Michel Suas, the French pastry chef who moved to San Francisco during the artisanal bread revolution of the 1980s and mentored some of the nation’s top bakers, has closed on a deal to purchase a 38,000-square-foot plot in the Tenderloin.
According to documents filed with the city on Wednesday, a business entity linked to his school, the San Francisco Baking Institute, paid just over $9.1 million for the land on the corner of Eddy and Larkin streets, site of the landmark, rock star-beloved Phoenix Hotel.
Suas, co-owner of Thorough Bread & Pastry and b.Patisserie in the city, appears to have scored a deal. When the listing first appeared on the market at the start of the year, the sellers, a private family, were asking for at least $15 million.
“I am thrilled to be the new owner of the land at 601 Eddy Street,” Suas said in a statement. “We look forward to the continued tenancy with the Phoenix Hotel’s owner and operator.”
As owner, Suas can either continue renting the land to the hotel beyond the expiration of the current lease or pursue redevelopment — but likely not both.
Chip Conley, who owns the Phoenix, previously told The Standard he could not see a way to preserve the hotel while building a new development.
“The only way to do that is to use the parking lot, but developing there would be impossibly noisy for hotel guests,” Conley said. Reached for comment about the sale, Conley would say only that his hotel is “still open to business” and that he has been in touch with Suas.
The hotel, which also has a restaurant and lounge attached to it, has a lease that is set to expire in 2025. Conley transformed the former Caravan Lodge into the Phoenix in 1987, when he was only 26. The name was chosen as a metaphor for rebirth and a nod to the city’s flag.
Conley marketed the hotel to rock managers, since the property has a parking lot big enough to accommodate tour buses and is within walking distance of the Great American Music Hall, the Warfield and the Fillmore.
Famous guests like Kurt Cobain, David Bowie and Linda Ronstadt earned the Phoenix the nickname “the rock ’n’ roll hotel.”
“This family have been great stewards of the property since the 1950s and are delighted to find someone as exceptional as Michel to carry it on,” said Newmark Executive Managing Director Mark Geisreiter, who represented the sellers.
Brokers Will Cliff and Mike Davis of Colliers represented Suas in the deal.
Since the pandemic, the hotel has struggled with deteriorating conditions in the surrounding streets. Conley and business partner Isabel Manchester have called on the city to provide more resources to the area.
“Inside our little oasis, things have remained the same, and that’s why people keep coming back,” Manchester previously told The Standard. “The only thing that changed, especially last year, is everything going on outside.”
