New Owner Flipping Mission Place Apartments as Condos

SAN FRANCISCO-Centurion Real Estate Partners is converting to condominiums the 595 apartment units at Mission Place, a residential, retail and office complex in Mission Bay that it acquired for $346 million late last year in a joint venture with Lehman Brothers Real Estate Partners. Centurion, which has principals in New York and Los Angeles, is a year-old company that manages real estate investments for institutional clients and high net worth investors.Located at 250 King St., Mission Place was designed by Skidmore Owings and Merrill, developed by Catellus Development Corp. and completed in 2004. A majority of the residential units are newly completed, vacant, and ready for immediate sale. The units–a mix of studio, one-, two-, and three-bedroom residencies–will range in price from $400,000 to $1.2 million. As part of the conversion, the property has been renamed the Beacon. The Mark Company has been hired as the sales and marketing broker. In addition to the residential units, the project includes 82,650 sf of retail, 47,000 sf of office and a structured parking facility. The retail tenants include Safeway, Borders, Wells Fargo and Starbucks. No information was immediately available regarding the office component and Centurion partner John Tashjian was unavailable Wednesday for comment. In a prepared statement, he says the project “will be the largest condominium offering in San Francisco this year.”Tashjian, a principal the old PaineWebber Real Estate Fund, launched Centurion last spring with Jeffrey Worthe, a partner at M. David Paul & Associates of Los Angeles. Centurion plans to make equity and debt investments, seeking an internal rate of return of 18-22%, according to published reports. While funds may be in the future, the company is currently making purchases through joint ventures or partnerships wherein the partner puts up the bulk of the equity and Centurion provides the operational expertise.In its first deal, Centurion bought a cluster of residential units on Manhattan’s Upper East Side that it plans to improve significantly and then sell. Equity and debt participants include Windsor Capital, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch.Earlier this month, GlobeSt.com reported that the 102-unit City Lofts Apartments in San Francisco’s South of Market district had been acquired for conversion. The new owner, a partnership led by the Emerald Fund, paid an affiliate of Carmel Partners $35 million for the property. Completed in 1999, the three-story structure over subterranean parking had a subdivision map recorded with the City of San Francisco at the time of sale.