Chinese Developer Buys 755 Sansome in San Francisco for $42.65MM

Chinese development company Shanghai Lingang Economic Development Group just closed on 755 Sansome Street in San Francisco earlier this month for $42.65 million, or $735 per square foot for the 58,000 square foot property, according to public records. This was the company’s first asset purchase in the United States. The sale, which was completed on June 1st, marks the second sale of this asset in just as many years. An entity associated with Miami-based Market Street Real Estate Partners had purchased the building in February of 2015 for $29,450,000, or just over $507 per square foot.

The building is located in the Financial District of San Francisco, and it was home to fitness system maker Fitness Anywhere, which manufactures the TRX training system. The company’s headquarters have since relocated to 1660 Pacific Avenue in San Francisco, leaving the top two floors of the building vacant, according to sources with knowledge of the transacction. The digital creative firm Three Monkeys is headquartered in the building, as well as Community Investment Management, a fintech firm focused on small business lending and financial services, and Metric Theory, a digital marketing company.

The seller was represented by Rob Dumas from Sansome Street Advisors, while JLL’s Erik Hanson and Keller Williams’ June Young represented the buyer, Lingang.

“San Francisco continues to see new and diverse capital looking to enter the market, which helps to support overall pricing and transaction activity,” said Erik Hanson who works in JLL’s Capital Markets group in San Francisco. “Lingang wanted to make their first US investment in San Francisco, which speaks to the prominence of San Francisco as a premier global gateway investment market.”

The building is on the corner of Sansome and Pacific Avenue, in the Financial District’s Jackson Square neighborhood. It was first developed in 1927 and received a complete renovation in 1989, according to Loopnet. It has six stories with a maximum contiguous space of roughly 10,000 square feet.

There may be an opportunity for the new owners to add value to the asset. The building is roughly 40 percent vacant, and the median lease rate in the neighborhood is $73 per square foot, per year.