Description
Townsend Center is a 672,788 office building located in the historic SOMA district in San Francisco. The building was designed and built as a fashion mart for apparel wholesalers by the renowned architect and developer, John Portman, in the 1990s. Rabin, along with its partners, purchased the building in 1997, when it was 98% vacant. Townsend Center had been on the market for sale for at least three years and was considered a white elephant by the real estate community at large. Five lenders had foreclosed on the property and had taken possession, before the partnership bought the property.
After purchase, the partnership conducted substantial tenant improvements and repositioned the building to be a model for a high tech urban office campus, investing heavily in infrastructure, improvements and building systems. Within 24 months of ownership, the property was 100% leased to multi media tenants during the dot-com boom, including Sega, MacroMedia, Shockwave, Ziff Davis and Tech TV. In 2006, the partnership sold the building to TMG and Farallon. TMG later leased the property to Zenga and ultimately sold it to Zenga in 2012 for $228 Million. Townsend Center remains a high tech office hub to this day.
Specifications
PROPERTY TYPE:Office
NO. OF BUILDINGS: 1
BUILDING SIZE:672,788 sq. ft.
LAND AREA: 17 Acres
DATE ACQUIRED:1996
DATE SOLD:2006
Property Details
Year Built1990
SoldYes
ZoningUrban Mixed Use
FeaturesSprinklers, Post tension slab with seismic reinforcement towers, 24-hour / 7-day security, Able to facilitate heavy floor load requirements
A commuter’s dream: Townsend Center sits in the heart of the SOMA Tech district, minutes from Muni and Bart.