Top Bay Area residential projects of 2011
San Francisco Business Times by Emily Fancher, Senior Editor
Date: Thursday, March 15, 2012, 8:11am PDT - Last Modified: Thursday, March 15, 2012, 4:00pm PDTView photo gallery (5 photos)
Homebuilder KB Home is built 65 two to four townhouses as part of its Walden Park project at 88 El Paseo Circle in Walnut Creek, the only new housing development in that city. The community includes a club house and pool and is less than a mile from the Pleasant Hill BART station.
- Emily Fancher
- Senior Editor - San Francisco Business Times
2011 was a tough year for new housing in the Bay Area. That’s an understatement, really.
Click the image to see a selection of finalists for Real Estate Deals of the Year awards for residential categories. >>>
Almost no new large projects were built due to the housing collapse that began in 2008, meaning very few started construction in 2009 or 2010. In past years, our Real Estate Deals of the Year Awards judges have considered a bevy of large, glitzy, high profile condo towers throughout the Bay Area for the awards. Not this year.
For perhaps the first time ever, we didn’t even have a market-rate housing category that focused exclusively on San Francisco. Our reporter J.K. Dineen found that the biggest condo developments to wrap in the city in 2011 were little more than 20 units.
The biggest market-rate project — and the only one of its kind — to wrap up in all of the Bay Area in 2011 was Wood Partners’ 264 apartments in Oakland. Production of affordable housing wasn’t quite as dismal, but there were notably fewer big affordable projects as well.
That’s a sad statement for the Bay Area, which despite the soft economy, is tens of thousands of units behind in needed housing production.
Click here to see a complete list of finalists for Bay Area Real Estate Deals of the Year awards.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Walnut Creeks KB Home project is up for Award - Walnut Creek Real Estate News
Friday, March 9, 2012
Neiman Marcus in Walnut Creek Opens Today - Walnut Creek Real Estate News
Controversial Neiman Marcus opens in Walnut Creek
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WALNUT CREEK, Calif. (KGO) -- The first Neiman Marcus in Walnut Creek opens to shoppers this morning, after an epic battle that ended at the polls.
Walnut Creek's mayor said the negativity surrounding the store is gone and those who have opposed it have accepted it and they are pulling for its success. A mall competitor helped fund a campaign to try and stop Neiman Marcus from coming to Walnut Creek. Opponents were concerned about parking and congestion and they had concerns that the store would not deliver on its projected tax revenue.
"It was a struggle. I think what really happened was we realized the nature of the struggle we had no idea, at least I had no idea, that two retail shopping center magnets really battling it out over property in Walnut Creek. When we finally realized what was happening, the community really got behind the effort and we had a vote on this particular building. It was really unusual to have people vote on a single building. So over 71 percent of the people said yes to Neiman Marcus and yes to what this will mean to Walnut Creek," said Walnut Creek Mayor Bob Simmons.
The mayor said that Neiman met the city's parking requirements. He is looking into possibly adding another parking garage in the busy downtown. Only three percent of downtown Walnut Creek is unoccupied.
The new store is expected to bring in about $600,000 in tax revenue for the city.
The doors open at 10 a.m..
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