Featuring larger windows, elevated finishes and the best views, the “Panorama Collection” of three-bedroom condos across the top 5 floors of the twisty 40-story MIRA tower at 280 Spear Street were priced at a premium, but still relative, to the units on the 35 floors below.
Measuring 2,196 square feet, with three bedrooms, three full baths, a private balcony and southwest views, Panorama unit #36B was priced at $4.75 million in October of 2019.
Relisted for $4.695 Million in October of 2021, unit #36B was removed from the MLS last year and then relisted as new for $4.175 million this past April. And having been listed anew again this past week, the “asking price” for 280 Spear Street #36B is now down to $3.495 million, a sale at which would be “at asking” according to all industry stats and aggregate reports.
Once again, while $1,592 per square foot certainly “isn’t cheap,” it’s 26.4 percent cheaper than the asking price per square foot for the unit four years ago, an asking price which was set relative to the other new units in the building at the time, with the non-panoramic model unit #30A having sold for 19 percent less than its list price in 2021 a few months back.
These are new construction units coming to market for the first time, right? If so, we shouldn’t be surprised that the sales office attempted to swing for the fences in October of 2019 with their asking price amounting to > $2160 per ft.². That’s slightly higher than similar-floored units at 181 Fremont St., and even more luxe building, are asking.
Now that they have been carrying these units going on four years (Tishman Speyer must have patient investors) and are firmly in the “chasing the market down” phase of the sales cycle, it’ll be interesting to see at what level these actually trade. The target buyers for these units are in the same strata of the socio-economic spectrum that has been increasingly abandoning San Francisco due to the inexorable rise of remote work and the high property prices here.
How chivalrous of you to not mention the societal criminal fentanyl-induced decline as one of the reasons for the increasing abandonment of San Francisco by well-to-dos (those that pay the taxes that sustain such a robust budget).
Well, there’s nothing specific to San Francisco about that social problem, you can find criminal drug trade-induced dystopian areas in every major city in the Bay Area and the U.S. in general (see that package in The San Francisco Chronicle recently, Tracking U.S. drug overdose deaths). And of course, it was well in evidence prior to the pandemic.
Many other locales are not in the penalty box of public perception as San Francisco is. In part b/c they are handling the issue more effectively. As an example, passed out folk, soaked in urine and draped across the sidewalk do not make the city more walkable.
Sure. You didn’t mention what those other locales were, but I’d venture to guess that they are able to take such effective steps toward handling the issue because they are in areas of the country not covered by the Ninth Circuit’s holding in Martin v. City of Boise in 2018. San Francisco is.
Read my comment again. Let’s not conflate Martin v. Boise with the drug crisis. What we hear from our government executives and cohorts is mostly “addressing” the issue. Here I make a distinction to actually wanting to solve things, using the legal framework available. Pulling one out of the hat, how about ADA? And in addition, how about imploring voters and legislators to pass the laws necessary to get the leverage to be able to gain traction. Looking at you, conservatorship. But all that would ultimately mean to put in question the hundreds of millions that are flowing to maintain the “harm reduction” status quo.
Meanwhile: On noooos, the APAC summit is looming. Breed and Newsom appear increasingly nervous and desperate about the looks of the state of affairs, and how that might negatively reflect on them and their future political aspirations.
What you’re calling “the drug crisis” on the streets of San Francisco is inextricably intertwined with the fact that we have large numbers of people living unsheltered on those streets. Once someone ends up living on the streets, they become prey for drug dealers, and addiction soon follows, although not all the homeless are addicts.
You and Jimbo are saying that S.F. is worse than most cities, but I brought up the the Ninth Circuit’s decision because I think you must compare cities constrained by that decision to other cities also similarly-constrained. Next time you take BART to the East Bay for any reason, take a look out the window when you come out of the tunnel at the near post-apocalyptic dystopian street scene in West Oakland, for example.
While “harm reduction” advocates make a lot of noise and have a lot of visibility, I don’t think they represent the “status quo”. The Mayor is on the record as supporting and overhaul of The State’s conservatorship laws and has been for years. She shut the so-called safe-consumption site called the Tenderloin Center down last year.
The City&County is on the hook for millions in damages after an army of sidewalk campers were placed in hotels during the pandemic. This shows that first and foremost, we are not dealing with a housing issue, this is an addiction issue. These people have lost everything, not just their roof over the head, because they cannot hold anything together any longer. They cannot be housed, they cannot be warehouse-sheltered for any duration, they need to be institutionalized for programmed detox and recovery. Many will never get off drugs any more.
So London Breed is taking a token political position and is windmilling over the hundreds of OD deaths every year. What is being accomplished? That’s the bar, and it is her Democratic Party that runs the City&County, the Bay Area, the State that gets nothing done.
Daniel: since you’re so engaged on this issue affecting quality of life in San Francisco, you’ll be pleased to know that this week, California lawmakers approved key changes to the landmark Lanterman Petris Short Act by passing Senate Bill 43, authored by a Democratic Party-nominated State Senator from Stockton (that city has a similar problem with homelessness and drug addiction as S.F.) to make it easier for mental health providers to initiate an involuntary hold on people experiencing homelessness that can lead to conservatorship.
I hope you and other like-minded folks on the right vote for the supporting initiatives on the March 2024 ballot to fund an increase in psychiatric beds and services across the state.
strong disagree. SF is way worse than most cities, although a few like baltimore and philly are there. that was pretty clear in the article and many others showing OD rates and property crime rates
Daniel: you may want to look at some objective facts vs. simply reading the news. California has a much lower drug overdose mortality per capita than you think, and far lower than many “red states.” See “Drug Overdose Mortality by State” on the CDC website.
You think addiction is what leads to homelessness. That could be true in some cases. It’s also true (as Brahma stated) that some people end up on the street for some reason other than addiction but then fall prey to drugs.
@Sean: What a cr.p comment. You been out there recently? Tenderloin, Soma, Inner Mission? I have, it is a disaster zone in case you need thins pointed out.
I will agree that other cities outside of the jurisdiction of the 9th circuit “are not in the penalty box of public perception as San Francisco is”, but that’s primarily because the number 1 source where average Americans get the information that shapes their “perception” is Fox News. Fox is pushing the party line propaganda that San Francisco is “way worse than most cities” because people who don’t share their ideological agenda have been elected to most political offices, and they want to popularize the idea that San Francisco’s problems are caused by progressive governance.
SF has problems but it is NOT worse than most cities, except on Fox News. Nor is it worse than most non-cities. If you drive around West Virginia, you see a poverty that is far beyond anything in SF.
So all is good then I guess /s
No one is saying it is all good. SF has problems. However, many places have problems, and their problems are worse than our problems.
the OD rate in SF is almost 4x that of California overall.
SF has the 5th highest OD rate of any city of 500K people.
SF has the highest property crime rate of any major city.
we may not be the worst, but we are among the worst.
admittedly we are doing well comparatively on violent crime, but lets see how long that lasts if we dont change our politicians
Yes, San Francisco has problems. Fox News documents them extensively. Compare the numbers with West Virginia, which Fox News does not document.
why compare to WV, Why not compare to other major cities, which is what i showed.? If i were comparing the US metrics to other countries, i wouldnt only compare to swaziland.
I highly doubt more than 5% of people in SF watch Fox News and doubt thats having much of an impact on how people feel locally.
If anything I’d guess that TV news viewers would understate the *relative* decline of SF as of late. For at least the last 15 years there’s been some part of the city where you could get a telegenic shot exemplifying urban decay. Street people, drugs, boarded up windows,… Were I a TV reporter and my producer told me to “Get a shot that makes SF look like a dumpy hellhole” I could go seek out a place to get that shot. But as a resident I just knew how to avoid the bad areas.
Now it seems that most or all of the urban part of SF has gotten much worse and some of the negatives have been spilling into the nicer neighborhood areas. It seem so much less avoidable now.
jimbo: Because West Virginia has a Republican Governor, and California has a Democratic (and a vocal critic of Republicans, to boot) one, Fox News hasn’t and isn’t going to air anything that shows poverty (or the prevalence of drug abuse, or anything else like that) is more of a problem in W. Virginia than in California. From The Los Angeles Times, Americans are hopelessly confused about big-city crime. Partisanship is partly to blame:
I am not saying S.F. doesn’t have problems, or that they aren’t serious; I’m addressing the public perception.
Even if it’s true that “it’s doubtful more than 5 percent of people in SF watch Fox News”, that doesn’t mean that network’s coverage doesn’t have an impact. Managers at other networks and local stations see Fox’s ratings (Fox is the top-rated cable news source), and this influences their decisions about what to cover and how to present it. Which in turn influences how local people feel.
“If i were comparing the US metrics to other countries, i wouldnt only compare to swaziland.”
Perfect. You just made my point by comparing West Virginia to Swaziland. You accurately observe that West Virginia, along with Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, and many others, is significantly worse off then SF. You won’t see Fox News rattling off segment after segment about these places.
Ugh, this building had so much potential and the conglomeration of planning/NIMBYs/supervisors/etc/etc lopped off the top and left us with this stub of a building. It’s ok as is, but it could have been a really striking icon.
Yeah we could have even more unsold units. Whatever.
I’m puzzled, tho, by your seemingly revisionist take: according to this (presumably reputable) site https://socketsite.com/archives/2015/11/height-increase-for-twisty-400-foot-tower-officially-under-review.html the project was actually upzoned…NIMBY, indeed.
Perpetual top-down class war is a thing with the asset pirate class…
You’re just jealous because you actually enjoy being nice to your neighbors.