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Originally Posted by BushMan
some of SF's most beautiful older buildings refurbished by tech companies (Twitter Building, Yelp HQ, The Warfield Building, Zendesk's Eastern Outfitting Co. building to name some prominent examples)
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To be clear, Shorenstein's finance/real estate guys, their lenders, their architects, engineers, construction guys, and their attorneys got the 1355 Market and 1 Tenth (adjacent) deals done with Twitter/tech/tax breaks as basis for the deal. Woulda' been energy/oil in Houston or who knows what in another town (Twitter just signed up with a very similar building in Atlanta…so it’s definitely tech conducive space anywhere there is tech). Twitter didn't renovate that building and they don't occupy the whole thing, either. Credit:
1) The City's various departments that incentivized development there in Mid-Market in the first place with business friendly tax structures
2) Shorenstein's acquisition team for having the foresight, the balls, and the financial wherewithal to close the deal at the time they did (I guarantee nothing short of a few all nighters by the acq team to get this across the finish line)
3) Shorenstein's asset management team for executing the deal and working with Twitter to attract, move, and accommodate them, and other tenants, into both buildings
4) The architects working alongside Shorenstein's asset management team for designing such a beautiful remodel and retaining history (RMW Architecture and Interiors, BCV Architects)
5) The engineers who helped the architects design a project that could fully retrofit a prewar mart/warehouse into a 21st century office building (Murphy Burr Curry repped Twitter on their buildout, and Taylor Engineering was hired by Shorenstein I believe)
6) The construction guys involved who worked day and night to bring paper to reality (BN Builders, Novo Construction represented Twitter in their buildout)
7) All the brokers involved – Twitter’s reps, the landlord’s reps, the seller of the building’s reps, etc.
8) And the City's, Shorenstein's, and Twitter's legal teams for formulating the process and making sure it happened smoothly and legally, with as few setbacks and hiccups as possible. (I guarantee nothing short of several all nighters were pulled by these teams to get this deal done)
Twitter is stroking rent checks, but they received tax breaks from the city and a beautiful buildout by Shorenstein. There was a whole team of non-tech finance, construction, design, city planner, and lawyers who actually consummated the deal. Twitter (and One Kings Lane and Yammer and others) was really the beneficiary. I go into detail on this one because this is how it works.
Yelp's building (140 New Montgomery/PacTel) was Stockbridge and Wilson Meany and is not even half Yelp I don't think. They started the renovation spec as many do nowadays in this town given the economic support (tech, in this case).
Warfield Building is Group i and they've done several other projects in town, new construction and renovation. Building is leased by VC firms (so indirectly tech I suppose).
The Eastern Outfitting Co building at 1019 Market now occupied largely by Zendesk and others was a partnership by Westport and Cannae Partners.
The tech industry is the basis for the increase in business and prosperity enjoyed by many, perhaps most, in the City of SF and throughout parts of the greater Bay Area. It’s not that anyone has “tech” to thank, per se, but that we’re fortunate to have the right climate for which tech can sort of park itself and grow from here – similarly to energy/oil’s relationship with Houston, finance/media in New York, entertainment in LA, life sciences here and in Boston, formerly manufacturing in the upper Midwest, etc etc.
I’d say we’re fortunate for having such an economic engine here, but nobody’s doing anybody else “community service”, and lots of magnificent deals happening, both in the real estate world (leases, new towers, etc) and the capital world (IPOs, fundings, etc) are really part of different industries altogether that are growing their own business by serving “tech” (whereby they used to serve other industries that once had higher prominence in the area).
That being said, what is noticeable, though, is that despite all of this prosperity and economic growth, while the floodgates for techies are open and more and more seem to come to the city and the Bay Area each year, fewer and fewer “other” groups of people are joining them, and in fact, many industries have contracted and many “other” people have left. Tech is now taking up class A office tower space downtown while law firms and financial services firms continue to stay flat, or even downsize. Even just 2-3 years ago there were more people walking around in suits/business casual, groomed hair, polished shoes, briefcases, etc. Now there is a very noticeable presence of untucked flannel/jean wearing people with messenger bags and hipster hairdos, in what is still termed “the financial district”.
None of this is bad (I get a little sentimental about it, but it doesn’t “upset” me), but there’s a personality that can be generally attributed to the tech industry and its workers holistically, and in SF there’s certainly a degree of newfound wealth combined with obvious impressive brainpower that sometimes seems to lead to arrogance, and a general business perspective that is antagonistic to traditional industries (while simplified – “failure is rewarded” sort of thing). Many people in finance/real estate/law, for instance, easily work longer hours, have to still wear business casual at minimum if not a suit, no bean bag chairs or masseuses at work, lower pay, often a somewhat stressful environment, no ping pong tables, riding a crowded bus into work, failure can lead to firing, etc etc. And this is at the top where it’s understandable there’s a touch of resentment. I can only imagine closer to the bottom, or the so-called middle that doesn’t seem to exist much anymore.
I digress – SF as a one trick pony of both 1%er wealth defined by one industry and one general type of person is what I believe a lot of people are having problems with. Yes, new housing is needed and great – but new housing and new office AND old housing and old office are all going to the same general people. And there’s certainly an understandable though still atrocious attitude some in the tech industry seem to have that they run this town and that they’re God’s gift to man because they come up with all of the ideas (never mind that whole teams of people not in tech at all help these techies execute/deliver/implement their ideas).
Apparently the surge in tech has affected people of all socio economic stratas:
http://www.vanityfair.com/society/20...s-real-estate#
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To the pillars of the Pacific Heights community there is no higher calling than to “give back” to San Francisco. Traditionally, supporting the cultural institutions—the museums, the symphony, the opera, and the ballet—was de rigueur for any self-respecting millionaire. But with each passing year, those sources are dying off. It would seem the emergence of this high-tech crowd would fill the void and then some. And indeed, as Fulk reports, “there was a mad dash” to grab them and put them on boards. But, alas, charitable largesse has been the one arena in which the new folk have not so easily assimilated the ways of the old.
Under the leadership of angel investor Ron Conway—who has done more than anyone to keep the tech community in San Francisco by investing in hundreds of start-ups—the tech entrepreneurs have begun putting their know-how to use for the public good in the areas of education, job creation, and public safety. But it has required arm-twisting: at Conway’s insistence, Mayor Ed Lee had fought successfully for the kind of tax breaks that would encourage companies such as Twitter and Pinterest to headquarter in the city. But, as Conway admits, once those breaks passed, “Lee said, ‘Hey, the tech community is going to stay engaged, aren’t they?’ And I kind of said, ‘Not really. We’re going to go back to work.’ ” But Lee would not let Conway and his gang off the hook. Conway rallied his tech troops to become involved in a number of civic-minded initiatives, such as placing San Francisco public-school students in tech-related internships and designing a mobile field-report application for police officers so that they can file reports remotely.
Yet when it comes to significant personal giving, the tech community has been less responsive. Salesforce.com founder and C.E.O. Marc Benioff, a fifth-generation San Franciscan, recently gave $100 million to the University of California, San Francisco, to build its Children’s Hospital. But he stands alone in his generosity, and his efforts to encourage that kind of giving have been frustrating. “One of my goals is to be an inspiration to people,” says Benioff. “I hope that people start thinking differently, that they’re not just making money but also giving it away. But Silicon Valley executives have not really been giving away money. They’ve held on to it.” Mayor Lee has had to sit down with members of the tech elite and school them in the previous generation of titans, who built the parks, the universities, the cultural institutions—people such as Charles Schwab of the eponymous brokerage firm, private-equity investor Warren Hellman, real-estate tycoon Walter Shorenstein, and the Haases (Levi Strauss), who for five generations have given hundreds of millions to every sector of San Francisco life.
Some tech people think they’re getting a bad rap. True, there are a handful who seem to feel unburdened by the responsibility of sudden wealth. “I didn’t really think about it,” says Sacks when asked about the moment last year when he knew he was $1.2 billion richer thanks to the sale of Yammer to Microsoft. He threw himself a $1 million 40th-birthday party, called “Let Him Eat Cake,” for which the guests were asked to dress up as members of Marie Antoinette’s court. (Perhaps understandably, he insisted that the guests keep the party secret from the public.) As for his philanthropic giving, it’s mostly anonymous, he says. For others, the sudden fortune causes a degree of soul-searching and analysis. As Michael Birch says, “I’ve met a lot of people who’ve made money and ask, ‘What should I do?’ Everyone seems to want to do it. It’s not ‘Should I do philanthropy?’ It’s more like ‘I need to do philanthropy. I’ve made this money and now I need to give back.’ Most people want to give back in an intelligent way.”
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Among this crowd, the old ways of doing philanthropy seem hopelessly retrograde. According to Birch, tech people “don’t want to just go to dinners and write checks and do auctions. They actually want to sit back and think, What are the values that they require? Is this a good fit? They want to do due diligence in the same way you would if you were doing an investment.” The traditional areas of interest feel narrow, he adds. “Tech people like investing in stuff that’s kind of disruptive—most of the companies that they started are disruptive—[as opposed to] the arts scene. They’re engaging in arts to a degree, but most of the capital is probably going to something that they think is going to change the world.” With that in mind, Birch, after being approached by countless charities, decided to devote his money and energy to Charity Water, a nonprofit that brings clean water to developing nations. He contributed $1 million, an entire year’s operational budget, and redesigned its Web site, which “kind of sucked.”
It’s hard not to get behind the idea of clean water for everyone on the planet. But clean water in sub-Saharan Africa doesn’t do much for the San Francisco Symphony. Therein lies the tension….
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Anyway, perhaps SF forum needs a community discussion thread, but fortunately, at this point, tech, real estate, and nearly all of the community issues we discuss daily these days (not always on this site, per se) are all intertwined and related.
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Although I'm not too familiar with zoning in the city, when I lived in the region I was surprised at how restrictive zoning and land use bylaw was. 
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