• San Francisco’s commercial real estate market has seen a recent peak in demand. 
• The city may have the recent AI boom to thank for the boost, experts say.
• For the last few years, the once-hot market has been struggling to keep pace with the rest of the US. 

San Francisco’s commercial real estate market has been struggling in recent years. Storefronts, hotels, and office buildings have been moving out of the city at such a rate some have dubbed it a “doom loop.” 

It has also seen tech companies drastically reduce their presence. Meta, PayPal, and Snap have all slashed office space in the city in recent years. Meanwhile, the city is facing a devastating homelessness problem and a concerning shift in crime patterns. 

“San Francisco used to have the lowest office vacancy in the US of any major market,” Alexander Quinn, director of research at real estate company Jones Lang LaSalle, told Insider. “Vacancy is now at around 28% which would put it at the highest of any major market in the US,” he added. 

The pandemic was the major culprit behind this decline, Nick Romito – CEO of commercial real estate leasing and asset management platform VTS – told Insider. 

“San Francisco was a white-hot market driven mostly by technology. To go from that to quite literally the worst market in the country over the course of two years is kind of unprecedented,” he said.

But things are starting to turn around for San Francisco’s faltering commercial real estate market and the city may have artificial intelligence to thank for it. 

The excitement around generative AI since the launch of Open AI’s ChatGPT in November has spurred a flood of investor interest in major companies and start-ups alike. Now, some appear to be hunting for more office space.

According to data from VTS, San Francisco saw a recent boom in demand, experiencing a 10.2% demand increase in the most recent quarter. Romito links a lot of this increase to the recent AI boom. OpenAI, for example, is headquartered in San Francisco’s Mission District. 

“There’s certainly enough capital to cause a nice leap in demand,” he said, pointing to the estimated $11 billion worth of funding poured into San Francisco-based AI companies this year. The figure accounts for nearly half of all funding for AI startups worldwide, according to data from PitchBook.

“Pretty much all the data points to this demand coming from companies that are tangentially connected to AI,” Romito said.

It’s perhaps unsurprising that AI companies seem to have San Francisco in their sights. The city is home to 11 of the top-funded companies in the sector, according to data from VC firm NFX, which was shared with Insider by San Francisco’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development. These companies include OpenAI, Anthropic, and Adept AI.

“Specifically in San Francisco we are at the epicenter of artificial intelligence,” Quinn said, “as a result that’s pushing us into growth in that sector and we are seeing growing requirements.”

Quinn said JLL had 10 AI clients eyeing around 750,000 to one million square feet of San Francisco real estate. One AI company, Hive, recently announced it was subleasing three floors of a downtown San Francisco office — taking over space previously occupied by software company Okta, Bloomberg reported. 

“They have a pretty strong remit to be in the office,” Quinn said of AI companies. “It’s driving demand which was really muted just three quarters ago — now we’re seeing a rise in our tenant requirements in San Francisco.”

VTS’s Romito said the vast majority of demand in the city in the last quarter was for smaller spaces, signaling recently-funded companies with fresh capital. 

He’s also optimistic about this demand keeping up for the rest of the year.

“I would assume for the remainder of this year AI is going to be the most active segment of technology,” he said. “You’re going to continue to see a lot of these AI deals carry a lot of capital.”

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The post Synthetic Intelligence Corporations Are Flocking to San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

• San Francisco’s commercial real estate market has seen a recent peak in demand. 
• The city may have the recent AI boom to thank for the boost, experts say.
• For the last few years, the once-hot market has been struggling to keep pace with the rest of the US. 

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San Francisco’s commercial real estate market has been struggling in recent years. Storefronts, hotels, and office buildings have been moving out of the city at such a rate some have dubbed it a “doom loop.” 

It has also seen tech companies drastically reduce their presence. Meta, PayPal, and Snap have all slashed office space in the city in recent years. Meanwhile, the city is facing a devastating homelessness problem and a concerning shift in crime patterns. 

“San Francisco used to have the lowest office vacancy in the US of any major market,” Alexander Quinn, director of research at real estate company Jones Lang LaSalle, told Insider. “Vacancy is now at around 28% which would put it at the highest of any major market in the US,” he added. 

The pandemic was the major culprit behind this decline, Nick Romito – CEO of commercial real estate leasing and asset management platform VTS – told Insider. 

“San Francisco was a white-hot market driven mostly by technology. To go from that to quite literally the worst market in the country over the course of two years is kind of unprecedented,” he said.

But things are starting to turn around for San Francisco’s faltering commercial real estate market and the city may have artificial intelligence to thank for it. 

The excitement around generative AI since the launch of Open AI’s ChatGPT in November has spurred a flood of investor interest in major companies and start-ups alike. Now, some appear to be hunting for more office space.

According to data from VTS, San Francisco saw a recent boom in demand, experiencing a 10.2% demand increase in the most recent quarter. Romito links a lot of this increase to the recent AI boom. OpenAI, for example, is headquartered in San Francisco’s Mission District. 

“There’s certainly enough capital to cause a nice leap in demand,” he said, pointing to the estimated $11 billion worth of funding poured into San Francisco-based AI companies this year. The figure accounts for nearly half of all funding for AI startups worldwide, according to data from PitchBook.

“Pretty much all the data points to this demand coming from companies that are tangentially connected to AI,” Romito said.

It’s perhaps unsurprising that AI companies seem to have San Francisco in their sights. The city is home to 11 of the top-funded companies in the sector, according to data from VC firm NFX, which was shared with Insider by San Francisco’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development. These companies include OpenAI, Anthropic, and Adept AI.

“Specifically in San Francisco we are at the epicenter of artificial intelligence,” Quinn said, “as a result that’s pushing us into growth in that sector and we are seeing growing requirements.”

Quinn said JLL had 10 AI clients eyeing around 750,000 to one million square feet of San Francisco real estate. One AI company, Hive, recently announced it was subleasing three floors of a downtown San Francisco office — taking over space previously occupied by software company Okta, Bloomberg reported. 

“They have a pretty strong remit to be in the office,” Quinn said of AI companies. “It’s driving demand which was really muted just three quarters ago — now we’re seeing a rise in our tenant requirements in San Francisco.”

VTS’s Romito said the vast majority of demand in the city in the last quarter was for smaller spaces, signaling recently-funded companies with fresh capital. 

He’s also optimistic about this demand keeping up for the rest of the year.

“I would assume for the remainder of this year AI is going to be the most active segment of technology,” he said. “You’re going to continue to see a lot of these AI deals carry a lot of capital.”

The post Synthetic Intelligence Corporations Are Flocking to San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

At first it seems like a political head-scratch. Why would MP Marjorie Taylor Greene – the former QAnon supporter who once contemplated a space laser lit a forest fire in California – be invited to a San Francisco Republican Party fundraiser in the Bay Area next month?

It should not be. Republicans have long visited what they call the belly of the liberal beast for the same reasons as Democrats. Because that’s where the money is.

Californians contributed $ 1.6 billion to political campaigns during the 2020 political cycle, with 69% going to Democrats, 28% to Republicans, and the rest to independents and third parties, according to bipartisan Money-in-Politics analysts at Open Secrets.

“You’re definitely here to raise money,” said Roger Royse, a Silicon Valley tax attorney who has participated in several GOP fundraisers. “Despite the fact that we are in the belly of the liberal beast, there is a large enough Republican contingent in the state” to support them.

Tickets for the November 6th Greene event, which starts at $ 175, are expected to sell out. Any concerns from ticket buyers or promoters about Taylor Greene’s previous endorsement of insane conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks and the school shootings in Parkland, Florida – or since then apologizing for comparing Capitol mask wearing rules to the Holocaust – were either forgiven or forgotten . Her house counterparts may have stripped the Georgian of her committee duties, but that only makes her a grassroots heroine – and a fundraising star who raised $ 6.3 million in just her first term.

Join us for our Lincoln Reagan Dinner 2021 with selected speaker:

Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene! @RepMTG

Hope you can join us! https://t.co/zhrzsD0L79 pic.twitter.com/ALaV4oEcsJ

– Republican Party in San Francisco (@SFGOP) October 21, 2021

All that remains to be decided is where your event will take place. A San Francisco venue has likely gone down because Greene declined to reveal whether she was vaccinated, which would be a requirement for being allowed to enter many venues around the city. Now their event appears to be somewhere in San Mateo County.

It’s not just Greene raising cash in the politically indigo Bay Area. The region has become a hotbed of GOP activity in recent weeks among top Republicans, many of whom keep dreams of a possible 2024 presidential election warm as Donald Trump plans his next move.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Utah Senator Mike Lee, and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul have all visited – at times maskless – and left with heavier campaign accounts. They rant about government mandates and lament the failed Californian dream.

It is a political win-win situation, as is common in fundraising campaigns of all stripes. Their audience goes bellies full of political red meat and politicians return home with their campaign coffers full of cash.

But GOP fundraisers are very different from democratic ones. The California Republicans love to help these out-of-staters because they give them something they don’t have at home: a political voice. California has no statewide officers and Republicans are a super minority in the legislature.

“We are an endangered species here,” said Peter Kuo, vice chairman of the California Republican Party, who attended an event this month for Pompeo at Calvary Church in San Jose for violating COVID. Fines of more than $ 3 million have received public health restrictions, the pastor said.

“We can’t choose them,” said Kuo. “But you can vote for us.”

Pompeo’s speech on Calvary, which was not a fundraiser, was heavily influenced by tough China politics. But other speakers were more focused in the States, like Calvary Pastor Mike McClure.

McClure railed about “the Marxism and the lies that are told in our culture that are not true,” said McClure that “what we see in the forced vaccinations against all these locks and all the controls has kept people from Worship God ”.

The audience roared in approval like Pompeo encouraging what he believed were full of Conservative Californians to stay on course.

“You are in a difficult situation here. Never give up. Never give an inch. Keep your faith, ”said Pompeo. “The ‘California Dream’ is the American dream. Or at least it was. It will come again. “

He said, “We would be much better off if Americans spent more time on the Bible and less on the 1619 Project,” the New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning historical analysis of America’s slavery in recent years four years has shaped centuries. The project has become the acronym for political correctness in conservative circles.

DeSantis ‘appearance last week for a fundraiser at the San Francisco home of venture capitalist David Sacks drew some protesters concerned about Sacks’ involvement in several product recalls in California.

“I like him,” Sacks told Bloomberg TV of DeSantis. “He was the first governor to end these insane lockdowns. He found the right policies for lockdowns to stop them and he did so despite very hostile media.

“I can really respect that. That’s why I support him, ”said Sacks, who contributed to the effort to recall Governor Gavin Newsom, San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, and members of the San Francisco Unified School Board.

DeSantis and Newsom have continued to argue in the media over their respective states’ approach to the pandemic. During the recall, Newsom often told audiences that if a Republican replaced him, they would likely “drive California off the same cliff” as Florida and Texas.

On Sunday, DeSantis told Fox News that he would offer a $ 5,000 relocation bonus to officers from other states moving to Florida. At a news conference on Wednesday, Newsom responded, without mentioning the Florida governor’s name, that “If you are a law enforcement officer, you support vaccination. There is a lot of politics in this area. “

Jason Scalese, a California Republican Party delegate who attended one of Lee’s recent local fundraisers, said a candidate’s handling of COVID has “become the fourth leg of the Republican chair,” alongside social, economic, and foreign policy Ronald Reagan once universally defined pillars of the party. It makes sense that they are promoting it along the way, said Scalese, who was a longtime GOP leader in San Mateo County before moving to El Dorado County recently.

Scalese said Greene was not his kind of Republican, however. Given her outrageous comments over the years, she seems “just a little too bombastic for me”.

But he’s certain of one thing: “She’ll probably sell a few tickets.”

Joe Garofoli is the leading political writer on the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli

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