SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.—SOMA Hotel, a privately held hotel development company, announced that it has acquired a prime development site to build a 250-key hotel in the South of Market area in San Francisco’s urban core. The purchase price was not disclosed. It will be the city’s first full-service hotel project since 2008.
The site was purchased from Block 1 Associates, a joint venture between Blackrock Real Estate and Strada Investment Group. Block 1 owns the adjacent land and has announced plans to build 350 units of residential condominiums and apartments.
Construction on the 15-story hotel is slated to begin in the 2014 fourth quarter with an expected opening in the 2016 fourth quarter. The property will be a four-star, to-be-named, premium-branded lifestyle hotel and will feature specialized meeting spaces and food and beverage offerings. The hotel will be environmentally constructed in accordance with LEED-Gold standards. Affiliates of SOMA will oversee construction of the hotel and operate it upon opening.
The fully entitled, 23,000-square-foot site is part of the Mission Bay Redevelopment Plan and is located on Channel Street between 3rd and 4th Streets, only a block away from AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants. The new hotel will serve multiple nearby demand generators, including numerous high tech companies, the University of California San Francisco Mission Bay Campus, and its 289-bed hospital, several clinics, and research facilities.
“Downtown San Francisco is one of the most difficult cities for new construction, due to scarcity of land and high barriers to new construction,” said Will Gibbs, senior vice president, SOMA Hotel. “This will be the first four-star, new-build hotel in the city’s urban core since 2008.”
