San Francisco Apple Store building sale breaks real estate records at nearly $50M

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 30
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post



    Purchased by Samsung. /s

     

    I was actually going to say purchased by one of the Chinese Apple Store knockoff companies ... and they won't change anything!

  • Reply 22 of 30
    I think the cities additions are gorgeous especially the glass seperator in the otherwise "oppressive 20ft wall of steel". lol.

    It'll be an amazing photo op standing between the two. Plus the entire building looks awesome from all sides and from above it kinda looks like a giant glowing electronic device.

    Oh, and BURN on those last two paragraphs.
  • Reply 23 of 30
    I really dislike the side wall on the Stockton street side for the new location. That side gets MUCH more traffic than the front that's facing Union Square. It would benefit Apple more with all the traffic on Stockton street being able to see directly inside, but I'm guessing placing another glass wall there would compromise the structure.
  • Reply 24 of 30
    rdrich wrote: »
    Geez, I though you guys were tech commentators not urban planners.

    Your comments about the Central Subway, the Ruth Asawa fountain and the east wall of the original plan are completely dismissive of the views of many San Franciscans.  The objections to Apple's original plan did not come from the powers that be who were ready to sign up for whatever Apple wanted.  Rather they came from a groundswell of public opinion about Apple's first set of drawings.  The Norman Foster architects could have done much better homework.  They obviously had no feel for the civic attachment to the location or the Asawa fountain.

    There has been zero "groundswell of public opinion" about the plans, just one self important old media columnist prattling to himself about how beloved the ugly fountain in the shade of a hotel was.
  • Reply 25 of 30
    We have many here who’ve already weighed in to the negative, though. H. R. Geiger’s fountain doesn’t really have a place next to Apple engineering.


    The fountain is by Geiger? Damn! Is it like a d**k or a pu**y?
  • Reply 26 of 30
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post



    $50 Million for a crappy old building just because it was an Apple store at one time? boggles the mind.

    Not just because it was an Apple store, but because it is located on a corner with one of the highest levels of pedestrian traffic in the city. And despite the mess made by the Central Subway construction, it is also right next to the entrance to the much more extensive Bay Area Rapid Transit system. Some 'experts' doubted it was the best location when Apple first chose it. But a look at the pictures accompanying Apple's own store directory show only Manhattan's 5th Avenue store with more foot traffic outside.

     

    The Market Street Improvement project and the Central Subway will be close to wrapping up in five years. The buyer is clearly thinking ahead.

  • Reply 27 of 30
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    cityguide wrote: »
    Not just because it was an Apple store, but because it is located on a corner with one of the highest levels of pedestrian traffic in the city. And despite the mess made by the Central Subway construction, it is also right next to the entrance to the much more extensive Bay Area Rapid Transit system. Some 'experts' doubted it was the best location when Apple first chose it. But a look at the pictures accompanying Apple's own store directory show only Manhattan's 5th Avenue store with more foot traffic outside.

    The Market Street Improvement project and the Central Subway will be close to wrapping up in five years. The buyer is clearly thinking ahead.

    Note that:
    "Construction of the multibillion subway stint has shut down Stockton Street in front of Apple's existing store for most of the past year. "

    So they're paying the highest price in SF history when the market has not yet fully recovered from the 2008 real estate crash - making their price even more amazing. And they can't expect a good return for 5 years? Typically, real estate investors expect to start making money after a year or two at the most.

    Doesn't sound particularly smart.
  • Reply 28 of 30
    slewisslewis Posts: 2,081member

    Good riddance to both the 1 Stockton Apple Store and the Levi’s building. The stairwell leading up from Powell Station directly under the store always smells horribly of urine and feces, the escalator isn’t even working right now (probably because it was used as a toilet, as is typical of MUNI and BART escalators within SF), there’s always a large homeless encampment within Powell Station itself and Apple really is outgrowing the old store, it’s hard to just walk in and actually move around sometimes, and the construction going on there makes it a pain just to cross the 15 feet to the store. Prime real estate, sure, but that’s in the past and the future, right now the location just sucks, but at least Apple got a brilliant deal on the building (would love to meet the Real Estate agent(s) that managed to pull that one off, and I’m looking forward to seeing who the lucky sucker was).

     


    As for the Levi’s Building, one of my least favorite places to go inside, too much concrete and pipework showing (not a fan of the style) and it feels dark and oppressive inside.


     


    Also: what happened to the forum system here? Sure I haven’t posted for years, but that’s no excuse for the submit button to stop working. -_-; If the above post appears twice, just note it was because I had trouble actually posting.

  • Reply 29 of 30
    slewis wrote: »
    Also: what happened to the forum system here? Sure I haven’t posted for years, but that’s no excuse for the submit button to stop working. -_-; If the above post appears twice, just note it was because I had trouble actually posting.

    AI pulled a Samsung, cheaping out and went over to Huddler Tech; dumbest move ever. Also strange and ironic, covering a company that goes through tremendous length in getting things right. AI, not so much.
  • Reply 30 of 30
    slewisslewis Posts: 2,081member

    Too bad. If they wanted to be cheap, I quite like Vanilla. Back when DED maintained a forum on his site I used to moderate it, till I outgrew my teenaged Apple fanboy self anyway (well, until some point after that point). Didn’t have this BBS feel, it was text-centric, apparently had quite a few extensions which were never really explored and gave the community a tighter, focused feel. Jeff Atwood also launched his own attempt to reform internet discussions, I only caught a few glimpses of it on other sites I don’t really post on, but from what I see, it’s brilliant, forgot the name though, probably not cheap, but worth it if you’re going to bother having a discussion system at all.

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