Pinterest, the San Francisco darling of crafters and do-it-yourself enthusiasts, has signed a deal to take over a four-story brick warehouse in the heart of San Francisco’s Showplace Square Design District. There’s only one problem: The building is already full. Just as showroom businesses are bouncing back from the recession, dozens of tenants in the San Francisco Design Center building at 2 Henry Adams St. face likely eviction if the landlord is successful in obtaining the approvals needed to convert the 311,000-square-foot building into Pinterest’s headquarters.
Pinterest signed a lease for a 311,000-square-foot building in San Francisco that is already larded with merchants who may forced to move elsewhere. The building in question is the well-regarded San Francisco Design Center at Henry Adams Street. The established and numerous merchants who sell their wares from the building may be tossed if the landlord gets the city’s approval to convert the interior — and its zoning — into the new Pinterest HQ, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Pinterest currently resides in the SOMA district. According to the Chron: “The design center’s current zoning does not allow for technology companies like Pinterest. It is zoned PDR – production, distribution and repair — which is meant to preserve blue-collar jobs in a part of town that is a hotbed of housing and office development. But buried in the language of the zoning is a loophole: Buildings designated as historic landmarks can legally convert from PDR to traditional office uses.”
