Be very, vary afraid: The former Hibernia Bank and current crack depot at 1 Jones Street is on the market for a cool $9.9 million. Built in 1892, zoned city commercial, but designated a historical landmark back in the '80's, 1 Page offers 38,310 square feet, 16 rooms, and 4 bathrooms— a horror film buff's dream, no doubt. A 39-page PDF rife with outdated facts (2000 census data, anyone?) indicates what those in the 'hood already know: this baby has sat on the market for a looooong time— in fact, May 9, 2007 is listed on said PDF as the most recent bidding deadline. Though 1 Jones was the home of the SFPD's Tenderloin Task Force from 1991-2000, the building has languished since its sale soon thereafter. Problem? Private ownership, in part.
A Chron report from 2003 claims that the building is associated with the Chinese Cultural and Philosophical Foundation; its then-reported owner, Thomas Lin, was unreachable at the time. In 2005, Beyond Chron cited the old Hibernia Bank as a case study in San Francisco's "entirely inadequate historic preservation laws;" the fact that the building is privately-owned prevents it from receiving the same love and affection from the city that, say, the Old Mint has grabbed in recent years.
1 Jones is being sold in "as is" condition, realtorspeak for "needs millions of dollars' worth of seismic retrofit work" and can't be torn down because it's an official landmark. In the past, Lin's M.I.A. status— he's rumored to live in China— was cited as one of the reasons why the building just wouldn't budge. According to a little detective work done by our Curbed operatives, however, 1 Jones has been on the market with its current agent for well over 6 months. The owner is still described as being "difficult to reach." Interestingly enough, however, the building has entered "pending" sales status several times in recent history— those deals obviously fell through. Hope for Hybernia? We shall see now, shan't we?
· $9900000 San Francisco LANDMARK! 1 Jones (tenderloin) [Craigslist]
· 1 Jones Street [PDF]
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