News
Party Like It's 1999
September 14, 2011
| Yesterday we checked in with attorney Rick Mallory, a founding partner in Allen Matkins. According to Rick, San Fran is running a lot “like 1999 all over again.” More on that in a second. First, he’s working on a number of deals right now—one of the more unusual is for an underseas cable company from New Zealand. |
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| Rick, snapped by our publisher, tells us the company has a new cable coming out of the ocean in Hermosa Beach. In San Francisco, Allen Matkins represents about 12M SF, or one-third of Financial District office space, such as Embarcadero Center (Boston Properties) and 555 California (Vornado). He also has some development clients, including folks doing residential and biotech HQs, as well as new Chase Bank branches—he just closed a lease last week in Union City. (No word on when Rick’s client, GLL Real Estate Partners, will get under way on 350 Mission St, which is awaiting an anchor tenant.) |
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| In 1999, as now, start-up venture capital was pushing the market. That said, there’s been a reduction in Financial District space leased by major tenants like BofA, Wells Fargo, and Schwab. And also law firms, which used to be the city’s office market bread-and-butter, are either static or shrinking. That’s being offset by tech, but those tenants aren’t absorbing downtown space as fast as it’s being made available. “They all want to be in converted warehouse space in South of Market.” But the office building sale market is hot. Any Class-A product that comes on the market sells for fairly rich prices. |
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| We also snapped Rick (with Spyglass Realty Partners’ Rich Mayo) at Allen Matkins’ View From the Top program Monday in Beverly Hills. Speaking of which, next month Rick will be relocating back to Allen Matkins’ Downtown LA office. In 1997, the law firm’s 20th anniversary, he moved to NorCal to open the San Francisco office. The firm wanted to tell the business community that it had a founding partner committed to San Francisco and to make sure its culture was transmitted to the office. But Rick won’t need to leave his heart here—he’s keeping a San Fran office and plans to be back several times a month. |
