentality can backfire on us all in the event of a real disaster, without any mass transit infrastructure in place to get us out.
“I will hope for the best. We didn’t have bridges or gas stations back then, all of this car centric mentality can backfire on us all in the event of a real disaster, without any mass transit infrastructure in place to get us out. ”
The fires of the 1989 quake in the city were caused by broken natural gas lines, not from automobile service stations. We can hope, but cars and gas stations will not be the ONLY problem after a large quake. TRANSIT will not be of any use for months.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/1906_earthquake_train.jpg
http://www.co.marin.ca.us/depts/lb/main/crm/earthquake/marin/13.html
http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/history/1906/hpes1048.jpg
Bart trains could flip over, and rail bridges could collapse and tracks WILL bend and buckle. The BART tunnel was shut down for days after the 1989 quake. We are all going to suffer in the next great quake, and cars will be the least of our problems.
Am I the only one left who was living here in the 1989 quake when MUNI power was down for quite a while in some hoods, rail service was down, but you could still DRIVE out of the city, which is what we decided to do for about two weeks to Santa Barbara until things got back to normal here? I was living in Cow Hollow at the time, and the problem was not the gas stations on Lombard, but natural gas fires in the Marina District. The problem was not cars, but no water service for almost a week on my block of Green Street, (the electricty outage was almost nine days) and no natural gas for cooking for over 1 month.
Imagine no electricity, no cell phones, no internet, no ATM or banking services (that was down for a week as well), no water service, no MUNI, no natural gas, etc. The best thing to do is to be prepared for at least a week of having to provide for yourself. I still store some water, food, and always have some cash on hand in the house in case this situation ever happens again. (And it will)
Go check out the WETA web site … they are moving forward with bulking up the Ferry Boat system in the Bay Area exactly because the state recognizes that Ferry Boats are about the only means to get people back and forth with the roads and public transit unsafe to use. The Ferry Building just keeps adding utility to the area … and high speed rail Prop. 1A appears to have passed, also adding to the value of the new Transit Center project … things are looking up for my Rincon Hill neighborhood, thanks.
Things are looking up for Rincon Hill, but I still am not ready to call it a “neighborhood”. You are right about the ferry boats Jamie, they will be about the only transportation system that will work after a large quake, and they were the only system working after the 1906 quake. They were also the only way across the bay in 1989 until BART re-opened the transbay tunnel.
Morgan is right that mass transit will be dysfunctional after the big one. But don’t count on cars either – every roadway in and out of SF will be out of service according to a FEMA study published in 1984 (can’t find anything more recent though). 101 by Brisbane will become impassible. 280 will be closed due to landslides and bridge failures. The GG and Bay bridges are expected to survive, but their approach ramps will fail rendering those bridges useless. Even the ferry piers are expected to fail. The only way in and out of the city will be helicopter, kayak, or on foot. SF will essentially become an island so be sure you have enough stuff (especially drinking water) to sustain yourself for a week or so. SF is unique among bay area cities in how isolated it will become.
Jamie – do you know whether the new ferry boat system addresses the pier failure due to liquefaction problem ? That would be a step forward.
“Good to see the building is going up though, however, it will block some of the views from ORH.”
Viewlover,
I don’t think this is the most important issue. Those with units facing the northwest have the most distinctive views of the city to the north and Twin Peaks to the west. The Turnberry would block off the view towards the Intercontinental Hotel [aka the turquoize bordello] & SOMA Grand, so I don’t think that’s much of a loss. However, I know that for part of the year, when the sun is just rising, the Watermark can block the view of the sun rising over the hills for the lower units … although in about 15 minutes one has the unobstructed sun. That happens, even though the Watermark isn’t that tall and is built much ‘lower down’ than ORH. However, ORH may block a number of the Turnberry sunrises, especially given its size.
Where might the Turnberry prove to be an impediment to ORH? I’ve noticed that at certain times of year, ORH casts a long shadow over the Watermark in the afternoons. Similarly, the Turnberry may cast a pretty long shadow over ORH during the afternoon at certain times of year. Accordingly, it may block out the afternoon sun for some of the lower-mid units. I think that’s likely to be the greatest potential impact.
Recent ORH,
I dont’ disagree that the impact is minimal. It just depends on preferences though. I lived in a high-rise with no obstructions and a view of downtown. Once they started building where it took away what I had, I moved. Now I have a panoramic view of the castro and beyond. I just believe that for the type of money one invests, you should get what you want.
I like ORH, but would have to face southeast or that general orientation to be happy. The downtown views would either be “interupted” due to 45 Lansing or the second tower, although that is an unknown.
I guess you’re all settled in by now, hope you like it. As I remember you did well, relatively speaking, with your unit.