“/>

Image Credits: Flad Architects

Ten years ago, Pear VC, then a tiny new venture firm, operated out of a nondescript office in Palo Alto that was enlivened by bright, computer-themed art. Last week, the outfit – which closed its largest fund to date in May – quietly inked a deal to sublease 30,000 square feet of “Class A” office space in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood from the file-storage giant Dropbox.

It’s among a number of fast-growing outfits taking up more space in San Francisco as an earlier generation of companies shrinks its physical footprint.

As the San Francisco Chronicle first reported last week, ChatGPT creator OpenAI also just subleased two buildings totaling a collective 486,600 of square feet from Uber. The ride-share giant, which originally leased a grouping of four buildings down the street from Dropbox and will continue to occupy two of these, told the paper it is “right-sizing.”

Meanwhile, a rival to OpenAI – Anthropic – also just reportedly closed a sizable subleasing deal. Its plan: to take over the entire 250,000-square-foot building in downtown San Francisco that was previously Slack’s headquarters.

Salesforce, which acquired Slack in 2021, is an investor in Anthropic. Meanwhile, Pear VC co-founder Pejman Nozad wrote one of the first small checks to Dropbox when he was still relatively new to the U.S. from Iran and selling Persian rugs to Silicon Valley bigwigs. Such subleases don’t necessarily begin with hand-shake deals, however. Asked if Nozad zeroed in on Pear’s new space owing to his connection to Dropbox, he scoffs. The office — which has room for more than 200 desks, features more than 20 conference and call rooms, and has dedicated events space to host talks — “was a business deal for them,” says Nozad. “The founders were not involved. As you know, I sold rugs for 17 years, so I have some skills in negotiation,” he adds with a laugh.

Certainly, it’s a good time to strike a subleasing deal if you’re a well-funded company on the rise. According to Colin Yasukochi, an executive director at the commercial real estate services firm CBRE, subleases in prime areas like Mission Bay and the city’s Financial District currently range from $60 to $80 per square foot. The higher the floor and the more plentiful the amenities, the higher the price. For startups willing to sublease space with less than five years left on the lessee’s contract, the better the terms (as they’ll need to lease again somewhere else in the not-too-distant future). In comparison, office lease rates passed the $75 per square foot mark in September 2019 before the pandemic turned the city upside down.

There’s also no shortage of options right now. San Francisco’s commercial buildings are currently 35% vacant, and there are still more tenants flowing out the door than entering them.

But a tipping point is seemingly in sight. There was “negative net absorption” of 1.85 million square feet in San Francisco in the third quarter of this year, according to CBRE data; at the same time, market demand reached 5.2 million square feet, which is the highest increase since the first quarter of 2020. Much of that shift can be traced to companies like OpenAI, suggests Yasukochi, who says that a new spate of outfits is starting to set up shop, enticed by the opportunity to rent sleeker space for the same or better prices than was possible several years ago, and in more central areas of the city. “It’s a huge opportunity for companies that are trying to bring back their employees,” says Yasukochi. (OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has long said he thinks companies are more effective when employees convene in person.)

Indeed, Yasukochi anticipates that if the economy improves in the second half of new year and interest rates come down, tech outfits in particular will be positioned to recover faster —  and pull the city along with them. “Many tech companies were quick to cut excess employees, along with real estate and other costs,” says Yasukochi. He also says that while tech outfits are typically “early to cut back, they’re also early to grow. I don’t see any other industry that generate the volume of growth that tech can.”

Worth noting: Yasukochi does not think those tech companies will necessarily be growing in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley. Though the neighborhood has led a resurgence of interest in San Francisco this year and eagerly embraced the moniker “Cerebral Valley,” owing to its concentration of AI communities, most of those teams, he observes, are “meeting in restaurants and bars and working out of their apartments. There isn’t a lot of office space there.”

Pictured above: 1800 Owens Street in San Francisco, which is the site of Dropbox’s headquarters and now, Pear VC’s San Francisco office, too.

The post A brand new era of firms is transferring on up in San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Back in 1977, David Tolson and his sister, Anna Neace, started Chimney Sweep Cleaners.

They had seen a story in the Messenger-Inquirer about chimney sweeps in another state donning black coats with tails and top hats, traditional chimney sweep attire that dated back to the 1700s in England.

So, they tried it here, driving a 1951 Studebaker from job to job.

And the romantic image of chimney sweeps, inspired by the 1964 movie, “Mary Poppins,” caught on.

By 1985, the company was handling 25 to 30 chimney and fireplace repairs a week.

Chimney Sweep Cleaners was a success and today Roman Tolson, David’s grandson, still operates it.

But the name has been changed to Chimney Cleaning & Repair.

Tolson said he started working with his father, Kelly Tolson, in the business in 2012 and took over the company the following year.

“Customers ask why I don’t dress up,” he said. “I try not to get too uncomfortable when I’m working. And that attire isn’t comfortable.”

Top hats do keep things from falling down a chimney onto a sweep’s head, Tolson said.

“I do have a top hat,” he said. “But I don’t wear it.”

It takes about 45 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes to clean most chimneys, Tolson said.

“Technology has really improved,” he said.

Two years ago, when his father was dying of pancreatic cancer, Tolson said he took time off to help care for him.

And then last year, COVID concerns shut him down for much of the year.

But Tolson is back in business this year.

“I have regulars who have me clean their chimneys every year,” he said. “But if it doesn’t need cleaning, I’ll tell them that at no charge.”

He doesn’t accept credit cards to keep his expenses down, Tolson said.

“It’s a pretty good business,” he said.

But Tolson is also working on a bachelor’s degree in information technology, which he started last year when COVID precautions prevented him from working.

“I like working for myself,” he said.

In addition to cleaning chimneys, Tolson also rebuilds them and replaces bricks when they need it.

He notices that there are more pre-fab chimneys today.

“People don’t seem to be as skilled as they were years ago,” Tolson said.

He said he works in about a 55-mile radius around Owensboro in Kentucky, but he doesn’t work in Indiana.

“My goal is to eventually have a crew,” Tolson said. “But I want quality over quantity in my work.”

Chimney sweeps sometimes find more than soot in a chimney.

“In 2017, I found a chimney full of bats,” Tolson said. “But it was illegal to touch them because it was breeding season.”

He said, “I’ve pulled animal skeletons out of chimneys, but never a whole carcass.”

Tolson can be reached at 270-925-0947.

The post A Clear Sweep: Tolson third technology in household chimney enterprise | Options appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.