Luxury High Rise Living Redefined

By Joseph Lucier

When the Four Seasons Residences first came available for sale in 2001 as a re-purposed office building, few of the city’s high-end residential agents gave the project much notice. Shockingly after all, it was on Market Street! The St. Regis Museum Tower refined the model a few years later nestling up to SFMOMA at 181 Minna Street followed by Millennium Partners doubling down their bet on the neighborhood and building the first luxury “resident-only” Millennium Tower at 301 Mission Street in 2009. Downtown certainly had come a long way since 1984 when pioneer Ned Spieker developed the city’s first mixed use office/residential building (32 units) at 611 Washington Street across from the Transamerica Pyramid and home to Tommy Toy’s fashionable Chinese restaurant.

four seasons (far left), 706 Mission (center), St. Regis Museum Tower (far right) — **four seasons** (far left), **706 Mission** (center), **St. Regis Museum Tower** (far right)

"It would be highly recommended to take a serious look at this constrained market niche for an excellent long-term investment"

Fast forward to 2016…two more ultra-luxury residential projects are underway this year signaling the maturation of the Yerba Buena+SOMA neighborhood and firmly establishing this new hub of sophisticated living in San Francisco. Between these two buildings, 181 Fremont Street, Jay Paul Company’s mixed-use office/residential tower, and the Millennium Partners 706 Mission Street residential tower, 258 more units will be added to the existing stock of 660 residences at the Four Seasons, St. Regis and Millennium. Most important to note is Millennium Partners decision to reduce the number of units in 706 Mission by 17% allowing for larger units that cater to families and increase the stock for proper residences as opposed to the glut of 1300-1600 sqft units. The 2018 completion date of Salesforce Tower and the Transbay Terminal coupled with the continued march of Class A office development will forever shift the nexus of city living, culture, and commerce from the traditional slopes of Pacific Heights and the venerable corridors of the Financial District to the Yerba Buena+SOMA hub.

An astute investor would be advised to know that only 17% of the aforementioned full service concierge condominiums measure over 2500 sqft. It would be highly recommended to take a serious look at this constrained market niche for an excellent long-term investment and the exciting prospect of living in San Francisco’s singularly true cosmopolitan neighborhood.