Lendlease broke ground on a 47-story mixed-use tower in San Francisco at 30 Van Ness Ave., in the city’s Hayes Valley district. Construction for the project is expected to cost $1.15B.

“After years of hard work by many people across our investment, development and construction teams and deep collaboration with the city and community groups, we are proud to announce this important benchmark for 30 Van Ness,” Arden Hearing, Lendlease Americas executive general manager of West Coast development, said in a press release.

“We are eager to progress to completion in 2025 and draw on Lendlease’s experienced construction team to deliver a best-in-class live/work experience to San Francisco,” he said in the statement.

The property will contain 333 apartment units, alongside 290K SF of office and retail. SCB Architects designed the building.

The property will contain a mixture of studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom units. Of those, 25% will be designated as affordable housing, priced below market rate.

SALES

Diversified Healthcare Trust, managed by The RMR Group, acquired Fremont Labs, an 89K SF life sciences property located in Fremont, California. DHC acquired the property for $82M. JLL represented the seller, a joint venture between Jadian Capital and Graymark Capital.

The property is located at 47071 Bayside Parkway, near the central I-880 corridor of San Francisco. This is the fourth life sciences acquisition for the company in the San Francisco Bay Area, bringing its total Bay Area holdings to six.

PEOPLE

CBRE promoted James Bennett to the role of vice chairman in Palo Alto, joining the company’s life sciences team in the Bay Area. Bennett previously served in a senior leadership capacity at Kidder Mathews, operating in tenant and landlord assignments across San Diego and the San Francisco Bay Area.

“James is well-respected throughout the industry and adds to the caliber of our talented life sciences team in the Bay Area," CBRE's Palo Alto Senior Managing Director Reed Payne said in a press release. "His tremendous experience and expertise have been invaluable to clients, which is illustrative of his leadership in the sector.”

CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT

Caltrain unveiled a 1.2M SF mixed-use development in San Jose, which will contain two Class-A office towers and 30K SF of ground-floor retail. The project will be located next to the Diridon train station in San Jose. It needs approval from the city’s planning commission, but if approved as planned, would begin construction by the first half of 2024, with a projected construction timeline of 30 months. There is no developer currently assigned to the project.

THIS & THAT

Burlingame-based tech startup Butlr announced the closing of $20M in Series A funding for technology that will help the company develop body heat occupancy sensing technology for use in the commercial real estate industry.

“Our latest round of funding enables us to support our burgeoning customer and partner base of real estate and facilities executives with the insights they need to make the best decisions,” Butler Chief Product Officer and co-founder Jiani Zen said in a press release.

Butlr currently uses the technology in senior living facilities to determine movement patterns of residents and better assess fall detection.