Oceanwide Center's 910-foot tower will be accompanied by a 605-foot secondary building (credit: Webcor Builders).
SAN FRANCISCO—The year is barely underway and another billion-dollar-building is heading to the sold column. The city's second-tallest building, Oceanwide Center at 50 First St., is said to have transferred ownership to yet another Beijing owner, SPF Capital International Ltd.
Oceanwide Holdings said it approved the $1 billion sale of the asset under construction, making this one of the largest deals in San Francisco's history. Dwarfed only by the Salesforce Tower, the building is one of the last unfinished pieces of the Transbay puzzle.
The 910-foot tower got underway in late 2016, with a 605-foot secondary building to accompany the main structure. The project is to include 1 million square feet of office space, 265 residential units and a 169-key Waldorf Astoria hotel.
On the heels of that announcement, CommercialCafé released its annual list of the top 50 priciest US office deals for 2019, indicating that history may well be on the way to repeating itself. While New York City dominated the 2018 top with 19 entries, 2019 ended with increased investor interest in trophy assets particularly in California and Washington State.
The Bay Area snatched the number one spot on the 2019 list—a title that went to Google's $1 billion acquisition of the former Yahoo headquarters in Sunnyvale—overtaking New York City. Seven San Francisco deals, totaling 3.7 million square feet of office space, made the top 50. The priciest was the sale of the Levi's portfolio, for which Jamestown forked over $826 million in the number five spot.
"On the back of a relatively modest 2019, marked by a decrease in the overall number of top transactions and office sales volume, New York City lost the number one spot in favor of the $1 billion sale of the Yahoo Sunnyvale complex," Diana Sabau, the CommercialCafé author of the top 50 article, tells GlobeSt.com. "Whether 2020 will replicate last year's upset for the number one spot will of course greatly depend on New York City's performance. Meanwhile, the Bay Area commercial real estate market is doing its part. The year kicked off with a $1 billion planned sale of the Oceanwide Center, San Francisco's second-largest building."
One Oakland deal also made the 2019 list, landing at 21. Starwood Property Trust paid $494 million for the Center 21 portfolio. The top 50 also includes deals from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Jose, boasting a total of 17 entries.
CommercialCafé used Yardi Matrix data recorded up to January 21 and analyzed office buildings equal to or in excess of 50,000 square feet. Only properties featuring more than 50% office space were included in the study.
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Lisa Brown
Lisa Brown is an editor for the south and west regions of GlobeSt.com. She has 25-plus years of real estate experience, with a regional PR role at Grubb & Ellis and a national communications position at MMI. Brown also spent 10 years as executive director at NAIOP San Francisco Bay Area chapter, where she led the organization to achieving its first national award honors and recognition on Capitol Hill. She has written extensively on commercial real estate topics and edited numerous pieces on the subject.
