New York-based developer Thor Equities has sold the historic Phelan building in San Francisco for $375 million to a member of the prominent Hotung family with deep roots in Hong Kong, sources said. A limited liability company, The Phelan Building LLC, has purchased the 11-story landmark at 760 Market Street, according to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Chinese investors pumped $17 billion into US commercial property in the first five months of this year, on pace to surpass the record $21.4 billion in 2015, Cushman & Wakefield said. Half of the investment this year has been in office buildings and majority of the remainder in hotels, C&W said. Cushman & Wakefield represented the buyer. Thor Equities through one of its two urban property funds purchased the building in 2008 for $130 million and spent $40 million renovating the site by creating wide-open floor space from the small offices that jewelers had occupied.
The time was right to sell the building, said Thor Equities chief executive Joseph Sitt in a statement. Office tenants at the building include online credit site Credit Karma and Medium, an online publishing platform founded by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams. The triangular-shaped building is reminiscent of the Flatiron building in New York and was built after the original structure was destroyed by the fire in the 1906 earthquake.