Weekend Events and the Weekly Real Estate Update

It’s the 3-day Labor Day Weekend! If you’re sticking around town, and why wouldn’t you, there’s lots to do. The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival is presenting its 2018 Free Shakespeare in the Park production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream tomorrow, Sunday, and Monday (Labor Day) on the Main Post Parade Ground Lawn in the Presidio. All these performances begin at 2 PM. For more information, click here. For more ideas, check out SF.FunCheap.com. The website has posted a 2018 Labor Day Weekend Guide — spotlighting “a bucket load of awesome things to do” over the long weekend.

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On the “Homes for Sale in San Francisco” front, here’s our report for this week, 8/26/18 – 9/1/18

Why Residential Projects Are Being Put On Hold

Even though there is a huge demand for condominiums in San Francisco, the cost of building brand new condo developments has become prohibitively high, according to a report just published by the San Francisco Chronicle and shared on SF.Gate.com.

The combined increases in construction costs and in affordable housing requirements have made building any project extremely difficult in San Francisco.

There are 6,750 units under construction in the City, about 1,000 units more than a year ago. While that is well above the historic average, there are another 15,000 units that have been approved by planning officials but have not started construction. Projects containing 6,690 of those units have secured all the permits needed to start construction but have not broken ground.

A big reason for the delay is construction costs have increased 10 to 15 percent annually over the past five years. Developers say they can’t make a profit. In the current real estate environment a condominium developer needs to sell units for at least $1,400 a square foot for a wood-frame building, and $1,800 a square foot for a taller, steel-frame mid-rise or high-rise. That’s asking a lot of buyers. According to one developer, above $1,400 a square foot is a tough sell unless it’s an unusually good location.

In addition to the cost of construction, City policies have hampered development. As the housing crisis has gotten more serious, lawmakers have required private developers to include more “community benefits” — below-market units or inexpensive space for artists, nonprofits, and manufacturing, all sectors that are being squeezed out in the City’s roaring job market. Well intended for sure, but there are unfortunate consequences.

Todd David of the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition, an industry group representing residential developers, said that weighing projects down with so many extra fees and obligations means that they simply don’t get built. A growing number of developers are seeking to cash out rather than risk losing money building something that they believe from the start won’t be profitable.

There are no easy answers here, but it’s important to know that this growing problem exists and clearly needs to be addressed.

Are You A True San Franciscan, Or A Pretender?

SFGate.com posed this question the other day, and it’s a darn good one. If you were native born, but no longer live here, can you call yourself a San Franciscan? If you moved here three years ago, can you call yourself a San Franciscan? What if you moved here ten years ago?

Turns out there are no correct answers, but according to writer Michelle Robertson, City dwellers love to debate it regardless. She posted the question “When can you call yourself a San Franciscan?” on the Facebook group San Francisco Remembered, and got more than 940 comments in 24 hours.

At the end of the article Michelle quotes legendary Chronicle columnist Herb Caen, who wrote: “If I do go to heaven, I’m going to do what every San Franciscan does who goes to heaven. He looks around and says, ‘It ain’t bad, but it ain’t San Francisco.'”

If this quote sounds about right, you can go ahead and call yourself a San Franciscan.

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” This Labor Day Weekend

The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival is presenting its 2018 Free Shakespeare in the Park production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream this Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (Labor Day) on the Main Post Parade Ground Lawn in the Presidio. All these performances begin at 2 PM. For more information, click here.

Of course, it’s a three-day weekend, so you’ll need more than one activity to make the most of your days off.  SF.FunCheap.com comes to the rescue with its 2018 Labor Day Weekend Guide. The website calls it a “A bucket load of awesome things to do over your long weekend.” It’s certainly that! It includes things happening throughout the Bay Area, as well as in San Francisco, so there’s bound to be something that you’re going to want to do.

A popular destination of course is the annual Labor Day weekend Sausalito Art Festival, on the waterfront on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin. We might see you there!

Alexander’s Steakhouse Opens Casual SoMa Spinoff

Known for serving high-end Japanese beef at its Cupertino, Mountain View, and San Francisco restaurant locations, Alexander’s Steakhouse expanded into more casual territory yesterday with the opening of ALX Gastropub in SoMa. The idea, says executive chef Jessie Lugo, is to do “fast casual — still with the standards that Alexander’s has — but with more approachable, lower price point food.”

According to Caleb Pershan with SF.Eater.com, that means plenty of deluxe ingredients and elements. One example: A “Foie-gyu Burger” with sun-dried tomato jam and camembert cheese, the foie gras emulsified right into the wagyu beef burger for $35. Salads, flat breads, and shared items like go​at cheese tater tots with homemade ketchup and pickle mayo are more affordably priced from $8 to $15. You can now see the entire menu online.

To read the SF.Eater.com piece, and to see photos of the place and some of its dishes, please click here.

ALX Gastropub
680 Folsom Street, Suite 125
Lunch Monday to Friday, 11:30 AM to 2:00 PM
Happy hour Monday to Friday from 5 to 7PM
Dinner nightly from 5:30 PM to 10 PM

Free Rooftop Concert Series And More At Salesforce Park

The rooftop Salesforce Park just opened, and it’s already the place to be for free concerts and more. SF.Funcheap.com has posted a page that provides info on all the concerts taking place every Wednesday evening now through the end of October. Concerts start at 5 PM, with everything from blues to jazz to salsa to rockabilly being performed. Other musicians and entertainers take the stage on other days and at other times.

There are also free fitness and wellness activities taking place regularly on the rooftop, along with writing workshops, Litquake lunch breaks, and more.  To see all that’s being offered, including dates and times, please click here.

Weekend Events and the Weekly Real Estate Update

Eat Drink SF is now in its 10th year, and organizers say this is San Francisco’s premiere food and drink festival. It includes three days of curated programming today, tomorrow, and Sunday at Fort Mason, with 35 restaurants and more than 70 beer, wine, and spirits makers participating in the festival. On Saturday and Sunday the Vintage Paper Fair happens in Golden Gate Park — the last of three such fairs that will have taken place in 2018. And finally, on Saturday night, Lady Bird will be presented on a giant outdoor screen in Washington Square Park in North Beach. The movie begins at dusk, and it’s free, but donations are accepted.

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On the “Homes for Sale in San Francisco” front, here’s our report for this week, 8/19/18 – 8/25/18

Downtown San Francisco Continues to Grow

Of the record 67,800 residential units in the current pipeline of development across San Francisco, roughly 10,000 of the units, or 15 percent, fall within the boundaries of the City’s Greater Downtown, which now includes most of the burgeoning Transbay District but only a sliver of Central SoMa.

At the same time, according to SocketSite.com, citing the latest Monitoring Report for Downtown San Francisco, the number of people working within the boundaries of the City’s old-school Downtown increased 3 percent in 2017 to 288,000, which is up 23 percent since the end of 2011 (233,500) and now represents 40 percent of the total 711,000 jobs in San Francisco.

Welcome To Stagecoach Greens In Mission Bay

This place takes miniature golf to a whole new level. Welcome to Stagecoach Greens — an 18-hole course brought to life by more than 150 local artists and craftsmen.

According to 7×7.com, like Urban Putt, each hole represents a different bit of Bay Area culture, only here the theme is the West’s legacy of booms and busts — from a Barbary Coast saloon and the Gold Rush trail to the battle for the tallest building where the Transamerica Pyramid dukes it out with Salesforce Tower. Other landmarks in miniature include Chinatown’s Dragon Gate and Sutro Tower.

History buffs can read more about each story on the Stagecoach Greens website.

Located close to AT&T Park and the future Warriors arena, and right next to the food truck lot Spark Social, Stagecoach Greens seems perfectly situated for pre and post game adventures.

Stagecoach Greens
1379 4th Street
Open 7 days a week from 11 AM to 9 PM, weather permitting.