Phil Spiegel transforms One Sansome lobby to Holbrook House, event space

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Phil Spiegel at One Sansome, where he and the landlords are investing millions in a new event space, conference center and restaurant.

The renovated lobby at One Sansome will open this year with a bar, restaurant and private event space that position the building to be downtown’s next sought after spot for a two-person power lunch or a 2,000-person Christmas party.

Owners Prudential Real Estate Investors and Barker Pacific Group are investing roughly $24 million in the upgrade.

Running the hospitality show is longtime Julia Morgan ballroom veteran and former Clint Reilly events point man Philip Siegel, who contributed about $3.75 million to the project he raised last year from friends and colleagues via his company, Please FiDi LLC.

New 20-foot glass doors open the cavernous ground-floor atrium (also known as the conservatory) to street level; it’s a zoned public space. The space gives way up a short flight of marble stairs to an opulent new American restaurant and bar lounge, Holbrook House — the first foray into hospitality from renowned interior designer Jeff Schlarb — expected to open this summer.

The North Lobby’s new conference center features space partitioned into four rooms by “sky walls” that retract into the ceiling to accommodate 500 people.

One Sansome is marketing the 18,000-square-foot atrium for corporate events, fundraisers, holiday parties and weddings (the first event is in April, when Mayor London Breed speaks at the Mission Dolores Academy Luncheon).

When events like the J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference come to town, the building’s office tenants can show off their priority access to the conference rooms. Nontenants can also reserve space, at higher rates.

Catering the events will be an opportunity for Spiegel’s hospitality group, but he won’t be channeling that all through Holbrook House. He’s developing a free “hospitality concierge” for tenants to cater their suites seamlessly with food from restaurants, ordered via the building’s own app.

“Our kitchen fields the delivery, makes it look pretty, brings it up to you and sets it up in your suite,” Spiegel said. “There’s a real service involved with what we’re doing.”

Operationally, Spiegel wants to soft open with “civic-minded” fundraisers. The restaurant will be open and the atrium space available to the public as much as possible during work week hours, with nights, the slower weekends and most of December set aside for weddings and holiday parties.

There are still some complications to work out with the city for permission to close down the public space for private events; one solution may be to partition the space.

Alex Barreira
Staff Reporter - San Francisco Business Times

ABOUT BARKER PACIFIC GROUP
Barker Pacific Group (BPG) was founded more than 39 years ago and is comprised of experienced real estate professionals active in asset management, acquisitions, and development of major commercial projects. BPG developed 100 First Plaza in San Francisco and also owns and manages One Sansome Street in San Francisco. Some of the firm’s other notable projects include Hamilton Landing and Rowland Plaza in Marin County; The Fine Arts Building, 626 Wilshire Blvd., and 5055 Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles; 101 Continental in El Segundo, Calif.; City Square in Phoenix; and Tower 300 in Las Vegas. Additionally, BPG manages Storage Solutions, a growing leader in the self-storage industry, offering consumers and businesses a variety of self-storage space and supplies throughout California.

BPG also has self-storage facilities in Arizona. BPG has offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Sacramento, and Las Vegas. The company specializes in developing and acquiring institutional quality office, retail, and residential projects in select U.S. cities.