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Macy's Lease For Online Offices Adds To SF Tech Real Estate Boom

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) – San Francisco landed another big commercial tenant Thursday, and hit a milestone in its drive to make the city a hub for high technology.

Within two years, the drab old concrete-block PacBell building on Folsom Street between Hawthorne and Third near Moscone Center will be turned into a sparkling glass-and-steel showplace, with a high-end restaurant on the corner and two major high-tech tenants inside.

The first, Riverbed Technology, was announced previously. Now Mayor Ed Lee said that Macys.com will lease a quarter million square feet, which is the top seven floors of the building.

KCBS' Doug Sovern Reports:

"With Macys.com and with what we announced last month with Riverbed, this is now a building that is 80 percent complete with technology built," said Lee.

The nation's largest department store chain will consolidate all its website operations into the re-done building. The deal also means tech firms, including Salesforce, LinkedIn and StumbleUpon, have leased one million square feet of San Francisco office space in the first two months of 2012.

"That's a wonderful, wonderful mark," said Lee. "It's significant for our city, and it means jobs, jobs, jobs."

KCBS' Phil Matier Comments:

(Copyright 2012 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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