While the CityPlace parcels are in default, Twitter has signed a Letter of Intent to move to Market Square, the million square foot former wholesale furniture mart at 1355 Market Street which Shorenstein Properties acquired for roughly $110 million earlier this month.
Twitter’s lease is contingent on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors approving a payroll tax exemption intended to jumpstart redevelopment in the mid-market area.
what a terrible location for its employees
I’m not sure this will help Market much on the sidewalk level, but good to see the building put to use. I’d love if they added some WPA-style murals of coders hunched over their laptops to match the current murals of women and their sewing machines.
Terrible location?
At least 5 coffee shops close by. Opera, Symphony, Museums. The Hayes street gourmet district is a few blocks away. Good public transportation. A company this size is bound to have an impact, which could trigger a virtuous circle.
And other types of entertainment for the ones who like to “party”.
I think the location may (currently) pale somewhere in the heart of the financial district, but I totally agree with lol that this could jump start something pretty great.
@what a terrible location for its employees
Believe it or not, there is life outside SOMA. I work in the neighborhood and love the proximity of the farmers market, off-the-grid food trucks twice weekly, library, civic center plaza on sunny days, diversity of lunch options, etc. And just about every muni line in the city passes within a few blocks of here.
terrible location? ha. don’t focus on the intersection, focus on the city.
the talent these companies employ & seek don’t want to work in lifeless silicon valley.
they want to live and work in sf. and not have to sit on a shuttle bus for an two hours commuting south each day.
the city has a huge opportunity to draw employers here, and make their employees happy, and grow the economy here, not in san jose.
zynga.
twitter.
google.
bring it on!
I’d rather be at One Market.
Hope they got a deal on rent.
Good for SF though regardless.
I’m excited about this.. I’m optimistic this Board won’t totally f it up. Baby steps people! Baby steps!
Ha ha, all the boosters will come out in force (“off the grid food trucks” = roach coaches), but there are some mighty scary people in that part of town and they aren’t going away.
When I was younger I applied to a fortune 100 company’s SF office. All of their applications were intercepted by the downtown Oakland office, who of course never got practically anyone good applying there. I went out there and interviewed, was immediately offered the job and promptly turned it down. No way was I going to work in that depressing area.
Oakland had lots of professional businesses in the downtown, but no way was I going to be stuck there late at night. I suspect that a lot of employees of twitter will make that same calculation and walk away. When twitter has gotten their umpteenth turn down, they’ll realize what a mistake they made.
The payroll tax is only 1.5% of payroll. As a business owner, that’s a TERRIBLE trade off to be in that location just to shave 1.5% because good employees always have options, in spite of the very desirable roach coaches in that area that I am (sarcastically) certain will be tough for potential employees to turn down.
Twitter of course will have to pay that tax on their stock options when they go public, so only to them it might be worth it, and only for that event. However, I’m quite certain they’ll run for the exits as soon as their lease is up and they’ve cashed out. You can’t build a business with that headwind. It will likely be a short term move for them.
a ha, all the boosters will come out in force (“off the grid food trucks” = roach coaches
What don’t you hate, man? “hahahhaha” @ something the city needs desperately? “roach coach” @ the vigilantly inspected food trucks which allow entrepreneurs to enter into retail food without a huge overhead?
Forward thinking by the city if they actually pass the payroll tax exemption. If I worked for Twitter I wouldn’t be thrilled that I had to work in that location but I’d rather be in San Francisco than have to schlepp it out to Sunnyvale or Cupertino.
I’m also surprised that it has taken the editor at Socketsite so long to post a story on this topic. This news has been floating around for awhile…
[Editor’s Note: Hopes have been floating around for quite a while the letter of intent was just recently signed.]
Um, are you serious? Anyone who’d walk away from a well-paying, stable tech job in this economy because the office is in mid-market opposed to SOMA, FiDi, or Silicon Valley is clearly [someone] you really don’t want on the payroll anyway.
I’m with anon on this. While the neighborhood isn’t great, it’s not that bad, much better than 6th & Market and many parts of SOMA. It’s close to BART, tons of buses stop there. In fact there are lots of places that are just as bad, if not worse that high tech companies have offices in. There’s regularly people living in their cars across the street from my office. I just walked by the potential Twitter location today on my way in to work and it’s certainly more pleasant than where I work (which isn’t really that bad, just annoying). And make no mistakes, Twitter’s current location has plenty of degenerates in the neighborhood, and is much less convenient to get to by transit.
There’s plenty of good restaurants/bars within a 10-15 minute walk or 5 minute bus ride (Absinthe, Zuni Cafe, Rickshaw stop just to name a few)
This is a decent location that I guarantee will quickly improve if Twitter goes in. People will start applying for jobs there, I certainly thought about it when I read the story.
Likewise, a company like Twitter who would egotistically forsake the city over a negligible tax burden is clearly a company who doesn’t have the city’s interests in mind while they consume its resources and business benefits. Maybe the city council doesn’t realize that Twitter moving out of the city would hurt Twitter much more than it would hurt the city.
Tipster –
Woman, please… We get it, you’re cranky. Really, really cranky. About what? Who knows…
Layering your posts with negativity doesn’t make them quality though. I work one block from here and it’s fine. Walnut Creek? No. BUt the trade off in terms of transit and central locationis well worth it. And the food trucks are awesome, offering a very diverse selection at reasonable prices. Your local favortie restaurant (which I’m sure you hate too, butgo to anyway to complain) is at far more risk of a “roach” infestation based on permanent location and water source.
But whatever, point is lighten up.
the location isn’t bad -close to BART, MUNI, etc.
I worked in that building for a number of years. The basement/dungeon is pretty cool, in creepy sort of way
Considering that Twitter probably isn’t profitable the payroll tax is probably a quite sizable portion of their overall tax burden.
And regarding caring about the city, or any city. No business does. They pick locations because they believe it’s beneficial to their business, probably based on ability to higher the necessary talent. Taxes are certainly an important factor, but any business that thinks moving to a different city will benefit their business, taking into consideration the costs of moving, (both financially & personnel wise) will move.
Cities that make efforts to make business more profitable generally have businesses move into them, while cities that do the opposite tend to have businesses leave.
Finally, should we condemn Twitter for contemplating abandoning SOMA? There’s really no difference between that and them contemplating leaving SF.
I don’t know why tipster finds either Oakland or this location so scary since he has perfected a way to scare the baddies with simply the sound of a shotgun being cocked.
I’d gladly work in this location even though my best defense is running away like a sissy.
Yeah, I usually like tipster’s posts, only to see what I would have posted a year or two ago when I was still a thoroughbred bear. I still agree with most of his opinions, even though I think the glass is now 60% full.
But the rant about this mid-market section? Come on! The Westfield SF shopping mall brought new blood to 5th and Market. Shoppers have overwhelmed the homeless crowd who do not own the sidewalk anymore.
Yeah, clearly twitter employees are going to decamp their incredibly lucrative and succesful jobs because their headquarters are moving a few blocks over.
Right.
Dumbest comment ever
Not to pile on, but regarding tipster’s “short term move” comment, something tells me the very experienced, smart people at Shorenstein would not accept a letter of intent from Twitter that didn’t commit them for at least 5 years, probably longer. Moving a company ain’t cheap, either – not something you do more than once every 5 years at LEAST.
I’ve lived near this area for 15 years. I’ve never once been “scared” by anyone I’ve come across. Saddened, yes. Annoyed, occasionally.
As for the desirability of the location for employees, I would guess many of them live in: NOPA, Potrero, Hayes Valley, the Mission, etc. Their commutes all just got shorter. The ones arriving on BART from the Peninsula just got a shorter commute, too. If they’re coming from the East Bay, well, theirs just got a bit longer.
Fantastic news- are they going to be occupying the entire building?
[Editor’s Note: The last we heard, up to 300,000 square feet for Twitter versus a little over a million available in the two Market Square buildings.]
tipster, you’re seriously turning into as much of a one trick pony as another poster here…
is this the best location in SF? nope.
would any typical 20-30yo tech industry type prefer to work here instead of in a random peninsula business park? yup – provided the offices are ‘the mother ship’ if it’s just a satellite type of office then all bets are off – this won’t be (supposedly)
think before you post. twitter placing a big footprint in the area is a potentially huge. the issue is not whether the location is desirable to twitter, it is whether twitter is actually going to be able to monetize itself to the degree that is necessary to support a thriving company with an HQ in SF.
this WILL help attract workers to twitter.
this WILL NOT do much to ensure twitter’s long term profitability…
“If they’re coming from the East Bay, well, theirs just got a bit longer.”
Just a nit-pick: If the East Bayer is coming on BART this is also a shorter commute as well. The extra 2 stops on BART take about 2-3 minutes, while walking from Montgomery BART station to 4th & Folsom would take about 10-15 minutes, and the bus isn’t much faster, even assuming the bus is there the moment they need it.
The Transbay bus I’m not sure about, but I’m guessing it would be about the same, since it’s not convenient to take the bus from there to 4th & Folsom, and walking is again about 10-15 minutes.
Driving would probably add a few minutes commute at the new location.
Hey, you guys can pretend the area isn’t a turnoff and that employees who have a choice aren’t going to factor the job location into their equation when deciding where to work. I don’t, however, think people are going to walk away from lucrative jobs there, and never said that, so I’m not sure where the comment comes from. I’m sure that lots of people would tell you downtown Oakland is fine, but I ran away from it, rationally or not.
But in any event, that’s fine with me: more than one of my employees have told me that they drove out to a job interview in SF, took one look around and didn’t even go in to the interview, just drove home and decided to keep looking based on the area in which the company was located.
Perhaps not everyone cares about the environment in which they work, and think eating out of roach coaches is really kewl, but some do. Different strokes, but if you want the best people, you bend over backwards to get them. And if your environment is giving you trouble, you change it.
Although 5 years is likely the time period, because that’s the usual period, the fact is that without Twitter, there is no plan B I am aware of for that area, so I suspect Twitter gets what twitter wants. If they want 3 years, they’ll get it. If they want a credit for the costs of move out if they decide to leave at the end of 5 years, I’d bet they could get that too.
This part of Market is not bad – a few blocks over is where it is ugly. And the nearby BART/Muni stop is a plus. This area does not offer that much once you step out the door but it is not a wasteland, and I suspect a new bunch of decently-paid tech workers should spawn some more options.
I do agree, however, that the availability of “off-the-grid food trucks” is of zero appeal. If anything, it only confirms there are few decent options so one has to resort to something as unappetizing as a food truck. No thanks.
But I do think that most employees will be perfectly fine with this location, especially if the build-out inside is done nicely.
“the issue is not whether the location is desirable to twitter, it is whether twitter is actually going to be able to monetize itself to the degree that is necessary to support a thriving company with an HQ in SF.”
This hits the nail on the head. This was a key issue in the dot.com boom. A great deal of companies with no viable business provided short term demand for space, but then collapsed.
Having a series of startups churn through a city is probably not that bad an outcome though compared to vacancy and blight.
Regarding stock options, don’t know how the city calculates payroll, but for some types of options, ISO’s, the money can sometimes be treated as a capital gain rather then income. If the compensation is structured such that the result of option or other equity compensation will be treated as income it would not be unheard of for a company to make a temporary move to avoid extra tax. The key issue here is that the tax benefit accrues to the principals, but the moving expenses accrue to the company.
The very fact of Twitter moving a good slug of employees there will fundamentally change the neighborhood. The day Nordstrom opened on Market Street the Chronicle had a front page article asking would anyone ever go south of Market to shop…without realizing that that shopping center was a game changer. So is Twitter. So is Trinity Place’s 2000 apartments at 8th and Market (demo is going on for second building now…construction starts in August).
In addition a new public-private partnership Community Benefit District was voted in by the Supes in January and will start this summer…with the goal of “clean and safe” in the Civic Center neighborhood…including this block.
Sorry tipster, I generally agree with your comments, but you clearly don’t know what you are talking about here.
I know this area quite well, I eat & drink nearby frequently, and I choose to walk through this neighborhood frequently rather than take a particular bus line, even though it adds 10 minutes to my commute. The area is not great, but it’s fine, and better than many other parts of SF that are quite close by.
And as much as some people might not want to work in this neighborhood, many people would prefer this over others. Transit accessibility alone is fantastic (aside from Caltrain, which is much farther than Twitter’s current location).
Different strokes for different strokes goes both ways. I could probably work for Google or Apple or any number of south bay/ peninsula companies, but I have absolutely no desire to. I worked in Santa Clara for a year and it’s just way to boring and the commute is crap. I’d take this area over south bay/ peninsula any day.
I can understand why someone would reject Oakland for a job compared to SF. Heck, I interviewed for a company that had moved from SF to a Lake Merritt view and didn’t go for it (1st interview in a cool Jackson Square building and 2nd in a tower in Oakland, ugly bait-and-switch). I even gave up on a big pay upgrade because the job was in the SV. But SOMA vs Mid-Market? Nope.
@tipster – pick a story and stick to it.
10:18 am “I suspect that a lot of employees of twitter will make that same calculation and walk away. When twitter has gotten their umpteenth turn down, they’ll realize what a mistake they made.”
12:05 pm “I don’t, however, think people are going to walk away from lucrative jobs there, and never said that, so I’m not sure where the comment comes from.”
Sorry, I meant walk away from a job offer when they had another similar offer, not that they would walk away from millions of dollars in stock options. My bad for a poor choice of words, no one would do that.
Thanks for the clarification and sorry for the tirade of comments. But I still love the food trucks! 🙂
tipster, a realtor would walk away from a job because the office is located in Mid Market? Sure, why not. But a techie would walk away from a Mid Market location? Uh, no way, I don’t believe that. If anything, the typical Twitter employee would prefer their office be smack in the hip and fun Mission District and further away from boring and corporate downtown; and they’d happily settle for Mid-Market as a compromise.
Not to pile on, tipster, but your comments are shortsighted to the extreme. I also don’t think Oakland is a fair comparison, although I don’t claim to be very knowledgeable about Oakland.
A better comparison might be Rincon Point. Perhaps people here don’t recall what a dump everything used to be just south of 101 at the Bridge? People were scared to walk around the Embarcadero at night but the City made lucrative proposals to big companies (e.g. The Gap) to be pioneers in the area. (For a history lesson, see: http://www.sfredevelopment.org/index.aspx?page=155)
In 1999 I worked for Microsoft and we rented a building right next to the (not yet completed) ballpark at 4th and King. (This was the same summer that a cabbie killed a girl and dumped the body in China Basin.) It was pretty rough down there but you’d hardly recognize it as such today.
In other words, try to take a longer term perspective… This is a great move for SF and really great news for mid-Market. It’s also worth noting that Zynga just signed a deal to move into the old Sega building on 8th. A fair bit of distance between these buildings but could be nice bookends for further development.
Re: “if your environment is giving you trouble, you change it” — that’s exactly what the city is attempting to do. If hundreds of employees are demanding better lunch options, then those options will arise (provided the city doesn’t throw sand in its own gears.) I also expect that Twitter staff will discover Zuni and Hayes Valley pretty quickly.
From the Chron today:
“The popular tech company with 350 employees now pays $535,000 in city payroll tax. But its workforce is projected to balloon to 3,000 by 2013, boosting the annual payroll tax past $4 million, according to city officials.
If the exemption is approved, Twitter would not have to pay the tax on any of the newly created jobs. Despite the company’s success, “we still have to watch our pennies as we work to build a sustainable company,” Rowghani said. He added that if the payroll tax break is approved, the company would sign a lease to stay in the city for six years and “likely for a subsequent 10-year renewal term.”
The balance of power is that Twitter is a good name to have on a resume, and San Francisco is a good city to have on your letterhead. Twitter has the upper hand in only one of those relationships.
An image conscious company like Twitter does not want to put “Brisbane” on its letterhead, not the least which is the perception in their market will be of a not-yet profitable company that couldn’t hack it in the big city. I don’t think they have a leg to stand on, but I don’t doubt the City Council is champing at the bit for an invite to Twitter’s holiday party. Cocktail-weenie politics.
“But in any event, that’s fine with me: more than one of my employees have told me that they drove out to a job interview in SF, took one look around and didn’t even go in to the interview, just drove home and decided to keep looking based on the area in which the company was located.
”
What a bunch of malarkey. I doubt one person believed that.
Going from 350 to 3000 employees in 2 years? Is that claim mentioned anywhere else besides sfgate?
Here’s another more-believable claim that they plan to expand to 3000 employees “within 10 years” which for a technology company is a bold statement, even if it turns out to be true:
http://www.baycitizen.org/technology/story/san-francisco-give-big-tax-breaks/
Jeeesh, at least when Sun talked like this in the late 90’s they had financial statements you could look at! 🙂
I work at 8th and Market and hate it. We’ve had employees attacked at the bus stop in front of the building by crackheads. I’ve personally had a 10 inch butcher knife waved in my face for standing up to a line jumper at Subway. I do not exaggerate when I say I dodge human feces every single day as a pedestrian on Market from 8th to past Van Ness.
The food trucks and farmer’s market are the only bright spots in the lunch options. Otherwise it’s a lot of mediocre stuff that originated on a Sysco food service truck.
That being said, if the average age at Twitter is 20-30 then I don’t think they will mind the neighborhood. I remember how back in my 20s I never even noticed a lot of the social ills that really bother me today.
I agree with several others – this absolutely will help revitalize this part of Market, along with the increased residential activity from Trinity.
Anon.ed,
I’m pretty sure that a not-quite-out-of-college female who has grown up in the suburbs her whole life looks at that location a liittle differently than you do, and takes even the threat of personal safety issues a little more front and center than you do. It happens.
“…and San Francisco is a good city to have on your letterhead.”
EH…that kind of cache is somewhat true for investment bankers and law firms. (It was always important in the 80’s & 90’s to have that Manhattan address as opposed to New Jersey.)
In today’s economy however if Brisbane had provided a sweeter offer I suspect Twitter would have taken it. You are seriously overestimating the draw of San Francisco to companies. Most people who come to the Bay Area that work in tech expect to land employment somewhere in the Peninsula or South Bay. (That’s where most of the jobs are.) If Twitter were interested in cache they would probably be best served by a Palo Alto or Mountain View address.
“San Francisco is a good city to have on your letterhead…. An image conscious company like Twitter does not want to put “Brisbane” on its letterhead, not the least which is the perception in their market will be of a not-yet profitable company that couldn’t hack it in the big city.”
Disagree with EH here. Venture capitalists don’t care if you’re in SF or further down below because a lot of them are in Palo Alto. Let’s not forget where Sand Hill Road is.
Twitter could easily bus people to Brisbane (or wherever) like Google does, if their workers demand it. It’s not like Brisbane is that much of a hike from the city anyway. There’s very little stigma of a startup moving from the city towards or to the Valley. If anything, it shows that you’ve grown up. The main reason so many of these startups are in SF these days is because office space crashed so hard. If commercial real estate turns, you’ll see the exodus.
How is Twitter “image conscious”?
Agree with you sfrenegrade. Twitter has all the leverage here. San Francisco would be crazy to not give them this relatively small concession.
Twitter probably would have stayed either way. It behooved them to pretend they were still undecided.
If they cared about the last line of their address(chuckle chuckle), they could have kept a small HQ in SF, and rented an additional office in Brisbane…
I think the idea that all the tech jobs are down in the peninsula is very outdated.
I just did a quick search on craigslist for software/QA/DBA/etc & internet engineering jobs and SFC has over 700 & 300 job postings (respective to category)
:
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/sof/index700.html
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/eng/index300.html
While the South Bay and Peninsula each have fewer than 400 & 200 postings (respective to categories above):
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/sof/index300.html
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/eng/index100.html
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/sof/index300.html
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/eng/index100.html
Certainly not scientific, but if this is representative, then SF alone has about as many job openings as the Peninsula & South Bay combined for high tech workers.
Anecdotally I recently met with a recruiter and she asked if I was interested in a Brisbane. I told her I was only interested in positions in SF and she said that she was having a hard time filling the position because many of her contacts had the same opinion as me. She’s based in SF, so I’m sure a lot of her clients live in SF as well, but it seems there are enough jobs in SF that people here don’t even have to look South if they don’t want to.
lyqwyd, if we take your results at face value (a big ‘if’, as you’ve quite rightly allowed), all you’ve shown is that there are currently more job openings in SF alone than on the Peninsula & South Bay combined for high tech workers, not actual jobs. Perhaps there are more jobs on the Peninsula & South Bay combined and also there are more of them currently filled and hence not requiring advertising for workers to fill them, on craigslist or otherwise.
Anyway, I think the city should welcome Twitter and give them the tax break, but I think it’s setting quite a troubling precedent. There’s nothing special about Twitter; any other company could ask for a tax break, too. And if they do, where does that leave The City?
“Venture capitalists don’t care if you’re in SF or further down below because a lot of them are in Palo Alto. Let’s not forget where Sand Hill Road is.”
venture capitalists DO care where they are located. And that is exactly why so many of them pay handsomely for real estate on Sand Hill Road, where venture capitalism first took off and proximity to tech companies with employees ready to move on, and Stanford (hospital/medical school, engineering, physics, business, and law school) are valued. Sand Hill Road also allows for easy VC interaction in a field where connections and relationships really matter. Same reason so many hedge funds used to be in the BofA building downtown.
and empty real estate is even cheaper off 101 in redwood city then in empty SF office space. some of that space has been empty since the last dot.com crash. yet start ups choose sf for various reasons. location and proximity to transit are important, as are the buzz of the new and the cool.
this is an impressive building with elegant bones and ready for any company to call home and renovate. once the blight is beaten back a little farther ( remember zuni has been in place for 30+ years fighting the good fight and the new federal building is only approaching 4 ) this neighborhood will take off.
you get none of this with a campus complex in brisbane or elsewhere.
@Brahma, that’s a very real possibility, which would be an indication that it’s actually much harder to find talent in SF. It’s also possible that to the South they use a different job posting service. My example is certainly debatable, but there are a number of other bits of evidence that to me indicate the job market is shifting to SF:
1) Salesforce moving & expanding within SF
2) Google giving 10% across the board raises to keep staff (and rumour has it much more generous to engineers)
3) Numerous articles talking about tech firms moving to SF (not necessarily from the South Bay though)
The list goes on… on the other hand I enjoy living and working in SF so I’m certainly biased and could be ignoring other evidence that would contradict my theory.
I don’t really think that SF has become the center of tech yet, but it’s certainly not a backwater like it may have been a couple decades ago.
Also, I believe the payroll tax exempion is for the area, not specifically for Twitter. I believe they are just going on record saying the location is contingent upon the BOS approving the special tax district.
“venture capitalists DO care where they are located.”
I think you’re muddling two different thoughts here. I’m saying venture capitalists don’t care if your _startup_ is in San Francisco or Santa Clara, as long as it’s making a return. Venture capitalists do often care where their own venture capital firms are located.
What you do get with non-SF offices is places suitable for families. That helps when you finally grow large enough to need some adult supervision for your startup.
“‘m pretty sure that a not-quite-out-of-college female who has grown up in the suburbs her whole life looks at that location a liittle differently than you do, and takes even the threat of personal safety issues a little more front and center than you do.”
Yeah? No chance. you’re a hater without a particular focus. Own that.
Uh hug. Just out of college. Doesn’t even turn up to the interview?
Nonsense.
And I thought the only way to scare Tipster would be to remove rent control, MediCare/obamacare and food stamps from his life.
Apparently a trip to Mid-Market is just as daunting as the loss of socialism.
“I’m saying venture capitalists don’t care if your _startup_ is in San Francisco or Santa Clara, as long as it’s making a return.”
not muddling.
simply pointing out that location matters…for them in their own business… and also for most businesses, be they startups or pre-public companies with billion dollar valuations. (twitter is really unlikely to need any more help from sandhill, given it’s 7 billion private market valuation). though location can mean a lot of different things to different enterprises- easy commute, premium view, name on a building, access to workforce, distance from complaining neighbors, hipness.
and you are right that a vc is unlikely to care about SF vs. Santa Clara, but i have seen them insist that an early stage company relocate to the bay area and they are usually on top of issues like happy, qualified, and affordable workers.
and among my friends in “adult supervision” – venture capital, turnaround, and senior management – sf is a fine place to live, along with the wealthier parts of the mid-peninsula. they usually are making lifestyle choices in home purchases and have money for private schools, vacations, and underused second homes wherever those choices take them.
Twitter will be losing easy walking access to caltrain and gaining proximity to cool late after-work spots. Just a matter of finding something to fill the time until the music venues start up.
It’s interesting to read the above dumping on the street food scene. You folks just don’t get it.
Still, I wouldn’t be thrilled about being moved to this location. Lots of folks won’t work late unless they’ve lined up a buddy to exit the building with. You can tell the pioneers by the arrows in their backs.
I catch the bus not far from here somtimes and I’ll be the first to say that yes, this bit of market is ugly, unsafe, and yes, it is rife with meth addicts.
As a commuter to “lifeless Silicon Valley”, do I still totally envy the Twitter employees and hope this does great things for the area? You bet I do.
“(twitter is really unlikely to need any more help from sandhill, given it’s 7 billion private market valuation)”
I haven’t heard $7B, but the likelihood of not needing further cash might be true largely because of the recent infusion of cash they received — from Wikipedia because it was the laziest way to find this info:
Though the company only started selling ads midway through 2010 (late spring), it still managed to generate $45 million in annual revenue. Even operating at a loss through most of 2010, an addition of $200 million in new venture capital in December 2010 and a forecasted $100 million to $110 million in revenue for 2011 rose the company’s valuation to approximately $3.7 billion as of February 2011.[74]
Twitter has been identified as a possible candidate for an initial public offering by 2013.[75]
This is a good news, but the office building right across the street will be vacated in a few months.
State Fund is leaving San Francisco and will be moving about 700 employees to Pleasanton and Vacaville.
BTW, the best thing about 1355 Market is the pair of Red-tailed hawks nesting on a ledge on the 9th Street side.
It’s a good location. Tons of cool hoods and lunch options to explore within a 10-15 minute walk: Hayes valley, Polk/Larkin, Folsom/9th, etc. Hipsters will luv it, and local businesses will luv it too. A win-win. Let’s hope bored of stupidvisors don’t f*ck it up.
If it’s such a good location, why are there a host of tax breaks associated with it. Good locations don’t need them.
As for more job openings in SF, please. SF is not the tech capital of silicon valley and craigslist isn’t the measure. Craigslist caters to smaller businesses. Apple, Google, Cisco, 3Com, Force10, Fujitsu, Hitachi, etc. post very few of their jobs on craigslist.
I have three postings going on right now and not one of them is on craigslist. The problem with craigslist is the quality of applicants isn’t very high, so it takes a lot of time to sift through a billion frogs to find one good person.
This whole thread is an exact duplicate of the boom, in miniature. A bunch of self interested yahoos hoping to make money off the twitter employees telling everyone what a great location this is and how they should go ahead and commit. How many people were told “the street isn’t that busy, it’s cheap and you can always sell it for more if you don;t like it” only to find out that everyone else did well because of their stupidity by listening and they got screwed. How many times did Frederick come on here and tell everyone how many restaurants and coffee shops were in an X mile radius only to have the buyer lose everything because they didn’t focus on the actual location. Good locations don’t have buildings boarded up for decades. Good locations don’t have numerous tax breaks. This is just a bunch of yahoos salivating over the prospect of getting their hands on some of that IPO money and well paid employees, who don’t want a large, well paying company to move out of the area, and who will say anything to keep them. Good area? Explain all of the tax breaks.
Will this be great if a company with 350 employees is stupid enough to locate here? 750 State Fund employees have been nearby and it didn’t help that area at all and they are on their way out. If twitter comes, it will be at least a year before that area is back to even.
I have no doubt that twitter will locate here for their own economic self interest. I have no doubt it will be better than if no one locates here. I’ll be thrilled if they stay and thrilled if they take yet another stab at revitalizing that area. Don’t get me wrong, I want them to go there. But with eyes wide open. They need the right deal to make it work for them because they are going to take a hit in other ways, namely in recruiting. But the “this is a good area” comments are hogwash.
Explain all the tax breaks for such a good area.
“such a good location” ????
Huh? The location is not good. It needs civic engineering. That was point one. It’s funny you’re still talking in this thread and all, but do try to keep abreast.
“Hipsters will love it.”
Maybe, but that is not who twitter is hiring. “Hipsters” maybe, but not hipsters. There is some fast food around, and tech company “hipsters” are usually okay with that. And they will probably also be fine scarfing some food truck grub (bleh).
I had forgotten that State Fund is leaving. I worked on an assignment there two years ago and – as I noted above – the area does not offer much. It is not as bad as some here have posited, but it is still a bit of a wasteland. I doubt the nearby offerings will improve quickly with that big loss but hopefully they will at some point. Octavia Blvd and tearing down the overpass were big, and eventually this should see some decent development, but that’s probably 7-10 years down the road.
Nevertheless, this is not a terrible spot, particularly for those (like me) who are fans of ample public transit. I generally eat lunch working at my desk anyway, so the lack of decent surroundings wouldn’t bother me much.
Twitter Tax Break Faces Surprise Challenge from Public Union
SEIU Local 1021 calls measure a “taxpayer handout,” threatens referendum
@tipster
“This whole thread is an exact duplicate of the boom, in miniature. A bunch of self interested yahoos hoping to make money off the twitter employees telling everyone what a great location this is and how they should go ahead and commit.”
Huh??? Exactly who here is trying to make money off twitter employees?
And craigslist is a bad place to post job listings? I guess you know better than Google, Symantec, Apple, Oracle, etc…
Nobody said this was a good neighborhood, we just pointed out that you are wrong about it being a terrible area or that Twitter was going to lose staff by moving there.
Do you really think Twitter hasn’t done any diligence regarding the location?
@anon.ed: “huh”. @lyqwyd: “Nobody said this was a good neighborhood”
It’s a good location. Tons of cool hoods and lunch options to explore within a 10-15 minute walk: Hayes valley, Polk/Larkin, Folsom/9th, etc. Hipsters will luv it, and local businesses will luv it too. A win-win. Let’s hope bored of stupidvisors don’t f*ck it up.
Posted by: 47yo hipster at March 18, 2011 10:04 PM
Oh, I thought he said it was a “good location” and was responding to that. Guess I need new glasses.
Yeah, 47-y-o said that and pretty much nobody else did. So you got that right and outed yourself as an absolutely delusional crackpot hater of the very place where you reside, once again. but you got that right about what 47-y-o said and I was wrong, one person did call it a good area.
(Actually, that poster said it was a “good location,” not a “good neighborhood.” There’s a difference.)
A friend is interviewing for a job at Twitter, and is excited about the move to Market and 10th, walking distance from his home. This location will be very convenient for many Twitter employees.
For most prospective employees, the young, smart people that Twitter wants to attract, the location will be a draw, for its convenience to the Mission, the Castro, Hayes Valley, SOMA, and other places where Twitter employees live. Certainly fewer employees will turn down Twitter for being at 10th and Market than would turn them down for being in Brisbane, though any employee not flexible enough to get to work at either location may well be an employee Twitter could do without.
Oh, and the “Off the Grid” food trucks are hardly “roach coaches.” Here’s a link to a recent “Off the Grid” food truck event:
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/foodie/2011/01/off_the_grid_returns_after_hol.php
Regarding mobile food vendors, I believe that food trucks by and large are permitted and inspected by the health department. Food carts (i.e. Bacon dogs in the Mission, et al…) on the other hand are largely uninspected.
There are quite a few ‘roach coaches’ down here in the heart of the financial district, usually with pretty long lines every day. The curry one in particular.
Tipster’s comment from 2 years ago is hilarious!:
“I suspect that a lot of employees of twitter will make that same calculation and walk away. When twitter has gotten their umpteenth turn down, they’ll realize what a mistake they made.”
How many employees did Twitter lose by moving several blocks to 10th and Market Streets? I suspect none.
If anything, it’s tipster who made the calculation that he would look like fool at all the unrealized doomsday prophecies and just walked away from SS. Or maybe he took his meds.