Developers Pitch a Basketball Complex for the Empty San Francisco Centre

Bidding closed last Wednesday on the empty San Francisco Centre, and one of the proposals now in front of the mall’s owners would fill the 1.2-million-square-foot building on Market Street with basketball courts.

The bid comes from Urban Land Development and TMG Partners, as The San Francisco Standard reported on September 13. The two firms want to convert the shuttered mall into a multilevel sports complex: two floors of retail open to the public, an underground food court where the existing one sits, and members-only sports floors above.

What the Proposal Includes

The third floor would be run by a company launched by former Green Bay Packers receiver Derrick Mayes. Called JumpShot Live, it combines a restaurant and sports bar with dozens of hoops and games, available for private parties and corporate events. The venture has no physical locations yet and is launching out of Dallas.

Above it, a fourth-floor facility with six hardwood courts would host private training camps run by an organization founded by NBA coach and Bay Area native Phil Handy, who is on staff with the Philadelphia 76ers. The partners also propose an eight-court volleyball facility that could be rented, and a sports-focused prep high school. The Standard’s summary places the school on the top floor while its own description of the plan puts the volleyball courts above the basketball level, so the exact stacking is not settled in the reporting.

Everything above the retail floors would be limited to members, program participants and enrolled students.

Who Is Behind It

Urban Land Development is headed by Jon Mayeda, who built his reputation converting SoMa industrial buildings into offices. People familiar with him told the Standard he has been pitching a sports complex for years, and he coaches high school basketball and AAU teams outside his real estate work. ULD has had a difficult year: lenders foreclosed on an office building it constructed at 531 Bryant Street, and a mixed-use building at 150 Post Street was also seized.

TMG Partners would supply most of the capital. The firm bought the Metreon nearby and is working with Macy’s on the redevelopment of its Union Square store.

Why the Sale Keeps Stalling

This is the second round of bids this year. The owners, a bondholder group that took the property after Westfield defaulted, selected a bid from Prado Group and Presidio Bay Ventures in March. That deal collapsed in July, and we covered it at the time in San Francisco Centre Is Back on the Market After Its Buyers Walk Away.

One complication is the land itself. SFist notes that the San Francisco Unified School District still owns the majority of the ground under the mall and collects rent on a 60-year lease, which any buyer has to work around. Historic elements inside the building, including the spiral dome, have to be preserved. Sources told the Standard the previous offer was around $130 million. CBRE marketed the property for about a month and confirmed it received multiple bids; the owners are expected to pick one in the coming weeks.

What It Means If You Are Downtown

The mall occupies the block of Market Street directly above Powell Street station, between Fourth and Fifth, so anyone arriving downtown by BART or Muni Metro walks past it. Its last tenant, the bar Executive Order, closed on June 30 of this year.

Retail around it has been moving in the other direction. Uniqlo and Zara are both expected to open flagship stores in the area this fall, and the city is rebuilding the Powell Street corridor itself, which we wrote about in Powell Street’s $40M Rebuild Now Set to Start This Winter. Nothing about the mall changes for visitors until a sale closes and permits follow, which means the building stays dark through this year’s holiday season whatever happens next.

Sources: The San Francisco Standard, SFist.

Photo: Pi.1415926535, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.