Week in Review: 1/30 - 2/3

The University of the Pacific’s Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry has shed the first of its Pacific Heights properties, part of its gradual migration to downtown San Francisco.  The dentistry school unloaded 2130 Post St., a 67-unit, 100,000 square foot apartment building near its current campus. The buyer was the voracious Prado Group, a San Francisco investor and developer that has bought 25 properties in 24 months. The seven-story apartment building is a mixture of large one, two, and three bedroom units with 1:1 parking. The price was not disclosed. The Prado Group will reposition the building as a market rate apartment building.  The sale comes as the dental school builds its new campus near Fifth and Mission. In November the university closed on its $47 million purchase of a former Wells Fargo office building at 155 Fifth St. to establish a new campus in the city’s South of Market district. The building, a seven-story building with approximately 395,000 gross square feet of space, will undergo an extensive renovation and is expected to open in mid-2014. Five floors of the building will house the school of dentistry, as well as classroom space for other future university programs. The remaining two floors will be leased as premium office space.  In order to pay for the redevelopment downtown, the university is selling two properties: 2130 Post St., which has been used for student housing; and 2155 Webster, a 202,000 square foot tower that is the school's main campus. (SF Business Times)

With the elimination of California redevelopment agencies, a flood of Bay Area properties the agencies had purchased or assembled for future projects could hit the market in the months to come.  State lawmakers mandated that redevelopment agencies stop functioning on Feb. 1 with successor agencies taking on only projects that had “enforceable obligations.”  That excludes properties that agencies owned but weren't yet covered by a development agreement or contract. The potential of dozens of properties hitting the market could provide opportunities for private landowners and developers to snap up sites — potentially at fire sale prices.  It also means that years of city work on development proposals and millions of tax dollars could go to waste.  Under redevelopment law, agencies could purchase sites and assemble parcels to attract development or affordable housing.  Oakland's agency, for example, bought numerous properties during the last few years and in late 2009 solicited proposals for 10 potential retail sites in East Oakland, the Coliseum area and Uptown. The parcels ranged from 0.15 to 6.3 acres and drew 13 proposals.  Some of those sites, like a property on 66th Avenue is slated for a Foods Co. that will likely still go forward. Sunfield Development, headed by Sid Afshar, won bids for three parcels including one dubbed the Fox Block, where it proposed an entertainment and retail project in Uptown that may get axed.  Redevelopment agencies often spent years developing or negotiating projects — many of which may never be realized.  Click here to see a mapped database of selected city-owned redevelopment land in the Bay Area. (SF Business Times)

PlumpJack Group, primarily owned by co-founders Gavin Newsom and Gordon Getty, along with PlumpJack Winery’s John Conover, bought the 40-acre Steltzner Vineyards    property and 15,000-case winery in Napa Valley’s prestigious Stags Leap District.  The price was not disclosed.  PlumpJack previously owned the PlumpJack Winery in Oakville, Howell Mountain’s Cade Winery, and a host of restaurants, inns, wine stores, other retail stores and other businesses.  The Steltzner Vineyard property includes a working winery and 36 acres of vineyards, consisting of varietals such as cabernet sauvignon, merlot, malbec, cabernet franc, tintoria and pinotage.  The sale does not include the Steltzner wine brand or other vineyards owned by the Steltzner family in Napa’s Stags Leap and Oak Knoll districts. The Steltzner family will produce its wines in a new location.  PlumpJack will reopen a revamped version of the current winery on the property in March.

The developers that control the four-building former California State Automobile Association campus at Van Ness Avenue and Market Street have placed yet another bet on the Civic Center district, buying an L-shaped parking lot at 101 Hayes St. for $3.8 million.  Civic Center Commons Associates — a joint venture between San Francisco-based Emerald Fund    and National Real Estate Advisors — now owns six major pieces of property in the immediate area: the four CSAA buildings as well as 101 Polk St. and 101 Hayes. The four CSAA buildings include the 370,000-square-foot 100 Van Ness, the 157,000-square-foot 150 Van Ness and the 130,000-square-foot 150 Hayes St.  The latest move gives Civic Center Commons more flexibility as it weighs redevelopment options for the properties, which are in the heart of both the Civic Center and the rapidly changing greater Mid-Market area.  The acquisition comes as Civic Center Commons pushes forward with the conversion of 100 Van Ness from office to apartments. The developers have applied to build 400 rental housing units in the 29-story building, a renovation that would include a new curtain-wall skin designed by Solomon Cordwell Buenz, the architect responsible for One Rincon Hill. In addition, Civic Center Commons has filed a preliminary application to construct a 13-story, 175-unit tower at 101 Polk St., now a 13,200-square-foot surface parking lot.  The 101 Hayes lot, which could probably accommodate about 60 units of housing in a 12-story building, generates $132,000 per year in parking revenue. More than 1,100 rental units are currently under construction within a three-block radius. Angelo Sangiacomo has 417 units in development at 1169 Market St. and Crescent Heights is constructing 700 units at 1401 Market St. Much of the housing is being driven by Twitter’s decision to move its headquarters to 1355 Market St. (SF Business Times)

Tomorrow, Westfield Group's Metreon reopens to the public with a locally sourced restaurant dining terrace (read: really nice food court), a remodeled 16-screen AMC Theater, which is the top-grossing cinema in the city and sexy new event space.  For now, the second floor remains an 85,000-square-foot cavern, but Target is ready to get to work for a fall opening. (SF Business Times)