A Union Square retail and office building has come under new ownership for the first time in nearly half a century.
Beverly Hills-based investor Bijan Chadorchi acquired the six-story 251 Post Street building in a $30.5 million transaction, the San Francisco Business Times reported. The 38,000-square-foot property was sold by Grosvenor, which maintained control of the building through affiliates for nearly 50 years before listing it for sale earlier this year.
The price amounts to $803 per square foot.
The property turned heads when it hit the market, said Kazuko Morgan of Cushman & Wakefield, which had the listing.
“The amount of interest was unbelievable,” Morgan told the outlet. “It’s a confirmation that Union Square is one of the most stable places to buy.”
The purchase is Chadorchi’s latest deal in the San Francisco market. In August, he sold a 40,000-square-foot commercial building at 180 Redwood Street for $13.3 million. The buyer in that transaction was the Service Employees International Union Local 1021.
The Post Street building was constructed in 1908 and seismically retrofitted in 2004. The property was 54 percent leased as of June and sits on a ritzy block with luxury retail outposts like Cartier, Harry Winston, Rolex, Patek Philippe and Ferragamo.
The building sports nearly 10,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, with tenants including St. John Knits and a former RealReal flagship currently in search of a sublease tenant.
A string of deals in the Union Square area over the past year signal the slow rebirth of the retail hotspot, which struggled after the pandemic, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Fountainhead scooped up the 800 Market Street “Flatiron” building last month for less than half of its pre-pandemic value, while Dallas-based investor Douglas MacMahon bought the debt-challenged One Union Square building the month prior. In the spring and summer, Ian Jacobs, a scion of Toronto’s Reichmann real estate family, began buying up properties along Powell Street with a hopeful vision for San Francisco’s recovery.