5 MAJOR Changes Coming to Downtown San Francisco

San Francisco's in the midst of a major transformation with AI companies leasing millions of square feet of office space and bringing a ton of new jobs, billions of dollars being invested in new mixed-use communities all across the city, and tens of thousands of new housing units expected in the coming years. From massive infrastructure projects to brand new public spaces, the city's evolving at an unprecedented pace. This is Austin Klar, your lawyer turned real estate agent in San Francisco and Marin County, and in this video I'm breaking down my favorite new developments that are going to completely reshape the city skyline in the coming years. From the first 5-star hotel to be built in Francisco in decades, to an over 60-story brand new housing development that would be the 4th tallest building in San Francisco, to an adaptive reuse of an historic theater, to the first condo building on the major redevelopment going on at Treasure Island, and a vertical tech village in one of San Francisco's toughest neighborhoods. Let's get right to it and kick it off with the brand new 5-star hotel and luxury office space being developed in downtown San Francisco by Related California, the California arm of one of the largest commercial developers there is. You're probably wondering why a developer would build brand new office space in downtown San Francisco when we have so much vacant office space in the area? And to pair it with a new hotel when tourism is down since before the pandemic and we have a dire need for housing? How does that make any sense? Well, I think based on recent trends we're seeing in the city, I actually think these are going to be incredibly smart investments. As of the end of Q1 of 2025, according to CBRE, the office vacancy rate in San Francisco stood at about 35.8%, which is staggeringly high, but it's actually falling each of the past 2 quarters. So it's trending back in the right direction. Vacancy's fallen. In fact, new office leases in San Francisco hit about 3 million square feet in that first quarter of 2025, with a dozen deals over 50,000 square feet, which is the largest number of those kinds of deals since Q3 of 2021. The rise in remote work has started to reverse trend as employers are continuing to call people back to the office and as new companies move to the city demanding in-office environments, or at least hybrid work environments. And along with that reversal in the trend regarding remote work, we've seen a trend both in San Francisco and nationally toward luxury office buildings, Class A buildings with incredible views and amenities spaces. They have substantially lower vacancy rates than the city averages and substantially higher rents, not even that much of a haircut compared to pre-pandemic. So done right, luxury office spaces actually can be a good investment even in the current market. Michael Schvoz's Transamerica Pyramid remodel is the perfect example of that, with vacancy rates well below the city average and asking rents at levels rarely seen outside premier buildings in New York City. There's obviously a clear market for high-end spaces like this. Even offices. Tourism levels are also up since the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, and tourism and hotel market has largely stabilized since about 2022. And that's in big part because of the hard work that the city has done to reduce crime, reduce homelessness, reduce drug-related deaths and violent crime. All of which has been happening over the past year in the city. In fact, the Ferry Building saw a record number of visitors for first quarter this year in 2025, its best quarter on record. So that's a great sign for what's to come in the downtown area that's been slower to recover since the pandemic. Related, California is obviously taking its cues from what's happened at the Transamerica Pyramid and is hyperaware of these positive trends that we're seeing in the city right now and is making a big bet on the city's comeback. It's bringing over 400,000 square feet of high-end office space in a 200-room, 5 5-star hotel above a brand new fire department station right next to Jackson Square. Related's actually been pursuing these plans designed by Skidmore, Owings Merrill since 2019, but the plans have morphed as the city has evolved over the past 6 years. Current proposal would see a 574-foot-tall structure with 231,000 square feet for the hotel, 7,500 square feet of retail and restaurant space, and then the rest for office space and parking. The ground level will have a cafe. There's also going to be a hotel and office lobby. There's going to be a multi-floor restaurant on the second and 3rd floor. There's also going to be a number of different meeting rooms and ballrooms. I've also heard rumors that they're going to put an Equinox there, which makes sense given Related's affiliation with Equinox. The renderings look sick and it's in a great location next to so many incredible restaurants— Kukari, Catonia, Quint's, Café Sebastian, the new restaurant at Transamerica Pyramid. Plus there's a ton of great shopping in Jackson Square and there are a lot of other heavy hitters betting on the Jackson Square area, like Johnny Ive, for example. Construction is expected to cost about $600 million and it's expected to take until about 2030 to complete., and when it's done, it'll be the 11th tallest building in San Francisco. I'm pretty excited to see something like this come to such a great area in San Francisco. We haven't had a new 5-star hotel in the city in about 30 years, so it's really cool to see that type of investment come into the city. Of course, that's what I think. I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments. And if you like videos like this about new developments or about current events or about what's going on in the San Francisco real estate market or what it's like living in San Francisco, make sure to subscribe to my channel because I make videos about that stuff every single week. And if you ever have questions about how all of these trends we're seeing and these changes that we're seeing impact the residential real estate market, definitely reach out to me. I was a lawyer at one of the biggest law firms in the world before getting into real estate, and I've helped numerous people relocate in San Francisco from all over the country. I'd be happy to be a resource for you. I'll drop my contact info in the description below. Reach out anytime. Now back to my favorite projects that are going to reshape the city skyline in the coming years. And this next one would see the creation of what would become the 4th tallest building in San Francisco. Developer Crescent Heights is pursuing permits for a 67-story housing development at 10 South Van Ness Avenue. If actually built, the high-rise would be 780-foot tall, eclipsing the height of my old law firm building at 555 California by exactly 1 foot. And unlike the first project I talked about, this one would actually be for housing. 1.5 million square feet of the total 1.68 million square feet would be dedicated to housing, 18,570 square feet for retail, and over 32,000 square feet for public open space, and 66,000 square feet for In total, over 1,100 apartments are proposed, and about 84 of them would be designated for affordable housing, and there'll be a mix between studios all the way up to 3 bedrooms. Arcadis is designing the project, and they're including some pretty cool amenities there. There's gonna be an indoor pool. There's gonna be multiple decks on the outdoors on the 2nd and 4th floor, and there's gonna be an interior residence lounge on the 50th floor with panoramic views all across the city. There's no specific timeline or budget for construction yet. New permits were filed just a couple of months ago that have actually increased the number of housing units at the building by over 100 units. So they're still working out the final plan, but it is in process, in motion. And it's really great to see at a time when the city desperately needs housing. We are woefully behind our housing mandate and we need more units. We need more supply on the market to control rent growth in the city. And even though this isn't in the best part of town, it is in a really convenient location, easy to commute down to the south, easy to commute to downtown or the commercial hubs in SoMa. It'll definitely be a great option for new professionals coming to the city, and there's going to be be a lot of that with all that's going on. Next on my list is the first for-sale development on San Francisco's Treasure Island. If you haven't already heard about it, Treasure Island is easily one of the most ambitious redevelopments going on in San Francisco's history. The city, along with developer Wilson Meany and the Treasure Island Development Group, are transforming an historic naval site into an 8,000 mixed-use community with a ton of new housing, parks, amenities, at an incredible location smack in the middle of San Francisco Bay with unparalleled views in every single direction. And the first for-sale development on the island is coming to market soon, 490 Avenue of the Palms. They're going to start selling later this year, and it is in an awesome location right next to a brand new waterfront park with unobstructed views of the city, the Golden Gate Bridge, the bay, and the Bay Bridge. There's also going to be an A+ stack of amenities on site, including a fitness center, a residence lounge directly across from the waterfront park. There's going to be dining space, a courtyard. It's going to be awesome. And behind the condo project is a stacked team of architects and designers, including Mark Cavaniero Associates and Faujeron Architecture, and Plural Studio for the landscape. Really excited to see how they put their touch on this new development. Units there are going to range from studios to 3 bedrooms, you know, over 2,200 square feet for those larger units. So there's going to be different sizes and all different price points. If you want to stay in the loop about the development or about everything else going on at Treasure Island or any other development in the city, you know, reach out to me. Be happy to keep in touch with you. What's going on at Treasure Island is incredible, and it's really turning into an awesome location. It's in the early stage of development right now, so there's not There's not a whole lot there just yet, but I promise over time there's gonna be a ton of new retail. All the parks will be open, bike paths, restaurants. You've got Clipper Cove, which is one of the most beautiful secluded beaches in the city. It's shaping up to be one of the most beautiful communities in the Bay Area, and only a short ferry ride across the bay or a short car trip or bus trip, you can get to downtown San Francisco in 10 minutes or less. So you're a lot closer to the action than you would be if you're living, you know, on the west side of San Francisco, for example. If you wanna learn more about the Treasure Island development, I've got a separate video giving you an overview everything that they're building there. I'll link it in the description below. Go check it out. Next up on my list is a project that is unlike anything I've talked about so far in this video. German entrepreneurs purchased a 16-story building in San Francisco's Mid-Market neighborhood with the goal of turning it into what they're dubbing a vertical tech village called Frontier Tower. The plan is to take a nearly 91,000-square-foot building and turn it into a membership-based kind of industry-dedicated space. So each floor will be dedicated to different industries like AI, crypto, biotech, health, and a lot more. This is a really important project and is a positive signal among many others of the great things that we're seeing bringing about change on Market Street and in particular in the Mid-Market neighborhood. This building on 6th and Market is one of the toughest parts of San Francisco, one of the hardest hit during— in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic. It's been notorious for crime, homelessness, drug use, but it's really been cleaned up quite a bit over the past several years. So it's really nice seeing some really heavy-hitting investment in the area. As of earlier this year, there were already 200 members, and of course, tours are ongoing with the hope of generating a lot more members. It might not exactly be the best for-profit endeavor, but it's great for the community, and I hope it'll be a positive change for that part of San Francisco. And the last project, but certainly not the least, addresses another desperate need for the city of San Francisco— more housing. It's an adaptive reuse of an historic theater in the Richmond District that will see the creation of an 80-foot-tall apartment complex. The Egyptian Revival theater was built by the Reed Brothers over a century ago in San Francisco's Richmond neighborhood on Geary. It closed in 2004, and since that time has been completely vacant. There's been no use of that building whatsoever. It's really a shame. But over time, there have been spatterings of plans to do something new with that building, including multiple iterations of potential housing projects. And now it seems that those plans are actually finally starting to gain momentum and make some progress. through permitting. Gonzales Architects is working with developer Timespace Group to take the defunct building and turn it into a brand new housing complex. And the best part of it is they're actually working really hard to preserve a lot of the original, like, character and details of the building. For example, they're going to maintain the theater's original marquee. There are original murals inside that are going to be preserved, original lighting that's going to be preserved, and a lot of things that were destroyed over time or deteriorated over time are going to be brought back to life. And it's in a great location for new housing. Just a few blocks from great parks like the Presidio and Golden Gate Park, you know, two of the best parks in San Francisco, hands down. It's also close to a ton of great food on Clement Street, you know, a very diverse array of food in that Richmond neighborhood. And it's going to be pretty easy to get to downtown and to the south from that neighborhood in that specific location. So definitely exciting development, and I hope the project actually moves forward. Well, there you have it. Those are some of the most exciting new developments that are going to be reshaping the city skyline in the coming years. And there are so many more than what I just talked about from new parks to new waterfront communities. I've got several videos on a bunch of different developments going on all across the city. I'll link several of them in the description below. Definitely worth checking out if you wanna learn more about the exciting things being built in our city right now. And if you have questions about how these new developments and trends we're seeing are impacting the residential real estate market, maybe you're interested in buying, maybe you're interested in selling and wanna know what it means for you, definitely reach out to me. I'd be happy to help you. I've helped numerous people relocate from all over the country in San Francisco, and I'd be happy to be a resource for you. My contact info in the description below. Reach out anytime. And if you like videos just like this, or about what it's like living in San Francisco, new events, new developments, and all things real estate, definitely subscribe to my channel because I make videos about that stuff every single week. I hope you enjoyed the video, and I'll see you in the next one.