Dallas investor extends SF Union Square shopping spree with $43M building buy

Douglas MacMahon, the Dallas-based investor who has dropped tens of millions of dollars on San Francisco real estate over the past year, is continuing his recent shopping spree. 

An ownership entity led by MacMahon has bought One Union Square, a seven-story commercial building at the corner of Geary and Stockton Streets, The San Francisco Standard reported. The unnamed group bought the debt on the building, which was in foreclosure, for $42.5 million. The building last sold in 2013 for $95.8 million. 

It’s MacMahon’s latest buy in a year-long streak of purchases in the Union Square area. 

Last August, an investor group tied to MacMahon bought the four-story building at 225 Post Street from the parent company of former tenant Burberry to the tune of $17.4 million, according to the San Francisco Business Times. The following month, a MacMahon affiliate bought 11 retail properties across five buildings in Hayes Valley for $10.9 million. 

“My partners and I are long-term investors, and we believe San Francisco in the long-term is a great market for investing in real estate,” MacMahon told The Real Deal at the time of the Hayes Valley buys. “We have made a number of investments in retail in the past so we are very comfortable with the asset class.” 

MacMahon made both of those purchases through a different partnership group and not his Moran Capital company, where he’s a principal. 

Union Square is shaping up to be an attractive area for out-of-town investors looking to grab commercial properties at bargain-basement prices. 

Ian Jacobs, an heir of the Reichmann real estate dynasty, has been on a buying spree in the neighborhood in recent months. 

It started in April when Jacobs purchased an Art Deco building at 200-216 Powell Street for $7.4 million, according to the Business Times. The following month, the former Warren Buffett protégé and Berkshire Hathaway investment researcher bought 111 Ellis Street, a five-story, 21,412-square-foot building, for an undisclosed amount that was significantly lower than its pre-pandemic value, according to The San Francisco Standard. He followed it up in June with the purchase of the two-story, 17,000-square-foot building at 35-41 Powell Street for $7.1 million. — Chris Malone Méndez