SAN FRANCISCO – March 15, 2018 – The Northern California chapter of the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors® (SIOR) held a bus tour for the University of California at Berkeley’s Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics last week. Students and a handful of SIOR docents toured some of the Bay Area’s major real estate projects that are in varying stages of construction. The bus left the Cal campus with 47 Cal students and several SIOR representatives.
The first stop was the Oakland Global Logistics Center near the Port of Oakland. A Prologis development, the logistics facilities and distribution center is being built in three phases, totaling up to 678,000 square feet. Mark Maguire, SIOR, of Colliers International is one of the listing brokers representing Prologis and was the docent for this leg of the tour.
The next stop was San Francisco’s CBD, where the group had access to 181 Fremont’s upper-most floor, a residential penthouse still under construction. The Jay Paul Company mixed-use development opened in 2017 while its 55 luxury condos on floors 39-57 are still under construction.
About half of the group went to the top of the new Salesforce Tower, a Boston Properties (95%) and Hines LEED Platinum project. At 61 floors spanning 1,070 feet and 1.4 million square feet of total space, it is the second tallest building west of Chicago and cost in excess of $1 billion to build. The building will be 67% occupied this year and fully occupied by next year. There will be direct access to the new Transbay Transit Center, which is under construction next door.
Steve Colvin, senior vice president of property management for Boston Properties’ West Coast portfolio, talked about the building’s innovative features such as its heating and cooling system with fresh air on every floor, and 100% recycled water including waste water. The group gained access to the top-most section where natural air and cooling fans work to disperse heat from the building, and eventually an LED art installation will be featured on the outside of the building. That floor is only accessible for maintenance work and off-limits to the public other than the occasional tour.
Mike McCarthy, SIOR, Colliers International, talked about the San Francisco office market during the ride to Mission Bay. Here, the new Golden State Warriors arena–Chase Center, is under construction and scheduled to open in time for the 2019-2020 basketball season.
Terezia Nemeth, a Cal undergraduate with a masters in architecture from Cal and a masters in real estate from MIT, joined the tour. Nemeth, senior development officer with Alexandria Real Estate Equities, spoke about her 20-year history developing Mission Bay from a mostly vacant industrial wasteland into a transformed 303-acre neighborhood anchored by UCSF’s offices, a new hospital, life science companies, office buildings, condominiums, apartments and retail properties. Alexandria is the master developer of both Chase Center and UBER’s new headquarters.
Representatives from Mortenson Clark, general contractor for Chase Center, presented a virtual tour of the construction before the group headed to a parking structure rooftop for a view of the arena under construction as well as the new UBER campus.
“This was a really great tour that offered unprecedented access for future potential real estate professionals to existing professionals that spanned industrial and office brokers, developers, a major commercial contractor and an architectural firm–the full gamut of the built environment,” says SIOR Northern California chapter 2018 president John Hans, SIOR, Rossetti Company. “In addition, the students were able to see some of the iconic San Francisco properties that are shaping the skyline.”
The SIOR Northern California Chapter, along with matching funds from SIOR Foundation, is sponsoring Cal’s Undergraduate Real Estate Club with programming and scholarship grants. The chapter is also working with Sacramento State University with similar programs and grants. The bus tour event was a follow up to SIOR’s first event with Cal, which featured a “town hall” career development panel with SIORs, a developer and students last fall.
About SIOR
The SOCIETY OF INDUSTRIAL AND OFFICE REALTORS® (SIOR) is the leading professional office and industrial real estate association. SIOR members complete more than 80,000 transactions annually. SIOR has more than 3,000 members in more than 630 cities in 34 countries. SIOR represents today’s most knowledgeable, experienced, and successful commercial real estate brokerage specialists. Real estate professionals who have earned the SIOR designation are recognized as the most capable and experienced brokerage practitioners in any market.