Bay Area Commercial Real Estate Firms Merge

It’s a match made in Bay Area commercial real estate heaven for Maven Commercial and Goldman Limited.

The two CRE players merged this week, bringing Goldman Limited founder Nadine Whisnant over to Maven as principal. The new company will retain the Maven Commercial name.

The merger marks a significant expansion for retail leasing leader Maven Commercial in the East Bay and Bay Area markets. Whisnant will work out of Maven’s San Francisco headquarters, though she’ll continue to fully operate in the East Bay as she has before, a representative for the company told The Real Deal.

Maven has 30 employees, and no positions will be eliminated. Whether there will be any consolidation in office space remains to be seen.

The executive team at Maven includes co-founders and principals Santino DeRose and Pam Mendelsohn as well as principal Catherine Meunier and Chicago team leader Lorraine Adney.

“We’ve worked alongside Nadine on many transactions and consistently found a natural alignment in how we approach clients and the business. Her depth of knowledge in the East Bay and throughout the greater Bay Area makes this an exciting opportunity to grow together,” DeRose told The Real Deal, touting Whisnant’s “strong relationships with both well-known retailers and restaurateurs as well as with landlords.”

Whisnant founded Goldman Limited in 2000. Maven, founded in 2010 and expanding into Chicago in 2021, maintains a presence in upscale San Francisco retail neighborhoods like Hayes Valley, Cow Hollow, Upper Fillmore and Union Square. The merger with Goldman will increase its presence in East Bay markets like Berkeley, Walnut Creek, Alameda and Lafayette.

Farewell to a titan

Bay Area real estate mogul and prolific philanthropist Thaddeus “Tad” Taube has died at the age of 94. The Polish-born giant died at his home in San Mateo County.

Taube co-founded The Woodmont Companies, which went on to become one of the largest privately owned investment real estate companies on the West Coast.

In subsequent decades, he worked toward charitable causes through his Koret Foundation. In his home country, Taube founded and helped fund the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.

Across the Bay Area, Taube funded projects such as an upgrade of the San Francisco Opera’s performance space and the reinstallation of the Bay Bridge’s “Bay Lights.” He supported Stanford University athletics through the construction of the Taube Family Tennis Stadium and launched programs to connect at-risk youth with professional sports teams in the region. He also invested in health care initiatives like the Neurodegenerative Disease Research Collaborative and the Tad and Dianne Taube Pavilion at Stanford’s children’s hospital and efforts to address youth addiction, concussions, pediatric cancer and maternal and mental health.

“If you were to draw a road map of my life, it would have multiple forks,” he once said. “I often find myself driving along several paths at the same time.”

Everything’s coming up roses?

Six years after its application for construction was approved, Kilroy Realty is offering a bouquet of different flowers for its planned redevelopment of the old San Francisco Flower Market.

The Los Angeles-based firm filed a new application with a handful of options for development at the Central South of Market site that would increase housing and office capacity.

One version calls for five buildings with roughly 2.6 million square feet of office or lab space, up to 100,000 square feet of retail space, 300,000 square feet of institutional space and more than 800 parking spots. Another would apply the state density bonus law to build seven buildings containing a total of 3,532 new homes as well as 100,000 square feet of retail space and more than 1,800 parking spaces.

The “Mixed-Use Variant” would have 1,242 housing units as well as 1.5 million square feet of office or lab space, 100,000 square feet of commercial space and more than 1,000 parking spaces in five buildings, while the “Institutional Variant” proposes roughly 1.4 million square feet of medical or institutional space, 1.2 million square feet for office and lab tenants, plus 100,000 square feet of retail and 431 parking spaces across five buildings.

Livin’ at the car wash

A long-languishing car wash in Lower Haight could finally be scrubbed away in favor of residences.

San Francisco Supervisor Bilal Mahmood introduced legislation that would allow building projects to follow the code in place at the time a proposal application was initially filed, clearing the way for Irvine-based developer 4Terra Investments to move forward with its planned six-story, 203-unit building at 400 Divisadero Street, approved in 2017.

The Touchless Car Wash project has been seemingly dead in the soapy water for nine years; building codes related to mechanical, electrical, plumbing, structural and energy change every three years. As a result, 4Terra has had to redesign its plans since it originally filed them.

By using the regulations in place in 2016, 4Terra is projected to save approximately $4 million on the project.

A lucky break

Last week’s passage of Senate Bill 79 in the California legislature included a carveout affecting just one county in the whole state: Contra Costa.

State Sen. Scott Wiener’s SB 79 will only apply to counties with more than 15 high-frequency train or bus stops, leaving just seven counties in the whole state subject to the upzoning legislation; in the Bay Area, that includes Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties.

Contra Costa County avoided SB 79’s enforcement with exactly 15 stations falling under the bill’s permission for high-density zoning, including 12 Bay Area Rapid Transit stations and three Amtrak stations in Richmond, Martinez and Antioch.

The NIMBY win came after the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors and city councilmembers in Lafayette and Orinda lobbied state lawmakers to advance the amendment, arguing that SB 79 would increase density along fire evacuation zones and put residents at risk.