Bridge Housing signs full-floor lease at SF’s 350 California

Affordable housing developer Bridge Housing has signed a long-term lease on a full floor at 350 California Street in San Francisco’s North Financial District, according to a press release. The 16,100-square-foot lease is the first since The Swig Company and SKS Partners bought the office building for $61 million late last summer. 

The owners did not reply to a request for comment on the length of the lease, the price per square foot, tenant improvements or other lease terms.

At a sales price of about $200 per square foot, 350 California went for one-quarter of the $250 million former owner Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group wanted for the 22-story tower when it hit the market in 2020. The sale was part of several big trades in the latter half of last year that involved local buyers resetting the commercial market downtown by taking a long-term view on the city’s recovery. 

“One of the reasons we like the building, and a motivating factor for us as an investor, is that we believe the 16,000-square-foot floorplates hit a sweet spot sought by the widest range of tenants in the current market and for the foreseeable future,” Connor Kidd, CEO of The Swig Company, said in a statement.   

The building has about 300,000 square feet in leasable space, with one-third still occupied by UFJ. About 182,000 square feet is available for lease as full floors or subdivided, with CBRE representing the owners. 

The large vacancy in the building and in San Francisco’s larger downtown could end up being a boon for nonprofits like BRIDGE, according to Paul Stein, managing partner of SKS Partners. 

“The San Francisco market’s reset creates a tremendous opportunity for nonprofits, growth companies and other mid-size users to solidify their place in the city’s office ecosystem,” he said in a statement.  

Bridge Housing has been headquartered in San Francisco since its founding in 1983 and will be leaving its current offices on the ninth floor of 600 California Street. The WeWork-owned building was sued for foreclosure last summer after falling behind on its $240 million loan. The latest special servicer comments from November show that WeWork had agreed to put the building into receivership with Trigild. 

Trigild was “stabilizing operations and finalizing a new lease on the 18th floor” at the time, and had enlisted JLL to “aggressively market the vacancy” in the building.

Bridge is taking the entire 16th floor at 350 California and was drawn to its “extensive amenities that will provide a comfortable, healthy and productive environment for the Bridge Housing team as we pursue our affordable housing mission,” said CEO Ken Lombard. “We look forward to beginning a new chapter of our long legacy in San Francisco in our new corporate home.” 

The 22-story building was renovated shortly before its sale and has a large lobby with a wraparound mezzanine, a conference center, game room, lounge areas and a kitchen.   

The lease is the second full-floor lease in the Financial District announced this week, with Japanese media and technology company Rakuten taking 29,000 square feet at 300 Mission Street.

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