The Parkview Towers site has already been approved for 220 homes (Image: SVBJ)
Mainland developer R&F Properties this month appears to have picked up its fifth and sixth US property projects, adding a pair of Silicon Valley sites to the $9.6 billion in new overseas developments it has committed to this year.
Two subsidiaries of San Francisco-based Full Power Properties – a US company linked to the Guangzhou-based builder – last week acquired the Park View Towers and North San Pedro Tower 3 residential projects in San Jose, California from local developer Swenson for an undisclosed sum, according to a report in the Silicon Valley Business Journal. Stories in the US and mainland press have linked Full Power to R&F, but the Chinese company has never acknowledged having a stake in the privately held firm.
The pair of residential acquisitions comes after the Hong Kong-listed developer bought up sites for more than $6.6 billion in projects in Australia and the UK so far this year, as well as committing to $3 billion in hotel projects in Cambodia.
R&F Ready to Build 525 Silicon Valley Homes
R&F co-chair Li Sze-Lim has already committed the company to almost $10 bil in overseas projects this year
R&F’s apparent new purchase is a pair of already entitled projects which together would yield more than 1 million square feet (920,000 square metres) of space across three acres (12,000 square metres) of central San Jose. In a statement cited in the local media report, Full Power representatives said that the Chinese developer plans to “advance the drawings towards a ground breaking on both projects in late 2017.”
The Park View Towers project is approved for 220 luxury homes across two towers, plus 15,000 square feet of ground-level retail across three buildings. Plans for the North San Pedro Tower include 305 units of housing and also incorporate ground-level retail.
While rising US interest rates have created fears of a slowing home market, demand for homes in Silicon Valley continues to be the strongest in the nation, according to a recent report by property listings website Redfin. In February, 63 percent of homes in San Jose sold for above their list price, according to the online platform’s data, stronger than San Francisco, where selling prices came in at more than asking rates in 62 percent of the cases recorded.
Returning to the Site of First US Venture
For R&F, the health of the San Jose market is good news, after Full Power chose the northern California city for its first US project in 2014, buying an 8,100 square metre site for a $250 million residential development. Since that first foray in San Jose, the alleged R&F affiliiate has gone on to purchase three projects in San Francisco, including paying $28.5 million in 2014 to acquire a project site at 325 Fremont Street in the city.
R&F now has investments in Angola, Australia, Cambodia, Malaysia and the UK, in addition to these US ventures. In February the Chinese builder signed a $4.8 billion agreement to invest in a new city development in Brisbane, Australia, and the company followed up by signing a pair of London investment deals worth more than $1.8 billion in March and April.
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