Archstone-Smith Buys Fox Plaza for $147M-Plus

SAN FRANCISCO-Archstone-Smith has acquired Fox Plaza, a 487,075-sf mixed-use high-rise development here that includes 444 rent-controlled apartment units, 411 parking spaces, 238,559 sf of office space and 17,483 sf of retail space. The locally headquartered apartment REIT paid $147.5 million for the property in a joint venture with its wholly owned subsidiary Ameriton Properties.Situated at the intersection of Market and Polk streets, Fox Plaza marks Archstone-Smith’s entry into the Downtown market. Archstone-Smith will own and manage the residential and garage components of Fox Plaza. Ameriton will own and manage the office and retail space. The seller is the Cahill family’s FP 2001 Co. LLP, which developed the property in the 1960s. The listing brokers were Edward Suharski, Daniel Cressman, Robert Dumas and Richard Johnson of Grubb & Ellis in San Francisco. Cressman tells GlobeSt.com the apartments are 94% occupied and the office space is 84% occupied. The retail space is anchored by the US Postal Service and Starbucks.”The property attracted close to 20 offers and the top five were all top-quality, blue-chip buyers offering the same price,” says Cressman. “Archstone was the one willing to jump through hoops to make it happen; they put it under contract and closed within 30 days, which for this complex of a deal took a monumental effort by both Archstone and the seller.”Cressman says this deal shows another example of the amount of capital looking for solid deals. While that is generally always the case, he says Fox Plaza is located in the Civic Center submarket, which heretofore has not seen this level of interest from high-end buyers like Archstone-Smith.Archstone-Smith officials could not be reached Monday for comment. In a prepared statement, company chairman-chief executive R. Scot Sellers says Ameriton plans to work with Conroe Ventures to market portions of the office and retail components of the property, as well as “to pursue additional development rights with respect to the property,” which local sources tell GlobeSt.com could include an additional tower on the property’s eastern corner. The apartments will operate under the Archstone brand name and will be called Archstone Fox Plaza. The complex offers studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments with views. The community is within walking distance of major civic and cultural attractions and one block from the Civic Center BART station and a San Francisco Municipal (MUNI) Railway station.