Crest Partners Pays $40M for 2.3-Acre Bus Repair Yard in SF

Crest Partners has bought a 2.3-acre bus repair site in San Francisco for $39.5 million, the biggest industrial deal in the city in nearly two years.

The San Jose-based investor led by Ryan Madson bought the 9,600-square-foot building and yard at 3550 3rd Street, south of the Islais Creek Channel near the India Basin, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

The seller of the rectangular property was an undisclosed family that has owned the site for three decades. The deal works out to $4,114 per square foot, or nearly $17.2 million per acre.

It’s the largest industrial trade since November 2022, when Goodman North America bought a 30,000-square-foot building on 5 acres at 180-200 Napoleon Street for $83.2 million.

Brokers Blake Miller and Max Rattner of Reliance Real Estate Advisors represented the buyer. Miller declined to disclose how Crest financed the deal.

Crest said it plans to hold onto the property long term. The idea is that the availability of “low coverage” industrial sites, or sites with plenty of land, is diminishing, bolstering their value.

The property is leased to Dallas-based MV Transportation, a private transit service provider that uses it for bus maintenance and repairs.

This deal marks Crest’s first acquisition in San Francisco, a market it has been looking to enter for some time, said Miller.

Crest was founded in early 2022 by Madson, who had once opened the San Francisco office of EverWest Real Estate Investment, now Sagard, and previously had served as vice president of dispositions for investment manager RREEF, according to his LinkedIn page.

Crest has investments in the Seattle and Portland markets, Miller told the Business Times, as well as some in the Bay Area. But the newspaper wasn’t immediately able to identify the assets.

The firm, which says on its LinkedIn page it has between two and 10 employees, describes itself as targeting “small to mid-size value-add investments” in the Bay Area and Pacific Northwest.

Last year, Crest bought a 12.7-acre truck yard outside Sacramento for $14.25 million. The firm made the purchase through an affiliate linked to the Washington, D.C., private equity firm The Carlyle Group, property records show.

— Dana Bartholomew