From today’s SF Business Times,

New Urban Properties has snagged a $60 million construction loan for its residential conversion project at 74 New Montgomery St., an indication that lenders still have an appetite for well-located condo conversions in downtown San Francisco.

A mid-rise office building constructed in 1914 by Reid Brothers Architects, the firm responsible for the Fairmont Hotel and many of the city’s vaudeville theaters, 74 New Montgomery was originally the headquarters of the San Francisco Call newspaper. The seven-story building will be converted to 107 condos, including a roof garden and four penthouse units.

New Urban Properties principal Tom Owens, who is developing the property in partnership with veteran Bay Area developers Mike Kelly and Dave Skyhawk, said the plans call for preserving the exterior while gutting the interior to make way for a mixture one-, two-, and three-bedroom contemporary units.

The entire rehab, designed by architect Dan Huntsman, will cost $80 million. Construction started this month and will take just over a year.

Located adjacent to the Palace Hotel, the “The Montgomery” as it will be called, is often lost in the shadow of its grandiose neighbor, Owens said. His firm bought the building in 2001 and originally intended to keep it as an office building. But he said the huge demand for condos in downtown San Francisco and the fact that the building gets light on all four sides made it a natural for residential conversion.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 1st, 2006 at 5:59 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.