In January of 2020 a team of executives from the San Francisco-based BXP, formerly Boston Properties, flew to a company board meeting in New York with a big request: $1 billion to fund a speculative 981,000 square foot office development at Fourth and Harrison in the Central SoMa neighborhood.
The trip was not in vain. With San Francisco’s tech leasing in overdrive and companies like Google and Facebook on the hunt for millions of square feet, the board voted to allocate the money needed to build 725 Harrison St., despite the fact that a tenant had yet to commit to the space.
Three months later the whole project — which includes a day care center, retail and a land dedication for affordable housing — came to a standstill amid the pandemic and all the chaos it brought: shuttered offices, the work-from-home revolution, a city that was on its heels amid a narrative of disorderly streets and boarded up storefronts…