—James S. Fassio, President and Chief Development Officer, Ross Stores Inc.
—Mark L. Myers, Head of Commercial Real Estate, Wells Fargo & Company
—Dave Mascio, practitioner
—Bill Falik, professor, UC Berkeley
John McNellis learned real estate the same way he learned the facts of life. On the street. Deal by deal — often acquiring experience just after he needed it.
Over 40 years, he's developed shopping centers, mixed-use projects, and office buildings across Northern California, cofounding McNellis Partners in the mid-1980s with the same two partners he works with today. He's made money, lost money, gotten crushed by hidden granite, burned through escrows, survived recessions, and — somewhere along the way — figured out what actually matters in this business.
This book is the result.
"Scout's Honor is riveting. John McNellis writes with an unstoppable drive, paving the way with telling details about places and people. A story about how the past is never the past, Ross MacDonald could not have done it any better. I very much enjoyed this novel." —Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lincoln Lawyer and the Harry Bosch series
A Vietnam Veteran's Journey from the Battlefield to Real Estate Empire
After losing everything but his life, a young man forges a new identity in the dangerous jungles of Vietnam and rises to become a real estate magnate in New York City in this epic tale of redemption.
From desperate drug smuggler to decorated Marine to Manhattan real estate tycoon—one man's extraordinary journey to reclaim his honor
Brand-new lawyer Michael O’Brien has no clue the case his law firm handed him is a total loser. That’s because he would rather chase women, play basketball, or do almost anything other than practice law. O'Brien is struggling with the drudgery first-year associates face, especially since it’s the swinging ‘70s in San Francisco.
He’s just too good-looking, easily bored, and cocky to care. But when Malcolm Knox, one of the city’s wealthiest men, drops dead, the young man from Boston is suddenly charged with finding $50 million in bearer bonds missing from the estate.
Given his myriad distractions—he’s wooing a former fashion model who owns a small bakery chain—O’Brien seems destined to fail. As missteps accumulate, and practicing law becomes dangerous O'Brien risks losing his job, his girlfriend, and even his life.
—Preston Butcher
Very, very few office buildings lend themselves to residential conversion, and even the handful of skinny buildings that do would require massive public subsidies to pencil out. Some landlords have another idea: converting their emptying portfolio into life science buildings.. How hard could such a conversion be?
Years ago—beset by the Great Recession—one of Tennessee’s finest developers shook his head at his financial statement and drawled, “My net worth’s gone down by half, but my cash flow’s the same.” He wasn’t alone. Commercial real estate nationwide lost around forty percent of its value during those trying…
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that April’s commercial property sales were down 16 percent compared to April 2021. In detailing the market’s loss of velocity, the newspaper stated that the hotel, senior housing, office buildings and industrial sectors were particularly hard hit, while retail…
"Thus far this year, we’ve dropped three projects because of breathtaking cost estimates.” A big-time San Francisco contractor told me the other night that he half-wished for another recession. Why? Because his subcontractors—the guys who actually do the work—are so inundated with jobs that they’ve…
The Urban Land Institute is arguably real estate’s most prestigious international organization. There to advise, the learned pundits at its spring meeting in San Diego seemingly predicted every possible economic outcome for next year. Some seers contended that we are back to 1981, and that our soaring…
A couple months ago, I called my doctor to renew a prescription at Walgreen’s. She suggested trying NowRx, a Silicon Valley pharmaceutical start-up offering home delivery. It turned out that with no insurance required, NowRx would deliver 90 days’ worth of a generic heartburn medication* for $14.50.…
Drought: (noun) 1. A prolonged period of abnormally low rainfall, leading to a shortage of water Despite our spectacular rainy season thus far, California fits within the first half of the definition of a drought: We are in a prolonged period of abnormally low rainfall. But what about our shortage of…
“There is no there there.” When Gertrude Stein wrote that deathless line about Oakland, it seems she wasn’t being snarky after all; she was grieving over the loss of her girlhood home to its path of growth. What would the poet say today?
Viewed a certain way, life resembles a Vegas sports book — its dramas have at least a few winners; not everyone loses. Covid-19 is no exception.
“Scotts Valley evacuated. Our Safeway center is shut down,” my partner texted last Friday. That meant four of our shopping centers in Northern California were threatened by wildfires.
Retail has the virus. Just as with people, different retailers are reacting to this infection very differently. Ailing merchants with comorbidities are suffering — or dying — while those without long-term illnesses are asymptomatic, even healthy.
A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and Hastings College of the Law, John McNellis cofounded McNellis Partners in 1982. He has served on the national board of trustees for the Urban Land Institute, is a governor of the ULI, and is a member of the ICSC. He has served on the national board of directors for Outward Bound USA and the board of directors of Rebuilding Together Peninsula. He is a monthly columnist for the San Francisco Business Times and on occasion lectures for the ULI.
Landlords already know this: People are getting more toasted than Wonder Bread. Happy Hour starts at 3 o’clock. Tenants selling reality-relief are killing it.