Cable Car Blues

NAA Reflections

By Jack Kern on Jun 24, 2016 in People

I just got back from last week’s National Apartment Association Education Conference in San Francisco. It was really well attended with almost 10,000 people at the exposition, trade show and classes. I was amazed at all of the exhibits and t-shirt wearing professionals professing their love for Apple products. At least until a really big security guard (by San Francisco standards) politely tapped my shoulder and asked to see my badge. After explaining I was looking for the NAA meeting, he smiled and explained there are two sections of the Moscone convention center, and I was clearly in the wrong one.

I must admit, I was offended. To be told I wasn’t nerdy enough to be at an Apple convention wasn’t how I wanted to start my day. I didn’t even get to buy a nerdy t-shirt, or try the apple-sickle dessert specialty. I left feeling that I had been thrown out of better places and after two light cycles (you really have to pay attention in San Francisco) I made it across the street into the correct part of Moscone Center. A building I renamed ‘the sequel.’

I had been to a number of NAA meetings before, but this one was special. It featured some events I had never seen, the first of which was the Alcatraz fun run. Immediately after checking in and seeing just one session, several thousand (could be a few hundred, hard to tell) got out of their seats, jammed the escalator and walked resolutely toward the Alcatraz pick up point. The proof was in the plethora of photo embossed t-shirts with their faces adorned as if escaping from Al Capone’s, both an Italian restaurant and night club but also a prison cell of some distinction.

Having been to The Rock before, I hung around at the meeting seeking words of wisdom, let it be. There were hundreds of exhibitors showing the latest in paint, which apparently now dries after you put it on a building, and the ever popular plumbing fixture – the existential symbol of genuine wealth and success in any value-add situation. Every possible item potentially used in multifamily was represented, including a few I am not sure are legal in some states.

I walked around the show floor with a senior officer colleague of mine from a well-known and respected REIT. We decided to go a quest for the next greatest innovation. Some items did come close, but none of them convincingly impressed my friend. It seems there is a level of maturity in gadgetry and black magic that must be reached in order to coerce a renter into paying $6.00 per square foot for a micro unit of only 325 square feet. If you can deal with the jam and oil stained faux concrete floor, it could be quite livable.

At the end of the first day, I opted to take the cable car over to the bay and try my luck at Fisherman’s Wharf. I got in line for the cable cars without realizing that it was a sport to get onto the cable car. Paying for a one way wasn’t apparently enough of an indignity, you have to stand in a very long line. What they don’t tell you is that the line is really a lot longer because of those who wait outside of the line and then jump in with friends, effectively making the line four times the observable length. I didn’t think Fisherman’s Wharf was open until midnight, so after seeing five cable cars rumble in and out of the turntable and still standing in place, I grabbed an Uber (it’s how the Swiss say taxi) and headed to the wharf.

The dinner I had was exactly as I remembered it, sea air sweet with that slight longshoreman salty aroma, topped by the diesel exhaust from nearby traffic jammed bridges. In the process of sharing with the surrendered masses from the cable cars I understood the allure of the city, the oneness with hearty souls yearning for Bowdoins clam chowder sourdough bowls. Those that had fled Moscone Center with me were out looking for that rare experience only San Francisco can provide. They came to act like renters, on a holiday in the city by the bay. And they were happy.

Jack Kern is the publisher and research editor for Multi-Housing News and Commercial Property Executive.