Gigantic chunk of rock on Telegraph Hill slashes price to $998K

Back in December of 2016, the empty lot at 1235 Sansome Street on Telegraph Hill listed for an intimidating $1.43 million.

In fairness, it’s a rather dramatic property with Telegraph Hill views to die for and a primo location right across the street from Levi’s Plaza. But as we couldn’t help but observe at the time, it’s also just a big honking rock.

“Development will require some engineering,” the 2016 ad warned potential buyers. Imagine that.

Despite the advertised opportunity to potentially build any number of new homes on 7,000 feet of undeveloped Telegraph Hill, the property failed to find a buyer and quietly slipped off the market to continue its stolid geological slumber.

This week, 1235 Sansome listed once again, the price tumbling to $998,000 now. So if anyone out there like the look of this rocky redoubt before but just didn’t think it was worth breaking a million, this is the opportunity of a lifetime.

Courtesy Alain Pinel Realtors

It takes a particularly clever realtor to frame a huge, sharp, pointy chunk of unbuildable stone as any sort of asset, but Edie Halenback managed to slip in an unexpected appeal to history:

“Configuration of this property is the result of being a rock quarry in the past where much of the original stone for building City Hall and the Waterfront came from,” she writes in the latest ad.

So it’s not just a mountaintop, it’s San Francisco history. Whether any buyer is sufficiently ambitious and optimistic to try to make a future out of this aerial aside remains to be seen.

• Giant Rock Asks $1.43 Million [Curbed SF]
• 1235 Sansome Street [Alain Pinel]