After decades of renting its flagship home base, the Bay Club is now officially landlord of the entire San Francisco block it has occupied since 1977, dropping about $65 million on three parcels between Sansome, Greenwich, Lombard and Battery streets.
The deal converts roughly 150,000 square feet of what had been a leased campus into property the company now owns outright. That footprint includes the historic 1 Lombard building, the 150 Greenwich club and a parking garage at 1444 Sansome. At about $433 per square foot, the purchase effectively locks in the club’s North Waterfront presence for the long haul.
The Bay Club bought the properties from LaSalle Investment Management and currently uses roughly 100,000 square feet of the block. CEO Matthew Stevens told the San Francisco Chronicle the company had a shot at acquiring the site in 2012 but “wasn’t in the right position” at the time. The San Francisco Chronicle also reported that Bay Club’s lease on the North Waterfront campus runs through 2032 and detailed the per-square-foot price.
Block by the numbers
In a company release, Bay Club broke out the three-parcel portfolio as roughly 75,000 square feet at 1 Lombard, about 45,000 square feet at 150 Greenwich and about 35,000 square feet for the 1444 Sansome parking structure. The club currently occupies around 100,000 square feet of that total.
The same announcement noted that Bay Club operates more than 35 locations, serves roughly 150,000 members and owns about $1.4 billion in real estate across the West Coast. The transaction team featured CBRE’s Bay Area Capital Markets group along with legal counsel Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, according to The Bay Club Company.
A bet on downtown
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie called the acquisition “proof” that the city’s comeback is underway, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Bay Club executives told local outlets that experiential fitness and in-person programming have hit record levels since the pandemic, and company leaders said owning the block gives them more flexibility to reinvest in the campus.
City officials and Bay Club framed the sale as a stabilizing move for the North Waterfront, keeping an active, member-driven use on the block instead of seeing the site flipped to speculative office buyers.
What’s next
With the lease no longer the main limitation, Bay Club says it will “thoughtfully expand its footprint as space becomes available” and continue community programming partnerships, including work with the Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco. The company release added that there will be no immediate service interruptions for members and that owning the property provides more capital flexibility for upgrades and longer-range reinvestment.
The firm again credited CBRE and its legal advisers for steering the transaction, as outlined by The Bay Club Company.
