Two East Coast investors are betting that Union Square's comeback has room to run. This week their investment vehicle, Project Uris, bought 165 Post St. and 47 Kearny St. for a combined $19.6 million, the San Francisco Standard reports. That makes seven buildings across five retail corridors.
Who's buying
Project Uris is led by Ian Jacobs, an heir to the Reichmann real estate dynasty who is now based in Miami, and New York-based law professor Max Raskin. The name comes from the Reichmanns' late-1970s purchase of the Uris portfolio in New York, a bet that paid off when the city recovered from its fiscal crisis. The partners raised $75 million and have spent about $50 million so far. The Real Deal reports that the eight-story 47 Kearny, at 28,660 square feet and 89% leased, went for $4.2 million, or close to $150 a square foot. That was its first sale in at least four decades. Earlier buys included 200 Powell ($7.4 million), 35 Powell ($7.5 million) and 111 Ellis ($7.8 million).
The portfolio
The group started with three Powell Street properties last year, including a green art deco building where it brought in toy store Pop Mart. A Maiden Lane building followed in May and one on Grant Avenue in July, where secondhand luxury seller Fashionphile recently signed a lease. Uris tends to buy buildings that one family has owned for decades. Its newest two were sold by the heirs of Kurt and Hans Gronowski, brothers who ran the Jay Briggs haberdashery. 165 Post has jeweler Shapur Mozaffarian and an empty storefront. 47 Kearny, at Maiden Lane, is home to toy store Just for Fun.
The bigger picture
Earlier this month, Louis Vuitton's parent company bought 220 Post St. for $48 million, a block from Uris' latest purchase. Colliers' Julie Taylor told the Standard that retailers report sales up "double digits" from last year and that shoplifting has dropped sharply. "There's interest in every space on Post Street and every space on Powell," she said. Jacobs and Raskin declined to comment.