This San Francisco Neighborhood is BOOMING in 2025 (Jackson Square)

This San Francisco neighborhood saw its initial boom during the Gold Rush era, and it's once again becoming a pillar of the next phase of San Francisco's growth and development. With new venture capital, tech companies, Michelin-starred restaurants, and some of the largest developments going on in San Francisco right now, this neighborhood is defying post-pandemic trends, and its real estate is likely to see the benefit in the coming years. This is Austin Klar, your lawyer-turned-real estate agent in San Francisco and Marin County, and I'm talking about the Jackson Square neighborhood, right in the heart of San Francisco's commercial center. It's where new office spaces are being built and commanding absurdly high rents new food concepts, new retail concepts, and so much other development is happening. And in this video, I'm breaking down everything you need to know about Jackson Square, from what the lifestyle is like, what the housing is like there, how much it costs, and all the exciting things recently opened and coming soon. This neighborhood has so much history, and it's so special architecturally. I can't wait to show it to you. Let's get right to it and start with an overview of where it is in San Francisco and what that means for weather there. Jackson Square is a very tiny neighborhood on the northeast side of SF, just north of the financial district. District. Roughly, it's bounded by Broadway on the north, Sansum to the east, Washington on the south, and Columbus to the west. And because of its location within the city, relatively close to the eastern waterfront of San Francisco, a lot of the cold and fog fronts from the Pacific Ocean on the far west side of the city don't make their way all the way over to Jackson Square. So it has relatively mild weather by San Francisco standards. It can get a little bit windy in the area because of the high-rise buildings around there. Sometimes they can create wind tunnels, but overall the weather is very average, very mild by San Francisco standards, which is great because you have so many amenities, parks, restaurants, bars, shopping, so many great things that you can walk to. And I'm going to talk about all that stuff later in this video. But before I get there, I want to tell you a little bit about the history of Jackson Square because it has one of the most fascinating histories of any individual neighborhood in San Francisco. The original shoreline for San Francisco actually came close to the edge of the neighborhood. Yeah., and what's now between the edge of the neighborhood and the bay is largely fill made up in part of old ships that are buried beneath the surface. And that former waterfront location meant that Jackson Square was the perfect place for all these new businesses coming to San Francisco during the Gold Rush era to set up shop. So you had a ton of industry and entertainment that set up in Jackson Square, and it was actually known as the Red Light District of San Francisco. From whiskey stores and wine shops to banks to other government offices, they all set their roots down in Jackson Square, right on the former waterfront., and the area remains a hub for commerce today, albeit in slightly different form. There are several buildings in the area originally built in the mid-1800s that actually survived the 1906 earthquake and fires. So the area is very unique from an architectural perspective. A lot of the commercial buildings in that area that remain today are original to the location and have that original character and charm that you don't find in a lot of commercial buildings in other parts of San Francisco. So much charm that the neighborhood has been designated an historic district on the National Register of Historic Places, which is very rare for areas dominated by so many commercial spaces. There really is no other neighborhood like it in San Francisco from a lifestyle perspective, from an architecture perspective. And I'm gonna talk about that stuff next. Before I get into that, if you like videos about San Francisco, about the lifestyle, current events, new developments, or all things San Francisco real estate, make sure to subscribe to my channel because I make videos about that stuff every single week. And if you're thinking about buying a place in San Francisco and having trouble navigating all the different neighborhoods and wanna understand what all the changes we're seeing in San Francisco mean for the local real estate market, 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 here from all over the country. I'd be happy to be a resource for you. I'll put my contact info in the description below. Reach out anytime. Now back to Jackson Square, and I'm going to talk about what makes the neighborhood so special from a lifestyle perspective. There's an incredible mix of food and shopping, and it's so close to so many other neighborhoods with their own great food, shopping, and amenities. From a shopping perspective, one of the better mixes of high-end boutiques and clothing stores of any location in the city. And at a time when retail was really struggling in like the downtown hub of SF, Union Square in particular, retail in Jackson Square is actually seeing meaningful growth with new stores popping up because it's such a popular location. Paul Smith recently opened a store here. Ralph Lauren recently opened a store here. Tom Brown recently opened a store here. And there are several other similar shops throughout the area. It feels much more like a SoHo, New York than it does San Francisco because of the type of shopping here, the types of stores that are here, and the architecture of those stores. And the architecture is actually what I love the most about those stores. Take Paul Smith's store as an example. It's an Italianate building from the 1860s, so 12-foot ceilings. You've got these big columns. They just don't build retail space like this anymore. And all the stores in Jackson Square have this unique style that you can really only find in Jackson Square. And the food is even more amazing than the shopping. Quince, which is a 3-star Michelin restaurant, is in Jackson Square. Cattonia, which is from the same team behind Quince, A+ Italian food, right next door. In Jackson Square. Verjus, French wine bar, recently reopened in the area. It is super popular in Jackson Square. Café Sebastian, which is one of the newest food concepts at the base of the Transamerica Pyramid, is here. Postscript, which is a, a great coffee shop and perfect for on-the-go food for a lot of the office workers in the area, light bites, quick lunches, that's here. Kusakabe, which is a Michelin-star omakase restaurant, is here. Villa Taverna, which is a private dining club with Italian food, is here. Roka Akor for Asian food, Bix for American food, Old Ship Saloon and Barbarossa Lounge, like staple bars in the area. Back when I used to work at my law firm, it was just a few minutes walk from Jackson Square. I spent a lot of time at a lot of these places. You have the Battery, which is just beyond the border of Jackson Square, a members-only club with multiple bars and restaurants. You've got the Bank of Amador, which is another private club right next to the Transamerica Pyramid. You have Kokkari, which is my personal favorite restaurant in San Francisco. Incredible Mediterranean food. Right outside the border of Jackson Square. You have the Ferry Building and all the incredible offerings there just a few minutes' walk away. You have all the food and shopping in Union Square and other parts of downtown within a 10-minute walk of you as well. You have Chinatown within walking distance. You have a bunch of art galleries and antique shops. There's just so much available to you in and immediately surrounding Jackson Square. In addition to the food, the shopping, the art galleries, there are park spaces nearby. They're not like these giant open green spaces like the Presidio or Alta Plaza Park or Dolores Park or Golden Gate Park because Jackson Square Jackson Square really is dominated by these like commercial buildings and it's a relatively dense area, but there are open green spaces perfect for just going lounging around when the weather's nice or taking your pets if you have to happen to own dogs, for example. Redwood Park at the base of Transamerica recently reopened after a major renovation. It's an incredible public space for workers at the building and locals in the area. There's a little bar area there, there's shuffleboard, there are water features. Walton Square is also nearby between Jackson Square and the Embarcadero.. It's an actual, like, park, open green space surrounded by a bunch of different condo and office buildings. It's not anything giant, just nice to have some green space breaking up the commercial landscape in the area. You have the Embarcadero and Maritime Plaza on the opposite side of the neighborhood. You have Portsmouth Square and Chinatown right at the edge of the neighborhood. Just little pockets of open space to kind of break up the commercial feeling of the neighborhood. If you want much larger open spaces, like in some of those other parks I mentioned, you have to leave Jackson Square to get that. Jackson Square is also relatively flat, so everything I've talked about so far is relatively easy to get to no matter where you live in Jackson Square, not only because Jackson Square itself is tiny, but because the streets are very walkable. Parking can be pretty tough in the area because there are a lot of big office buildings and high-rise buildings nearby, and all the parking on the street is metered. So it's not like if you don't have a spot at your place, you can easily park on the street. You'd have to be moving your car constantly. So if you do get a place in Jackson Square, you better get parking. And what's most exciting to me about Jackson Square is not what's already available to residents there,, but what's coming soon to the area. Jackson Square is once again becoming a hub for large-scale development on this side of San Francisco. The Transamerica Building in Green— the southern portion of the neighborhood, for example— was purchased in 2020, and hundreds of millions were spent renovating it, creating new amenity spaces, new office spaces, all with these insane views. There's a rotating exhibition at the base of the pyramid with different art, plus the public park, Redwood Park, that I talked about. It's a really awesome concept, and they're still adding more to the space. Related, California, which is the California arm of one of largest real estate developers in the country, is working on bringing San Francisco's first 5-star hotel in decades, along with a brand new high-rise office building with new luxury spaces, very similar to what happened at Transamerica. You might be thinking it is absolutely insane for any investor to be building office space in San Francisco right now, where office vacancies sit at about 35% at the time that I'm filming this video, the beginning of August of 2025. But office vacancy rates are actually falling. They've fallen for the past 3 quarters in a row. Remote work is becoming less predominant. We've seen a trend of newer amenitized luxury office space is actually commanding premium rents well north of city average and sustaining significantly lower vacancy rates than what we're seeing citywide. There are a ton of old buildings that are experiencing struggles, but high demand exists for these like newer spaces that make people happier about having to come to work. I didn't say happy. I said happier. If I had to go to the office, I would want to come to a space that had like these nice new luxury amenity spaces. And that's what they're building at these buildings. Transamerica is the perfect example of how that can lead to success.. They've already brought in several high-end tenants at rents not seen anywhere outside of New York in this country. Very, very high rents, way above city average. And they have way below average vacancy rates for the downtown hub of San Francisco. Another great example is Bain Capital. They consolidated a bunch of their different office spaces around the city into a mid-rise building in Jackson Square that is beautifully finished. Johnny Ive, the well-known iPhone designer, has spent tens of millions of dollars acquiring a bunch of different buildings in Jackson Square. A company he co-founded is in one of those buildings. Cine also recently purchased the Little Fox Theater in Jackson Square. We have a lot of big players making big bets on this part of town. It's because there's so much that this area has to offer. So what does that mean for real estate prices? What's been going on with housing prices there? Well, Jackson Square is dominated by condos. There really aren't single-family homes in Jackson Square, and the overall real estate market there was hit very hard during the pandemic. People just didn't need to live the condo lifestyle and didn't want to, at least in the early phases of the pandemic. They needed office space. In their home because they couldn't come to the office. So they needed larger living spaces that weren't available in downtown San Francisco condos. They also wanted more outdoor space since they were stuck at their house more. And with so many businesses closing down in the financial district and surrounding areas, demand for Jackson Square, like other neighborhoods in and around downtown San Francisco, really fell down. And just like in normal economic circumstances, when demand wanes, prices fall. A good example of that is the main, you know, new construction condo building in Jackson Square. Square, 288 Pacific, one of the most beautiful buildings in San Francisco, designed by Handel Architects. Incredibly tall ceilings, beautiful finishes. Wolf, Gaggenau Waterworks, like, went all out on finishes. It's an absolutely gorgeous building with beautiful rooftops and views, but values there got hit very hard. The building came online near the peak of the condo market in 2018, and since then they've taken a big dive valuation-wise. A unit there that sold in 2018 for nearly $2.5 million recently sold for $1.85 million. Another unit there that sold back then for about $2. $2 million, has been on the market at $2 million for many months and hasn't sold. So very clearly, the building and the broader market in both Jackson Square and other areas near downtown took major hits. But as return to office becomes more prominent, as more businesses open up new offices and demand employees come to work, and as more people move back to San Francisco, as the overall quality of life in San Francisco has improved with falling crime rates, falling homelessness, there's going to be more demand for condos again. And we've already started seeing that so far this year with condo prices rising for the first time in 5, 6 years. There are still incredible deals in the area and units at 288 Pacific are just an example of those. And if you believe in the long-term trajectory of San Francisco and Jackson Square neighborhood in particular, there's some great opportunities. Well, there you have it. That's everything you need to know about what's going on in Jackson Square. It's got an incredible history and equally incredible amenities and lifestyle offerings. If you're thinking about buying a place in Jackson Square or any other neighborhood in San Francisco, San Francisco, reach out to me. I've helped numerous people relocate from all over the country to San Francisco, and I'd be happy to be a resource for you. I'll put my contact info in the description below. Reach out anytime. And if you like videos about different neighborhoods in San Francisco, what the lifestyle is like there, current events, new developments, or all things San Francisco real estate, make sure to subscribe to my channel because I make videos about that stuff every single week. And if you want to learn about other major real estate developments coming in San Francisco, I've got separate videos on those that I'll link in the description below. Go check them out. I hope you enjoyed the video, and I'll see you in the next one.