Yerba Buena Island Sells Seclusion Near San Francisco

When selling the first new townhomes on Yerba Buena Island this past month, developer Chris Meany of Wilson Meany discovered that one of the buyers was a couple who had very different ideas about where they wanted to live.

The wife was very tied into San Francisco’s art scene and couldn’t imagine living anywhere that felt removed from the action, while the husband wanted to follow his obsession with water sports and live further afield. They ended up compromising on Yerba Buena Island, a development of just 266 homes on a natural island in the middle of the San Francisco Bay between San Francisco and Oakland.

It is 75 percent public open space, with miles of hiking trails, a protected swimming cove and an aptly named Panorama Park at its peak. Yet it is less than 10 minutes, via ferry, to San Francisco’s Embarcadero and a mere mile’s drive over the Bay Bridge to downtown.

“This is the city’s next district and we had an opportunity to try to conceive it and almost idealize it,” Meany said. (See accompanying video.)

When sales for the first product on the island, a condo building dubbed the Bristol, began in early 2021, there was a sales office in San Francisco’s downtown. The sales team from Compass Development would start their pitch there and then take prospective buyers over to the island. But Meany said they closed that office after they realized that it was a better strategy to just get buyers out to the island and let the designer finishes and panoramic views sell themselves.

“We have some of the best views in San Francisco and San Francisco has some of the best views in the world,” he said.

Meany described his biggest challenge as getting buyers to come to the island and get over their preconceived notions that living away from the majority of the city would deprive them of what the city has to offer. Using the development’s private shuttle buses that pick up and drop off at every ferry on neighboring Treasure Island — where Wilson Meany is also leading a much larger development that will include 8,000 new homes — homeowners on Yerba Buena can be downtown faster than if they lived in Pacific Heights, he said.

“More often than not, when somebody comes to visit us, they say, ‘We had no idea,’” he said.

Buyers on Yerba Buena are “shopping the other best buildings in the city” so the sales team at The Bristol has been “super aggressive about meeting the market,” Meany added.

Prices start at $800,000 for a studio and recently hit a high of $3.23 million for one of the three-bed, three-bath penthouses. The 124 units in the Bristol are approaching the 50 percent sold point, Meany said.

Across the street, two of the 12 recently released townhomes, which cost around $3 million, are in contract, with buyers “circling” on two more. There are also 14 one-floor flats that will come to market later this spring at prices starting around $4 million for a 2,500-square-foot, three-bed, 3.5-bath, with the top-floor penthouses expected to be priced between $8 million and $9 million for more than 4,000 square feet plus views from the Bay Bridge to the Golden Gate.

The next phase of the development — more flats, townhomes and three lots for single-family homes — is years away from completion.

COVID curveball

Yerba Buena Island Sells Seclusion Near San Francisco — The Bristol (Jason Speth/Will Edwards)

COVID was a “curveball” for this project more than 20 years in the making, Meany said, but just how far off the sales figures will be from his pre-pandemic projections will be “easiest for me to answer when the dust settles in a few years.”

What is clear already is that the pandemic has impacted the expected buyer pool. Meany said he always considered Yerba Buena Island a one-of-a-kind development that would attract buyers from outside the region. But with San Francisco’s reputation diminished, the island has appealed largely to those who already live in the Bay Area and know that the city isn’t as bad as it appears in the headlines, he explained.

“People are choosing to live here for the San Francisco address,” Meany said. “People outside the area might wonder about that, but people who are here know this is the most blessed place on earth.”

A sales rep for the island said that so far, local buyers fall into three main camps. There’s the East Bay empty nesters looking to downsize into something that allows a “lock and leave” lifestyle, the Peninsula single-family owners who want a second-home pied a terre near the city, and those who work downtown but don’t want to live there.

“You’re as connected to the city as you want to be and when you’re here you’re connected to nature and water,” the rep said.

The rep noted an uptick in showings that started in the fourth quarter of 2023 and has accelerated this year to an average of 20 tours a week.

Island amenities

Meany thinks another big differentiator for the island is its amenities package, including the Island Club, a 10,000-square-foot fitness and entertainment building with an outdoor pool that will start construction next year. The club, private security, shuttles to the Treasure Island Ferry Terminal and 24-hour attendants are all covered by the island’s HOAs.

There are even individualized dog treats at the lobby’s front desk so each dog can have its favorite when they come back from “maybe the world’s best view dog park” just up the hill from the Bristol, Meany said.

The project’s design team has steered away from the design center concept where owners choose their finishes in favor of selling a “complete home.” Given the demand for turnkey, no-hassle properties, Meany said he wouldn’t be surprised to see more developers go the same route.

“People want to know that they do not have to deal with anything but maybe choosing their curtain color,” he said.

As for the development’s social aspect, Meany has been “incredibly gratified” to see walking groups form, cookouts on the rooftop terrace of the Bristol and the first kid’s birthday party on the island.

“Frankly there’s a sense of let’s actually live in a place where the city’s beautiful again, where it feels really safe and protected,” he said. “I think all of those things play in here.”