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Old Posted Dec 5, 2008, 1:20 PM
BTinSF BTinSF is offline
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Location: San Francisco & Tucson
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Friday, December 5, 2008
Top Vision halts $240M Candlestick condos
San Francisco Business Times - by J.K. Dineen

Work on the $240 million phase three of Top Vision Development’s Candlestick Point has come to a grinding halt, with the builder unable to secure construction financing for the waterfront project.

In the latest in a series of San Francisco condominium complexes placed on the back burner due to the tight credit markets, Top Vision General Manager Jerry Brunstein said project lender United Commercial Bank recently informed his firm that it would not finance the 465-unit third phase of the Candlestick Point project. Other major housing developments that have been shelved include the 292-unit phase two of One Rincon Hill and the 318-unit phase two of the Radiance in Mission Bay.

Brunstein said the decision to stop building was based entirely on the inability to secure a construction loan, not on the generally abysmal housing market. He said phase three will take 24 to 30 months to build, long enough for the residential market to bounce back.

“If somebody will lend us the money, we have great confidence in the market,” said Brunstein.

The decision is a blow to the city’s plans to create 2,800 units of housing on Candlestick Point, the isolated waterfront land between Highway 101 and Monster Park in the city’s southeast corner. Top Vision sold out its first 128 units in 2001 and thus far has unloaded 146 condos in the 176-unit phase two, although Brunstein said sales have slowed to a handful a month since the summer. He said the buyers continue to be attracted to the quiet waterfront location, a site that offers nature trails and windsurfing, but lacks the public transportation, shopping and restaurants that most San Francisco neighborhoods offer.

“We were selling 10 a month during the best of times. Now we are lucky if we get one a week.”

While Top Vision’s first two phases are wood frame over podium, which is much cheaper to build, the third phase is concrete and steel highrise construction, with a pair of 16-story structures and another two of seven and eight stories. Brunstein said it is unlikely that a new lender will step in anytime soon.

“We have a broker or two out there hunting, but they don’t give us a lot of optimistic reports,” said Brunstein.

Meanwhile, next door to the Top Vision site, Signature Properties is still building Candlestick Cove, a 125-unit phase of a cluster that will eventually total 499 units. Signature Properties President Michael Ghielmetti said they are cautiously moving forward with their wood frame units, adding five-unit townhouses as warranted by sales of completed units. He said Signature has no immediate plans to start work on the taller 100-plus-unit podium buildings it has entitled.

“Sales are slower than we would like,” said Ghielmetti, “but we have not changed anything.”

Chris Foley of Polaris Group, which is handling sales for Top Vision, said it’s not surprising construction was put on ice.

Office and residential highrises are on hold because no one knows what the economics are going to be when we come out of this financial situation,” Foley said.
Source: http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/...ml?t=printable
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