Intersect Power Sets Up Hub in San Francisco’s SoMa

Intersect Power has opened its first brick-and-mortar outpost with a 12,000-square-foot headquarters in San Francisco.

The formerly virtual renewable energy firm has set up shop after signing a lease for offices at 140 New Montgomery Street in South of Market, the San Francisco Examiner reported.

Terms of the lease with Boston-based Pembroke were not disclosed.

Sheldon Kimber, founder and head of Intersect Power, called San Francisco a natural fit, in part because of the proximity to tech movers and shakers with whom the company has been developing projects to sate energy demands for data processing.

“It’s incredibly synergistic,” he told the Examiner.

The firm’s new digs will stretch across the 26-floor Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company building. The 435-foot-tall Art Deco skyscraper, constructed in 1925, was then the tallest building in the city.

The 342,600-square-foot landmark was restored in 2013 at a cost of more than $50 million. The Telephone Building, designed by Timothy Pflueger, has terra-cotta piers flecked with white and gray, plus Bell System details and 13-foot-tall eagle statues at its crest. A black marble and brass lobby contains period-style furnishings.

In 2016, the Boston real estate investment trust bought the tower for $283 million, a then-record $960 per square foot.

In December, Intersect Power announced a strategic partnership with Google and TPG Rise Climate to add renewable power and storage to new data centers.

Kimber said the Google energy executive who is his counterpart works ”just a short walk from our office here in San Francisco.”

Intersect also announced a more than $800 million funding round led by TPG Rise Climate and Google, with buy-ins from Climate Adaptive Infrastructure and Greenbelt Capital Partners.

Kimber pointed out that TPG, one of its largest investors, also has an office on California Street.

Intersect Power has raised $2.1 billion in equity financing and about $6.48 billion in financing, a company spokesperson told the Examiner.

Last summer, Pembroke inked deals for 56,000 square feet of leases at 140 Montgomery, including a renewal from Bloomberg, its largest tenant, bringing occupancy up to 82 percent. Asking rents in its lower floors were around $75 per square foot, while view floors at the top ran from the high $90s to low $120s. — Dana Bartholomew