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Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

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Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#291

Post by ps747 »

ngokevin wrote: post #240
ps747 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. I love SF. The Symphony is phenomenal, love the Opera and Ballet too. The parks are beautiful, and you can get out into nature in about an hour's drive. Living in SF is expensive, but salaries are high too. Especially if you're in tech like most on HN, you can have a very nice lifestyle here.

I like SF, but symphonies, operas, ballets, and beautiful parks are like the common denominator of major US cities. But anyways I agree SF is beautiful in many areas, and no one should listen to any opinions of SF from anyone who calls it "San Fran" :)

Yes, I agree that most major cities have these things, but I truly believe the SF Symphony is special, almost as brilliant as the NY Philharmonic.

They regularly host top performers from around the world -- Itzhak Perlman, Gustavo Dudamel, Yuja Wang, and so many more. And Michael Tilson Thomas is a treasure. Anyway, I can ramble about this forever and I appreciate the response :)

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#293

Post by hitekker »

dannyw wrote: post #148
pdx6 wrote: post #143

For those that think this is the end of San Francisco, take a deep breath. The empty office space and worries about expiring leases only applies to companies that can't work remote. SF has a huge service industry, swaths of culture, and some pretty nice weather. A bunch of chair warmers and button pushers moved to Tahoe or Mazzula, so what? It is nice to have a huge house and some land, but city living is are a trade…

I don’t think everyone who lives in San Fran wants do life in San Fran. They’re here because that’s where the jobs are.

I agree. I lived in San Fran for two years for the job, mostly.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#294

Post by Swizec »

asiachick wrote: post #289
Swizec wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who moved from a large small city (300k residents, 100k students, 300k daily commuters) to San Francisco ... yeah the density is totally worth it. Back home we had restaurants and cuisine and all that. It wasn’t a wasteland. But SF has more high quality restaurants within a 20min walk of my apartment than my hometown had in total. Average restaurant quality is higher too. Just because there’s more competit…

The way you feel about SF vs your 300k residents town is how I feel about Tokyo vs SF. When I'm in SF it's sad how few choices I have and how bad most of them are. And all those asian restaurants you mention are not remotely "good". You can find a few descent asian restaurants in the south bay like say Fremont but LA does them all significantly better and in far higher quantity

Correct. Both of those cities are larger than SF. Less walkable due to lower density, though.

If it weren’t for SF’s high concentration of my industry (tech), I’d likely move to NYC, London, or Paris.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#295

Post by twblalock »

cm2187 wrote: post #184
kristopolous wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other week I was on real estate sites and I saw a bunch of "apartments" in SOMA that just looked like offices with some hastily slapped on anemities, as if there was some "wink wink nudge nudge" going on and they had to call the place an "apartment" for some city ordinance but everyone knew it was an office. However, I realized it was exactly the opposite. These people were taking their office spaces and desperat…

Looking at an office tower and a residential tower being built side by side by my window. I would never live in a converted office building. The resi tower has concrete separations between floors and if you are lucky, between flats on the same floor. Office buildings don’t have any real separation between floors as you are supposed to walk on accessible fake floors and have fake ceilings too. The sound insulation bet…

> The sound insulation between flats on a converted office building must be nil.

A lot of the older buildings in SF just have 2x4 walls separating the apartments, with fiberglass insulation. It's not very good at insulating sound either.

If the office conversions are done properly they will be better at sound insulation than much of the existing housing stock in SF.

The real question is, why bother renting in SF when any of the surrounding cities are cheaper? Most of the reasons to live in SF (restaurants, nightlife, cultural events) are shut down indefinitely, and commute distance isn't relevant if you are working from home. Renters can get a lot more for their money in the East Bay or the Peninsula.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#296

Post by culopatin »

slickrick216 wrote: post #276
SilasX wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At risk of extreme naivety, why do failed real estate investments merit Fed support and attention? I thought they were just for maintaining a sound dollar and liquidity and the financial system, not charity for real estate kings.

Because after 2008 the fed became one of the largest landowners in the country and by proxy have a vested interest in propping it up.

The Fed as in the Federal Reserve you mean? Do you have a source? I think you may be confusing things.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#297

Post by culopatin »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #280
sebmellen wrote: post #2

A close relative of mine is a top real estate appraiser based in San Francisco, and she's terrified about what happens in Q2 2021, when leases will start terminating en masse. She's had a call with the St. Louis Fed, as they're trying to get an idea of what this will look like. She thinks it will be a bloodbath, and deal a death blow to corporate real estate (and other capital markets by extension).

I’d she’s based in SF why didn’t she contact the SF Fed?

Different Feds do different things. St Louis Fed I believe is strong in data analysis and forecasting.

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#298

Post by [deleted] »

paul_f wrote: post #283
albacur wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might require the added context of living here. San Francisco has one of the highest property crime rates in the United States [1], and Walgreens is a popular target of shoplifters, who regularly clear out entire shelves of merchandise. The company hasn't come out and said it, but some believe that rampant shoplifting is a reason why eight Walgreens locations in the city have been permanently closed [2]. [1] https…

Proposition 47 essentially decriminalized shoplifting. Californians literally voted for this petty crime wave. As a Florida resident, all I can say is, y'all have fun with that

[deleted]

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#299

Post by octoberfranklin »

gumby wrote: post #173

How does this compare to 2001 when the dot-com neutron bomb his SF? Lots of empty real estate and huge construction projects continuing or starting (due to low interest rates and long lead times)?

Tech was not an existentially-huge fraction of SF's economy back then.

The peninsula, where it always has been, got hammered.

At the time I was commuting from SF to the mid-peninsula. I recall meeting with one of my clients in a field-house sized cubicle farm which must've had at least 300 desks, probably more. We were the only two people in there in the middle of the day on a weekday.

Suburban office space gets spooky during recessions, due to its sheer bigness...

Re: Nearly 12M Square Feet of Vacant Office Space in S.F

#300

Post by uptown »

arbuge wrote: post #247
sebmellen wrote: post #2

A close relative of mine is a top real estate appraiser based in San Francisco, and she's terrified about what happens in Q2 2021, when leases will start terminating en masse. She's had a call with the St. Louis Fed, as they're trying to get an idea of what this will look like. She thinks it will be a bloodbath, and deal a death blow to corporate real estate (and other capital markets by extension).

> and she's terrified about what happens in Q2 2021, when leases will start terminating en masse. I thought the general expectation, or at least the hope, is that that's about when things start to go back to normal.

What is normal? If companies can be as productive (or close ) without the expensive office space - would they all go back to what had been considered “normal”? I doubt it.
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