The Church of Scientology International has purchased a vacant, century-old building at 650 Sacramento St. in San Francisco's Financial District, just blocks from the organization's existing headquarters. The three-story building has sat empty for years after a previous redevelopment effort stalled, and the church says it intends to use the roughly 10,000-square-foot property for its own activities.
A Deal With Two Different Price Tags
The purchase price itself is disputed. According to property records cited by the San Francisco Standard, the church paid $2.1 million for the building. SFist reported a different figure, putting the sale at $2.2 million. Either way, the price is well below the roughly $2.5 million the sellers paid when they acquired the property out of foreclosure in June 2021, per the Standard's reporting.
The sellers were Brick & Timber Collective, a San Francisco-based development firm, which co-owned the building — known as the Bartlett Building — alongside Felicitas Global Partners, based in Pasadena. The Standard notes the building dates to 1909, while a low-confidence LoopNet listing describes it as a 1908 structure. Listing details also diverge on the building's exact footprint: a listing from Rich Lewetzow describes a four-story, roughly 10,465-square-foot property, while the LoopNet listing describes a three-story building with a full lower level at approximately 10,748 square feet.
A Stalled Makeover Years in the Making
Whatever its precise dimensions, the building has been a fixer-upper for some time. Earlier redevelopment plans aimed to convert the Bartlett Building into co-living housing, an effort that stalled amid the pandemic and the broader downturn in downtown foot traffic. The interior remains in what the Standard describes as shell condition, with the entire space currently vacant according to the Rich Lewetzow listing.
Michael Sanberg of Touchstone Commercial Partners has described the building's earlier condition as totally gutted, dilapidated, and in need of everything. Records show the property underwent extensive renovation work after years of neglect, including a permit covering a $950,000 seismic upgrade in 2019 and additional permits for an elevator replacement, interior demolition, and new drywall. Rich Lewetzow, who is affiliated with Sotheby's International Realty and reportedly represented the sellers, has said the building attracted considerable interest before the church completed its purchase.
Expanding Footprint Near a Historic Headquarters
The church's existing San Francisco location sits at 701 Montgomery St., across Washington Street from the Transamerica Pyramid. That building is known both as the original Transamerica building and the Old Fugazi bank building, a nod to its history before Scientology moved in. The San Francisco chapter opened there in late 2003, an event the Standard reports was attended by then-former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown.
Church spokesperson David Bloomberg said the new acquisition will expand the organization's capacity to serve its members and the broader community. The church has said it plans to retain historic aspects of 650 Sacramento St. while building it out for new purposes, preserving historic features even as it adapts the space for its own needs, according to the Standard.
What Comes Next for the FiDi Building
Because 650 Sacramento St. sits in a historic district, any exterior work visible from the street will trigger a review by San Francisco planners to assess whether the project protects the building's historic resources, per guidance from the City and County of San Francisco. The city directs applicants to check its Property Information Map and Historic Preservation section before proceeding. No permits, architectural plans, or construction timeline for the church's renovation have been made public.
Rich Lewetzow has characterized the sale as part of the ongoing revival of downtown San Francisco, a framing that fits into a broader narrative the city has pushed around its post-pandemic recovery. San Francisco's own Office Vacancy Rate is tracked by the city as a key indicator of that downtown rebound. Whether this single purchase signals anything larger about the church's property ambitions in San Francisco remains unclear — though the Tampa Bay Times has documented a far more extensive pattern in downtown Clearwater, Florida, where the church and companies run by its members have bought 92 properties since 2017, spending $103 million over a three-year span and eventually controlling 185 properties covering 101 acres. That investigation found that 22 of the first 33 buildings along Clearwater's Cleveland Street carry ties to Scientology. Nothing in the available record indicates San Francisco is headed toward a similar scale of acquisition.
