Tenderloin 94102

Posted by AGI on September 20, 2006 11:11 PM | Comments (0)

A couple of Sunday's ago, the NY Times introduced a magazine completely devoted to real estate. An amazing collection of articles talking about everything from style and design, the market place to irreverent musings of existentialism and the modern perception of one's home. This last piece referenced the various community/city based popular media, captured by titles to shows such as Laguna Beach, Beverly Hills 90210, the OC and on a more intimate level, MTV Cribs, Flip This House, Million Dollar Listing, and more. It appears that popular culture has embraced the notion of self and society through their homes or other people's homes and neighborhood. This is even more evident in the massive proliferation of real esteate and home improvement blogs/websites and persistent coffee-table chatter about interest rates, housing prices and whether one's kitchen has granite counters, - everyone has become a real estate developer and speculator . Well, here at Keeping it Real, we'd like to see some more alternative programming in this space.

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Feng Shui and the SF Politic

Posted by AGI on September 18, 2006 05:18 PM | Comments (0)

Two separate articles, two separate subjects. Then again, the science of positioning things correctly to generate a positive outcome somehow seems not too distant from the world of politics. Asian Week and the SF Business Times site Mrs. Wong on both fronts.

SF Business Times Executive Profile

Posted by AGI on August 29, 2006 03:14 PM | Comments (0)

If you didn't catch Mrs. Wong's profile in the SF Business Times yesterday, take a look.

Granite, and the Greater World

Posted by AGI on August 26, 2006 05:36 PM | Comments (1)

On the way to a project meeting in the East Bay we stopped by our granite supplier to inspect a couple of our pallets that had just shipped in from China. The warehouse was located across the street from the Oakland shipping yard, multi-colored towers of metal shipping containers visible over the fence.

A manager led us to the back of the warehouse where a crew of guys used crowbars to crack open one of the wooden cases containing our granite slabs. They pulled back a protective plastic sheet and we leaned in to take a look.

"It's wet," said the manager, running his hand along a slab. "Raining in China."

I touched the granite and sure enough it was wet. And it sort of blew my mind, not so much seeing Chinese granite, but seeing Chinese rain. For all the stuff I've heard about globalization over the years, it never quite struck me like witnessing the weather of a different county being delivered to you.

Needless to say, we have to return next week, once they're dried out, to make sure they're the correct color.

Superman Sure Needed His

Posted by AGI on August 20, 2006 09:56 PM | Comments (0)

On a normal jaunt to City Hall to handle some typical permit stuff, I fell right into the lap of a block-party rife with DJ's, stilt walkers, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and 50 exotic dancers protesting a new proposed ordinance that would eliminate private dance booths in live adult theaters. The debate centers on the City's desire to curb abuse and assault allegedly taking palce in the booths versus the dancers' claim that shedding the booths would materially affect their livelihood.

There is clearly a simple design solution, our recommendation: a transparent glass door that can go opaque depending on the light setting, often used for single family home and hotel/condo bath interiors. The opaqueness could be instantly adjusted by the dancer if she feels threatened. A simple solution with a modern design aesthetic to mitigate, what we would imagine from hearsay, are generally dreary settings. The rough estimated costs, including new rough-in electrical, would run possibly $750 per door, a pittance based on what. . . as, we understand, is generally less than a night's take. Would try to ensure that the door works as a bar door (i.e., sufficient openings at the bottom and top, so that it should not require a permit). . . . and are confident there are contractors aplenty who would do the work for trade.

My spell check doesn't recognize "Inclusionary"

Posted by AGI on August 14, 2006 12:19 PM | Comments (1)

Welllll, so we all read the press release . . .

MAYOR NEWSOM SIGNS LANDMARK INCLUSIONARY HOUSING LEGISLATION - Strengthened Ordinance is model for nation's cities

San Francisco, CA- Mayor Gavin Newsom today signed landmark legislation that strengthens the City's affordable housing policy. The legislation, sponsored by Supervisors Daly, Maxwell and McGoldrick, makes San Francisco's inclusionary housing ordinance a model for large cities nationally.

"Not only are we improving the City's housing policy to create affordable housing in economically integrated communities" Newsom said, "We are also celebrating our ability to prioritize good policy over politics."

WOW! In essence the City has bumped the affordable housing requirement from 10% to 15% and made the requirement apply for any development with 5 or more units, versus the prior 10 units or more threshold. On paper the implications are massive, basically a 50% increase on the number of required affordable units...ouch! What's more, for every 10 units built, that means double the number of affordable units because the planning department law requires the builder to round-up (i.e., you can't build 1.5 units, so build 2 affordable units for every 10; so I guess we'll see a lot of projects with 9's at the end: 19 units, 29 units, etc.).

So, here at Keeping It Real...Estate, are we shuttering the windows, burning our fundraiser RSVPs, jumping in our ozone depleting luxury SUV's and heading for the unregulated badlands east of the Caldecott Tunnel?

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We'll Start With the Jumbo Shrimp...

Posted by AGI on August 9, 2006 07:43 PM | Comments (1)

The Times ran an article on what is hopefully not a national trend: the growing popularity of the term "vertical sprawl" by the radical anti-development set.

More particularly, they argue "vertical sprawl" in urban locations is a terrible concept.

"They use this specious argument about smart growth to dump density in urban cores," Ms. Smith said.

This is the kind of idea that gives the term "progressive thought" a bad name, i.e. ones that hold fun and avant-garde concepts over reality. If you don't like density, maybe you shouldn't live in a city. But at least don't encourage any more of this, or this.

At its best, this is another NIMBY (not in my backyard) attitude trying to be pushed under the guise of:

"We want to protect these places from being taken over by infill and driving out working class."

Which all seems sort of backwards considering that infill creates more housing opportunities, which raises supply, and lowers demand. No need to take deductive reasoning to the next step. But we can't help but link to this and wonder how long.

Matthew Barney vs. SFMOMA

Posted by AGI on July 30, 2006 10:41 PM | Comments (2)

If at all possible check out Drawing Restraint, the Matthew Barney installation at SFMOMA. On view is a sprawling study of place, space, and the human condition. By "exploring the notion that form emerges through struggle against resistance," Barney may have inadvertently become a hero to the SF developer.

In particular, the clip of him jumping on a trampoline and painting a portrait on the ceiling, one brushstroke at a time, strikes a chord with the whole development process. Entitlement, design review, the neighboring developer that won't let you put your crane on his empty lot corner, all ask similar questions as Barney's installation, and lead to similar understandings;

Why go through the struggle? Because at the end of the day, whether it's painting by trampoline, or fairly navigating the many interested parties of SF, the determination to create when constrained usually leads to the most compelling creations.

And making a decent return, whether as an art demigod, or a measly developer, doesn't hurt either.

Introducing "Keeping It Real... Estate"

Posted by AGI on June 22, 2006 04:35 PM | Comments (1)

The purpose of a blog page for a San Francisco real estate developer...? Ask most real estate professionals and the answer is simple: none.

Most would say it's foolish. So why did we decide to include one on our site? Adding an interactive, responsive communications tool to our corprorate website may in fact be an exercise in futility, and it may follow the quick demise of many other ambitious well-meaning sites, periodicals, publications and blogs. But we felt that the developer's perspective - this developer's perspective in particular - may interest those who are affected by our developments.

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Condos With the Soul of a Boutique Hotel

Posted by AGI on June 17, 2006 02:02 PM | Comments (0)

A brief piece by J.K. Dineen in the last week's issue of SF Business Times highlights SOMA Grand as Joie de Vivre Hospitality's first condo development collaboration:

"We made a commitment to SoMa Grand that they would get the hoopla for the first one," he said.

Conley said the 246-unit SoMa Grand would have the "soul of the boutique hotel" with yoga classes, IT support, interior design services and massage.

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