This really upsets me but I'm not surprised because I saw it
coming. I have been in the Phelan Building for 24 years. I spent
more time in that building than in my own home and so did everyone
else who had a studio there, so it was home and everyone a family
member. We worked together contributing and completing each other.
Yes, Vasken and many of the rest of us knew this day was coming. The
word was that it might be another five years, is part of it. I’ll
address many of the comments - ofwhich there ARE many - in one swell
foop: This building has been a jewelry center for around a hundred
years. As Vasken said, it has been one-stop shopping for jewelers
all of that time. There is a little retail, but mostly it’s been for
the trade - manufacturers, diamond and colored stone dealers,
setters, etc. The point is not that we are whining about having to
move, as what’s his name said, it’s that it’s as though Detroit got
bombed, taking out the auto industry all at once. It’s a local issue
mostly, yes, but that is the reason for the outrage, notthat we each
need to pack up.
This IS a historic building, and for those of you unfamiliar, it’s
an especially beautiful building, too. It’s most of an entire block,
eleven floors, 25,000 square feet per floor. Being a historic
building only means that the exterior can’t be touched, not the
interior. Since Thor bought the building there has beena clause
inserted into the leases that allow them to give notice to vacate.
At first it was 120 days, then ours went down to 60 days and some
have 30 days. Otto Frei was 30 days and they have to vacate by
Jan.10th. Next Friday is their last day of business in SF. If you
didn’t sign the lease with the clause you didn’t get a lease and
you’d have a couple of weeks to vacate. This is the whole point, and
it is entirely legal as lawyers have pointed out.
Alan Revere put out a press release, which is this thread on Orchid.
I don’t know who all he sent it to but it was a lot more than just
Orchid. Jo-Ann wrote to our ex-mayor who is now lieutenant governor,
because we knew his wife when shehad a room here. Also the current
mayor, the newspaper, our city councilman, etc, and etc. There was
talk of picketing and there is much talk of malicious mischief that
has been only talk, thankfully. The bottom line is that this
building is private property and the leases and notices to vacate
are entirely legal.
That they are morally evil is another matter to ponder. Our leasing
agent who is pre-Thor and on our side as much as she is able to be
told me the other day what this building sold for and I forget
exactly now but it seems like she said $175 million. The building we
are moving into a block away was bought for $4million 20 years ago -
today it’s gotta be $75mil. We have janitorial service, security,
engineering and building management, not to mentioned utility bills
and what have you. Probably around a million a year in expenses,
which requires cash or at least cash flow. Years ago when this
building came up for sale for something like $20 million there wasa
loose coalition of tenants who wanted to buy it. They were convinced
of the folly of their ways mostly by my old boss, the late Jesse
Linzer. Some of us are well to do and some are even outright wealthy
but even together we just aren’t in that financial league. That’s the
realm of billionaires or billionaire companies, like Thor.
Me, I choose my battles. This place is finished, it’s time to move
on. I don’t like it, I’m angry about the
cash-and-only-cash-who-cares-about-people attitude that caused the
world economy to fall, among other things. Myjob is to run a
business, and I started thinking about how to do that BEFORE the
notices came. The atmosphere here is toxic, there’s a confontational
attitude between tenants and management that you can cut with a
knife, and I’m just going to devote my resources to my own survival.
Standing up and beating one’s chest with indignation has been done by
several, and that can be very satisfying, but there is no hope of
success in any legal arena. This place is finished, it’s just not
over yet.We shall endure and our new place down the street has a core
of jewelers taking a whole floor. My feeling is that it will become
what the Phelan Building once was, given time.