SF antique mall may close after $900K a year rent hike

Dozens of vendors may lose their booths at a San Francisco antique mall that may close after the property owner jacked up the rent $900,000 a year.

Stuff, a 17,000-square-foot antiques emporium at 150 Valencia Street in North Mission, may be forced to close if it can’t get a better deal from the building owner, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Will Lenker and James Spinello opened Stuff 11 years ago south of Highway 101. It now has 60 vendors who support themselves through their sales of everything from mid-century modern furniture to exotic textiles to pop art prints.

In recent months, they’ve tried to negotiate with the property owner, Aralon Properties, which bought the building in 2015. The couple is nearing the end of their existing 12-year lease, which runs out in 2024, Spinello said.

“It has felt very personal to try to keep this going for” the vendors, Spinello told the Chronicle. “This is their livelihood.”

After the building’s previous owner passed away, the property was listed for $6.1 million, according to broker advertisements, where it was described as an “excellent investment opportunity” that could also be redeveloped or expanded along the “bustling Valencia Street Retail Corridor.”

The Chronicle was unable to reach Thomas Murphy, president of Aralon Properties. The private real estate company based in San Francisco develops and manages commercial real estate, according to its website.

Over the past few months, Lenker and Spinello said they thought Aralon Properties was interested in either selling the building or renting to them after the lease expired.

Aralon had already hiked their rent to $25,000 a month, from $20,000 a month, Spinello said.

But in the past week, Spinello said he was given two options: Either pay $10 million for the building, or pay $75,000 a month in rent, which comes out to $900,000 more a year.

Either scenario will likely make it impossible for Stuff to stay open, Spinello said. The closure would affect vendors, employees and such customers as actress Jennifer Coolidge and personalities from the Mythbusters, Metallica, Chris Isaac and others.

When the antique mall first opened, it “literally sucked the air out of every room,” said Judith Thorn, 78, an early vendor who once taught hip-hop at Santa Rosa Junior College. “I’ve never seen anything like it in America.

“Stuff has hip things, as opposed to stuff that your grandma discarded,” she said. “If this goes, the city is going down the tube.”

In May, Aralon Properties leased a 142,000-square-foot office building built on spec to InterVenn Biosciences, at 499 Forbes Boulevard. Aralon, whose portfolio is centered in San Francisco and the northern Peninsula, bought the property for close to $10 million in 2018.

— Dana Bartholomew