A four-story retail building at 146 Geary Street in San Francisco's Union Square has changed hands for $20.5 million, with an affiliate of New York-based Thor Equities Group picking up the property from lender Aareal Capital Corp. The price works out to roughly $1,577 per square foot for the 13,000-square-foot building, which spans four floors and a basement and is anchored by Danish luxury electronics brand Bang & Olufsen.
The deal, first reported by The Real Deal, marks a steep discount from the $38 million that Acadia Realty paid for the same building back in 2015. Acadia later defaulted on a $19.3 million loan balance tied to the property and handed the building back to its lender via a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure, according to the same report. The building's assessed value stands at nearly $18.7 million, or about $1,440 per square foot, per the outlet's reporting.
Before it sat vacant, 146 Geary Street had a long local history: it was home for 65 years, from 1952 to 2017, to beloved independent merchant Britex Fabrics, which relocated around the corner to 117 Post Street after the building's then-owners moved to convert upper floors into office space, as SFGATE reported at the time. The building's post-pandemic devaluation, estimated at around 42% compared to its 2015 purchase price, was detailed by The Registry when Acadia surrendered the property in 2023.
Bang & Olufsen Anchors the Building, But Thor's Neighbor Deal Lingers
Bang & Olufsen signed on in late 2025 to occupy two floors and the basement of 146 Geary Street, part of a statewide retail expansion for the brand, according to CoStar's reporting. The Danish audio company now occupies the ground-floor space that once housed decades of Union Square retail history.
Thor Equities also owns the adjoining building at 152 Geary Street, where the picture is murkier. The firm was served a default notice in 2021 linked to an $11.5 million loan on that property and attempted to refinance the distressed debt in 2023, per the seed reporting from The Real Deal. Thor put 152 Geary Street on the market in 2025 but has not found a buyer, the outlet's reporting indicates. Notably, Gap Inc. signed a 10-year lease in mid-2023 for an 11,340-square-foot Banana Republic flagship at that same address even as the loan troubles played out, according to The Real Deal's earlier coverage.
Portfolio Trimming Elsewhere Frees Up Capital
The 146 Geary acquisition comes as Thor Equities has been paring back other holdings, having sold 760 Market Street, 444 Jackson Street, and 634 Second Street over the past decade, per the seed report. The firm also owns a proposed research and development site at 600 Bancroft Way in Berkeley. Thor made headlines recently for expanding elsewhere, too — Hoodline reported the firm grabbed a Garment District tower near Herald Square for $218 million.
Thor isn't alone in circling Union Square's discounted assets. Investors Ian Jacobs and Doug MacMahon have been acquiring commercial buildings in the district at a rapid clip, the report notes. MacMahon separately paid $44 million for the 40,442-square-foot Gucci flagship building at 240 Stockton Street in February 2026 — a 45% discount from its 2016 purchase price of $80 million, according to a separate account from The Real Deal.
Signs of a District Rebound
Other recent sales point to a wide range in how the district's buildings are valued depending on occupancy. The 39,000-square-foot building at 180 Post Street, anchored by Italian jeweler Bulgari, sold in July for $48.5 million — more than $1,200 per square foot — to Alo Yoga founder Danny Harris after 30 years under Grosvenor Americas ownership, according to The Real Deal's reporting on that deal. That fully leased benchmark stands in contrast to the discounted, partially vacant assets like 146 Geary that private buyers are now scooping up.
San Francisco's citywide retail vacancy rate fell to 5.6% in the second quarter of 2026, down 90 basis points from a year earlier, with zero square feet of new retail construction in the pipeline, according to a market report from Kidder Mathews. City officials have also pointed to public safety data showing reported crime in Union Square and the neighboring Financial District dropped by more than 40% between mid-2025 and early 2026 following dedicated police task force deployments, per SF.gov. Union Square has been coming back to life over the past year, the seed reporting notes, with artificial intelligence and other tech companies flocking into office space in the district.
City policy has played a role in reshaping what landlords can do with buildings like 146 Geary. The Board of Supervisors passed Ordinance No. 159-23 in June 2023, relaxing Union Square zoning rules to permit upper-floor conversions from retail to office or residential use and expanding ground-floor uses to include flexible workspaces, entertainment, and food concepts, according to SF.gov. Mayor Daniel Lurie followed with a $25 million Downtown Business Fund launched in April as part of his Heart of the City initiative, offering move-in grants up to $500,000 and low-interest loans up to $1 million to draw retailers and small businesses back to the corridor, per reporting from The Voice SF.
Whether Thor Equities can resolve its own lingering debt challenges at 152 Geary Street remains an open question, even as the firm banks its win next door. The company's Union Square footprint now includes a fully leased, freshly discounted asset alongside a neighboring property still searching for a buyer — a split picture that mirrors the broader push-pull defining the district's recovery.
