Ellington's Future Uncertain
The Ellington is the under-construction condo building on Broadway between 2nd & 3rd Streets. It is 134 condos with a fair amount of retail space at the ground level.

A month or so ago, someone sent me a link to an article on the developer, Molasky Pacific. It seems that Irwin Molasky (apparently of some fame in the Las Vegas development scene) had filed personal bankruptcy.

(In a side note, it is worth further clicking on the link in that story to one about a "troublemaker" who has my favorite quote of the year - "I've always found," Shabel said at one point, with her slight British accent, "that if you have a cocktail party before the project is completed, it usually spells trouble. Almost none of them end up going through." How appropriate! Didn't the Ellington have their grand opening back at the beginning of the year with tales of sales starting in April?)

So then today I was catching up on my San Francisco Business Times reading and I saw a story about the Ellington. It seems that it was SOLD three months ago to their equity partner, Lehman Brothers. It seems that now Lehman Brothers has troubles of their own and are selling off most of their commercial real estate holdings, whether that includes the Ellington has not been announced. The story comes from the September 5-11, 2008 issue.

At the last construction meeting, Swinerton said that they were expecting to turn the building over to the developer in October 2008... hmm, will individual units be sold, or the building as a whole???
Posted 9/09/2008