Behind China Live's 644 Broadway Deal

SAN FRANCISCO—Shortly after Cypress Properties Group acquired the vacant 644 Broadway in San Francisco last summer, the new owners hired David Scanlon, a retail real estate expert with Cushman & Wakefield and Kelly Glass, a Cushman office broker, to market the space. “The nature of the building and its unique location—where Chinatown meets North Beach, presented a host of opportunities for attracting tenants to the property. It was basically a blank canvas waiting for the right creative approach,” Scanlon tells GlobeSt.com.

Within months, a mutual-professional acquaintance—a New York-based attorney—connected Scanlon with internationally recognized restaurateur George Chen, the creator of Betelnut and Shanghai 1930 in San Francisco and current general partner of Roosevelt Prime Steakhouse in Shanghai, which opened in 2007 in the famed Marshall Mansion in the former French Concession neighborhood of Shanghai.