SAN FRANCISCO — A joint venture between Related Cos. and Atria Senior Living, along with funding support from Welltower, has acquired the former KRON-TV headquarters in San Francisco, with plans to convert the property to seniors housing.
Onyx Partners sold the property for an undisclosed price. Located one block from the new Sutter California Pacific Van Ness Medical Center and along the Van Ness Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line now under construction, the community will be at the center of the city’s Cathedral Hill neighborhood.
In April, the San Francisco Planning Commission unanimously approved the plans to transform the vacant building site into one of the city’s first modern senior living communities in over a decade. Groundbreaking is scheduled for late 2019, with a planned completion by the end of 2021. When completed, the building will total 13 stories and 270,000 square feet, including 7,000 square feet of ground-floor retail.
The Related-Atria joint venture was announced in October 2018, with a $3 billion planned pipeline of new seniors housing development. At that time, San Francisco was specifically cited as a high-barrier-to-entry market the venture was interested in, along with New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, Miami and Washington D.C. Welltower describes itself as “the long-term capital partner” for the joint venture.
“There continues to be a severe shortage of urban seniors housing options throughout the country,” says Bryan Cho, executive vice president of Related.
Atria will operate the community upon completion. Although an architect was not disclosed, Handel Architects has already published renderings for the project.
As part of the initial development, Oryx, Related and Atria will make a contribution to Openhouse in support of the completion of the city’s first senior center dedicated to serving primarily low-income LGBTQ seniors. Oryx’s JC Wallace will also join the Openhouse Board of Directors. In addition, the group has agreed to make an additional contribution to Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp. aimed at supporting innovative homeless seniors housing and wellness initiatives.