BH Properties Spends $65M to Buy SF’s Anchorage Square

BH Properties has closed on its purchase of a mostly empty 200,000-square-foot shopping center and parking garage on San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf at a price of $65 million.

The Los Angeles-based real estate investor bought Anchorage Square at 500 Beach Street, the San Francisco Business Times reported. The seller was Anchorage Holdings, an affiliate of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, based in the United Arab Emirates.

The deal, first reported by the Business Times last spring without a price tag, comes out to $325 per square foot.

Anchorage Holdings bought the shopping center in 2004 for $85 million, or $425 per square foot. It took a 23.5 percent loss on the sale, not factoring for inflation.

The mostly vacant retail complex and garage still sees plenty of foot traffic from tourists and some locals because it boasts the city’s only In-N-Out Burger location.

Anchorage Square, built in the 1970s, emptied out during the pandemic, including the closure of San Francisco’s only Krispy Kreme at 353 Jefferson Street, which closed in 2021. Other storefronts such as the former Subway and City Segway Tours have stood vacant for several years.

A recent PropertyShark listing shows 18 retail vacancies at the shopping center, ranging from several hundred square feet to 12,000 square feet. It’s unclear what BH Properties has planned for the property.

BH President Jim Brooks told Real Estate Capital USA last year the company was looking to buy up loans from distressed properties around the country, ultimately to assume ownership.

In June, BH made headlines by buying the nearly 57-acre Oakland Hills campus of Holy Names University, a Catholic college that closed this spring after 155 years. The $65 million purchase came just before a foreclosure auction, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

To complete the purchase of the 66-year-old campus, BH Properties secured $45 million in financing from Hankey Capital, based in Los Angeles.

— Dana Bartholomew