"We originally planned to tear it down and build new com. "But we were ultimately able to deliver a high-quality product at substantially under replacement cost," and at the same time fill a gap in the market. "The more we looked at the building, we saw a spot for it between the older class C product at $12 per sf to $15 per sf, the class B historic buildings at $22 per sf and the newer product for $25 per sf to $30 per sf," says Mark. "It falls somewhere between the class B and class C historics and a brand new building; I'm very proud of it."

Tower tenants include PG&E Gas Transmission, PlaceWare and Lucy.com. Ground-floor tenants include Kindercare and 24-Hour Fitness, which spent several million building out its fitness center space. PG&E will anchor the building, taking 35,000 sf on the 10th, 9th and 8th floors. PlaceWare, a video conferencing company that moved a division up from Silicon Valley, is taking 24,000, and Lucy.com is signed on for 14,000 sf.

Still available is about 28,000 sf, some 22,000 sf of which is contiguous space on the 6th and 7th floors. There are proposals out on all the rest of the space, says Mark. He expects another 8,000 sf to 10,000 sf to be leased up within the next several weeks.

Of the $7 million that will have been spent, about $1 million alone was spent redoing the lobby alone, says Mark. "We didn't do a full upgrade, but we did 90% of what we would normally do while still keeping the price down."

Melvin Mark purchased the building from the state in 1992 for the cost of the land less demolition fees. For the last several years the building has been leased out as temporary housing for a library and then city officials while other buildings were being built and renovated.