Olivia Cruises & Resorts Buys SoMa Building

SAN FRANCISCO-Olivia Cruises & Resorts has acquired a South of Market property and will move its national headquarters there from Oakland later this year. The provider of travel and entertainment for women paid $200 per sf for a 25,000-sf building and parking lot at 434 Brannan St., near PacBell Park. The three-story building with 8,300-sf floor plates was built in 1929 by Schilling Spices as a production facility. Olivia’s broker, Michael Tobin, tells GlobeSt.com that the building has been vacant for the past couple of years, ever since its dot-com tenant went under. The first two floors are fully built out and furnished. The third floor is in shell condition, says Tobin, a director of Pacific Union Commercial Brokerage in San Francisco.Founded in 1973 by Judy Dlugacz, Olivia plans to relocate its national headquarters to the Brannan Street building from a 12,000-sf building it owns at 4400 Market St. in Oakland. The move is scheduled to occur around Labor Day. The Oakland property is being marketed for sale. Bill Nork of Cornish & Carey has the disposition assignment.Tobin says the San Francisco office investment market has been very active this year and has maintained its value much better than the leasing market. There have been three owner-user office transactions in the second quarter, all with sale prices between $200 and $250 per sf. Tobin says he expects the investment market to remain strong as good product is scarce and the economy is definitely improving, while the leasing market will remain “very much a tenant’s market” for the next year or two. The seller of 434 Brannan was 434 LLC, a private partnership of individual private investors. Grubb & Ellis represented the seller in the transaction.