Golden Gate University has sold its longtime downtown San Francisco campus for $31.6 million as the university moves out of the seven-storey property amid years of financial difficulties. The site at 546 Mission St. is now owned by Lincoln Property Company, which is proposing a new skyscraper on the property.The sale was completed on Friday and confirmed by a university official to the San Francisco Chronicle. Lincoln had previously provided Golden Gate University with a $21.9 million loan to help the university retire its existing debt on the campus. The loan was paid off as part of the sale, according to the university.The property covers about 236,000 square feet and currently has a seven-storey building. Lincoln Property Company and its New York-based partner, McCourt Partners, have proposed demolishing the existing structure and replacing it with a tower designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. The developers have presented two possible versions of the project.One option is a 46-storey office tower that would rise about 700 feet and contain around 1.3 million square feet of space. The other would be a 650-foot mixed-use tower with about 550,000 square feet of offices and 370 homes. The site is in San Francisco’s Financial District, one block from Salesforce Tower.
University moves classes to other campuses
The sale ends Golden Gate University’s presence at the Mission Street property, but the university itself continues to operate. Classes were moved for the start of the fall semester to Golden Gate University’s Academic Village at UC College of the Law San Francisco and to its satellite campus near Lake Merced at San Francisco State University.Nicholas Bradley, the university’s chief of staff, said the university is “considering other options for real estate opportunities” and continues to look for a more permanent home for its academic programmes.The university has operated in San Francisco for more than 170 years. It was originally located at 220 Golden Gate Ave. before moving to the Mission Street campus in the 1960s.The move comes after years of financial pressure. Golden Gate University had almost faced bankruptcy in 2023 and ended its law programme in 2024. In an August 2025 letter to the city’s planning department, university officials said they had been looking for a smaller location because of the financial impact of the pandemic.The campus was first put up for sale in 2022, according to the San Francisco Business Times. By 2025, the university had shifted towards seeking partnerships with developers.
Two tower options
The proposed redevelopment is now before San Francisco’s planning authorities. Lincoln Property Company and McCourt Partners are scheduled to seek approval for the project at a San Francisco Planning Commission hearing on Thursday.The developers’ two proposals give the site different uses. The first would be entirely focused on offices, with a 700-foot tower. The second would combine office space and housing in a 650-foot building.The final project will depend on the approval process as well as market conditions. San Francisco’s downtown office market has faced major difficulties since the pandemic, with a large amount of office space remaining vacant. At the same time, developers are pursuing new projects as they look for signs of recovery in the city’s commercial property market.The Golden Gate University site is part of a wider effort to bring large development projects back to downtown San Francisco. Other proposals include a 910-foot tower at 50 First St., a 1,225-foot tower at 77 Beale St. and the Jackson, a mixed-use project on Sansome Street.
