S.F. high-rise could set record price in sale
Park Tower in play after Facebook leased building’s entire office space
San Francisco’s Park Tower broke the record for the city’s largest single lease deal in May, when Facebook took all 755,900 square feet of office space in the building.
Now, building owners MetLife, the John Buck Co. and Golub & Co. are looking to cash out. The companies are seeking to sell a 49 percent ownership stake in the underconstruction 605-foot highrise, according to five real estate professionals tracking the building.
Park Tower’s price per square foot could exceed $1,500, or more than $550 million for a 49 percent stake, according to the individuals, whose employers had not authorized them to speak publicly. That would break a record for the highest price per square foot for a San Francisco office building without a retail component. (A Union Square building that included a twofloor Gucci store sold for more than $1,700 a square foot in 2016.)
The potential deal reflects the city’s surging office market, where rents and building values have boomed along with tech jobs in the past decade.
Asking rents for offices in San Francisco rose 2.7 percent in the second quarter to $75.54 per square foot per year, a new record high, according to brokerage CBRE. There is twice as much demand for offices of 100,000 square feet or more as there is available supply, the brokerage said.
Facebook alone has leased millions of square feet of Bay Area office space in the past year, including all of Park Tower and the office portion of nearby 181 Fremont, its first two San Francisco outposts.
Park Tower, located at 250 Howard St., is scheduled for completion by the end of this year and can accommodate more than 4,000 workers. MetLife owns 95 percent of the property, and the John Buck Co. and Golub & Co. own the remaining 5 percent. MetLife and the John Buck Co. both declined to comment.
Park Tower will benefit from its Facebook lease, its location and the tight market, said Colin Yasukochi, director of research in Northern California at CBRE, which isn’t