Independent music label Empire has bought a landmark bank branch building in Downtown San Francisco for about $240 per square foot, about 70 percent less than it traded for six years ago.
The locally based record label, distribution and publishing firm led by Ghazi Shami purchased the First National Bank building at 1 Montgomery Street, in the Financial District, the San Francisco Business Times reported, citing unidentified sources.
The seller was Texas-based Affinius Capital. The price was in the low- to mid-$20 million range, or about $240 per square foot.
Brokers Steven Golubchik and Darren Hollak of Newmark represented Affinius in the deal, while Carlos Ramirez of The Hawthorne Group represented Empire.
Locally based Redco Development and Boston-based AEW Capital Management bought the 100,000-square-foot office building in 2019 for $84 million. The price for the now 117-year-old landmark came out to $840 per square foot.
In March 2023, Redco and AEW walked away from the two–story First National Bank building after failing to make their mortgage payments on a $65 million loan
They gave the keys of the vacant building to lender Square Mile Capital, now known as Affinius Capital, based in San Antonio.
It’s not clear whether Empire, based on the 24th floor at 235 Pine Street, intends to relocate to the Italian Renaissance building at Post and Montgomery streets.
Empire, which helped launch the careers of Kendrick Lamar, Anderson .Paak and breakout country star Shaboozey, didn’t respond to questions about its plans from the Business Times.
The building historically housed a retail bank branch until Wells Fargo closed its doors there in 2019. The classically columned building has a marble interior, 15- to 32-foot ceilings, floor-to-ceiling operable windows on the second floor and privately owned public space up top.
What was once a 12-story building was built in 1908 as the hub for First National Bank, which lost its headquarters in the 1906 Earthquake. In 1925, Crocker National Bank acquired First National.
In the 1970s, Crocker struck a deal to remove the top 10 stories of the building in exchange for the rights to develop the rest of the block as Post Montgomery Center, which includes the 38-story One Montgomery Tower at 120 Kearny Street and the adjacent Crocker Galleria mall.
Shami, a native of San Francisco, founded Empire in 2010 after stints in the tech and early internet music industries, he told the Business Times last year. He said the Bay Area was “one of the areas in the world with the greatest concentration of venture capital and some of the greatest concentration of brain power.”
Through an affiliate, Shami owns an 8,400-square-foot building used for recording studios on Bryant Street, at the edge of South of Market and the Mission District, according to Mission Local.
— Dana Bartholomew
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Redco Development, AEW Capital walk away from SF’s First National Bank building
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