​ San Diego developer Tim Foley bought and renovated a downtown parking garage that sat vacant for more than a decade because it didn’t meet federal standards to be accessible for the disabled.

Despite a shortage of downtown parking, the eight-story garage with 268 spaces "was closed for no other reason than it didn't meet ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance," Foley said. 

Foley said he bought the garage a year ago for $5.6 mission spent about $35 million renovating it. 

"One Floor at a Time"
To bring the garage up to ADA standards, Foley said he has to install a new staircase and glasses-in elevator, going through eight floors of concrete to make room for them.

Using giant saws to cut through, "we had to core through eight floors of concrete," Foley said, "We had to core through one floor at a time."

Before Foley bought the garage, the only access to the upper-floors was a single staircase in the corner of the building. 

The renovation included adding a second staircase, a glass elevator and a ramp leading to the elevator. 

Foley said he used glass for the elevator because it has views of San Diego Bay from the fourth floor and to provide a better sense of security for those riding inside.

"It's a pretty good view going up and down," Foley said.

A private security company also patrols the building.

"I do understand many downtown have been wondering what all the construction was on 5th and A. Now we can tell them," said Foley.

Brick and Mortar Goes Digital
Demand has been so intense that Foley said that spaces reserved for monthly parking were sold out before the garage even opened. 

About 200 parking spaces will be set aside for monthly parking and those are already taken.

In addition, Foley said there's a waiting list for 140 spaces. 

"We got just mobbed by office buildings, law firms," Foley said. "We had pretty much every neighboring building asking to rent about 100 spots, that kind of demand."

Along with the structural changes to the garage, Foley said he's bringing in a system that will require parkers to use a cell phone application to pay for parking spots.

Foley said the system was provided by Chicago-based Premium Parking, which will manage the garage. 
 
"It's all phone app based," Foley said. "I'm an old school guy. In our meeting, I'd say 'I'm not going to download an app to park my car,' They looked at me like I'm crazy."

The Spot Market
Parkers use their phone to pay for parking and can use it to reserve a space in advance. 

The fee depends on the time of day and demand. 

"Every spot has a different valuation, so when you park there, it will charge accordingly," Foley said. 

Hourly parkers pay in advance, and the app will send a text to their cell phones telling them when their time is nearly up and asking if they want more time

"The one thing nice about an app based parking system is it managers that all for you," Foley said.

As part of the garage renovation, Foley remodeled 10,000 square feet on the first floor of the garage for retail shops and redid the sidewalks.

So far, Foley said about 7,000 square feet of the retail space has been leased to Hair Club for Men, a hair restoration and replacement company according to its website.

There’s a new sheriff in town – in OB town – and his name is Tim Foley and he could very well determine the future of downtown Ocean Beach.

Who the heck is Tim Foley, you may righteously ask?

He’s the big-time developer who will decide what goes in on that choice 27,000 square feet of land that used to be Nati’s and its parking lot. Sure, part of that decision has already been made, as the folks who own Wonderland are bringing in La Dona, a Mexican restaurant.

Yet Tim Foley is jazzed. Having all that land a block from the Pacific Ocean – wow! He’s excited. In a recent interview with the San Diego Business Journal, he said:
“I like beach areas. This is a crazy location.” As in “good” crazy.

What to do with all that space? The Journal reported:

Ideally, Foley said he’d like to build a hotel and apartment complex, but he said that would depend on pending zoning changes in Ocean Beach.

Foley is quoted:

“If we could build the hotel and (apartment) units with retail, that makes the property a home run. A hotel is badly needed in Ocean Beach.”

Perhaps the mixed use will look like this: FOLEY FINANCIAL CENTER . (Heart of Bankers) A complete rehab on a four story office building, A new 21,000 sq.ft. ground up office building and 56 new high end luxury apartments with bay view. Construction and completion 2018 and early 2019

As SDBJ reported:

Some retail shops occupy part of the site, and Foley said he hasn’t decided what to do with them. “My original plan was to tear them down, but we may not need to do that,” Foley said.

The new restaurant, La Dona, will be run by the Social Syndicate restaurant group which has signed a 10-year 20-year lease. The eatery is a joint enterprise between Social Syndicate and OB restaurateurs Hoffman Leung, Mina Desiderio and Matt Braun and Judd Braun.

The Journal stated La Dona is “Scheduled to be completed in the fall,” with 2,660 square feet of indoor space with a 1,468 square-foot patio. From our viewpoint that’s way optimistic, knowing the state of the current rehab at the old Nati’s.

He has since diversified his investments to hotels, restaurants, shopping centers, apartments, office buildings, and industrial space; both locally and regionally. He has personally been the operating principle in over 100 different real estate transactions whereby he successfully purchased, rehabbed, stabilized and sold. As of the close of 2017, he owns and operates over 50 different properties in California, Arizona and Texas. (Our emphasis.)

It’s clear that whatever Tim Foley wants, he gets – usually.
(hat tip to Deb Greene)
From the OB Rag by Frank Gormlie on August 2, 2019
in Ocean Beach

San Diego developer Tim Foley turned what could have been a simple North Park apartment development into one with many moving parts, including a 2,300 square-foot house that had to be relocated.

Foley’s plan was to build a 19-unit apartment complex — the Avanti Apartments — on a Ray Street lot, but first he had to contend with the house that was already there.

“It was a beautiful house. It was modeled after an adobe-style house,” Foley said. “The house was built only four years ago, so we didn’t want to crush it. We chose to relocate the house in a neighborhood that had houses that were very similar.”

Foley did raze an existing structure on a Sydney Place hillside lot to make way for the moved house, but he said that building had been condemned because of structural damage caused by erosion.

“It’s a hillside lot and the foundation was bad and it had been red-flagged,” Foley said. He plans to renovate the house he moved and build an additional 1,600 square-foot house next to it as rental units. “The house itself didn’t get damaged at all,” Foley said.  Moving the house cost about $45,000.  He estimated it would cost an additional $250,000 to complete the Sydney Place project, which he said should be finished by summer.

This isn’t the first time that Foley’s moved a house to clear a development site. He did it a few years back with a craftsman-style house, but it didn’t go so well.
 “It basically fell apart,” Foley said. “They’ve gotten a lot better with the technology of moving these things. They have all these huge beams to make sure the house doesn’t sway or move. They pick it up with these straps.”
This time, the house didn’t fall apart, but moving it was challenging because it had to be lifted over a 35-foot tree that was next to it, Foley said.

With the Ray Street site cleared, Foley is starting construction on the $14 million Avanti Apartments and expects to finish them by the end of the year.

The six-story building will feature views “of pretty much the whole city and Balboa Park” from the third floor up, Foley said.

The apartments will average 1,200 square feet with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. They’ll have “all the latest and greatest” in appliances and finishes, including hardwood floors, Foley said.

His company — Foley Development — has several other ongoing projects, including renovation of a seven story parking garage on Fifth Avenue and a 150,000 square-foot mixed use project that will take up the entire 2100 block of Third Avenue between Hawthorn and Ivy streets and half the 2100 block of Fourth Avenue. 

An Escondido office building has been sold for nearly $2.6 million.
The 8,429 square-foot Canterbury Corporate Plaza, 940 Canterbury Place, was acquired by The Law Office of Louis Gabbara.
The seller was Tim Foley of Foley Enterprises Inc.
Nick Totah, first vice president of investments of The Totah Group in Marcus & Millichap’s San Diego office, represented Foley.
The Totah Group also represented the buyer.
Constructed in 2002, the building was fully leased at the time of the sale.
Tenants include Am Wins Group Insurance and Oakwood Escrow.
Real estate reporter Ray Huard may be reached at rhuard@sdbj or 858-277-8904.

FOLEY PARKING GARAGE @ 5th and A. Purchased in 2018. A 7 story parking garage in the center of business district downtown San Diego which will undergo a complete remodel with new Elevators, Stairs and approximately 12,000 sq.ft. of commercial space. On the hard corner of 5th & A.

A chunk of Bankers Hill, including the building that once housed The Daily Transcript, is being redeveloped by Tim Foley of Rancho Santa Fe. Foley said he retired in 2010 but came out of retirement two years ago and restarted Foley Development when two of his three children expressed interest in becoming developers themselves.

Tim owns and operates Foley Development, a company he found-ed in 1982. The company now has nine large commercial projects underway, including the Daily Transcript Project in the heart of Bankers Hill, which will be renamed Foley Financial Center. The project includes rehabbing the existing 22,000-square-foot office building, adding a new 21,000-square-foot office building and building 100 new high-end luxury apartments on a corner-to-cor-ner block on 3rd Avenue. It is scheduled for completion in 2018 and early 2019.