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Mid-Market Cheers Twitter Deal

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The payroll tax exemption aimed at keeping Twitter in San Francisco won’t have much of a direct benefit for property owners other than Shorenstein Properties, which owns the 1 million-square-foot complex the micro-blogging firm is flocking to. But that doesn’t mean that other Mid-Market office landlords don’t love it.

The payroll tax break, which exempts new employees from the city’s 1.5 percent payroll tax, will be applied to 3.3 million square feet in 73 buildings along Market Street and the Tenderloin, according to Jones Lang LaSalle research.

But only a handful of those properties — seven buildings including Market Square, Fox Plaza and 1035 Market St. — are spacious enough to draw employers big enough to take advantage of the break. The payroll tax exemption only applies to companies with payrolls higher than $250,000 and only applies to employees hired after April 19 of this year, the day the Board of Supervisors passed the measure.

The exemption doesn’t apply to the 1 million-square-foot 1455 Market St. building, a data center Bank of America is likely to vacate in the next few years; nor does it cover the 350,000-square-foot 1275 Market St., which the State Comp Insurance Fund is moving out of this year. The buildings at 1145-1155 Market St., which the Public Utilities Commission will leave when it moves into its new headquarters on Golden Gate Avenue next year, is also not part of the tax break area.

The seven larger properties most impacted have about 1.3 million square feet of vacancy, two-thirds of which is at Market Square. The new law will ultimately help bring tenants to all the Mid-Market buildings, according to Justin Shapiro of Seligman Western Enterprise Ltd. Seligman Western owns 1035 Market St., a blue Class A building that was recently filled up after having been empty for five years. Shapiro said Twitter’s decision to migrate west along Market will have a similar impact to the one that Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP had in 2005 when it abandoned the traditional financial district for Foundry Square, which at the time was not on the radar for most professional services firms.

“We are not directly impacted today because we are full and none of our tenants are projecting major growth,” he said. “But I think Twitter is going to expand the South of Market to Mid-Market and bring a lot of value to the Mid-Market.”

David Addington, who owns 982-988 Market St. and 1028 Market St., is attempting to sell commercial condominiums at 988 Market St., the historic Warfield building. None are in contract, he said, but interest has picked up since the Twitter negotiations became public.

“For us to get a little positive economic incentives for business to locate here doesn’t seem unreasonable given that we are providing the solution for so much else the city needs.”

In the long run, the attention the Twitter deal brought to the area can only be beneficial, he added.

“That these few blocks are being discussed on the front of the business pages more than any other blocks in the city means that people are thinking about it,” he said.