33 Tehama

Spera (formerly known as 33 Tehama) is a luxury residential apartment complex in South of Market, San Francisco, California. The building is 380 ft tall, 35 stories, and contains 403 residential units.

Groundbreaking was in mid-2015, and construction finished in 2018. The building is part of the San Francisco Transbay development area around the Transbay Transit Center site in the South of Market neighborhood. The building was developed bythe Hines Interests Limited Partnership and Invesco. Lendlease was the general contractor. Due to repeated incidents of flooding on the 35th floor, the building was closed indefinitely to all tenants on June 3, 2022. It was initially not expected to reopen until early 2023.

The building was later renamed to Spera and the address was changed from 33 Tehama Street to 39 Tehama Street.

Apartments
33 Tehama has 403 residences, consisting of one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments, as well as penthouses. It includes an art installation designed by Yayoi Kusama, however this installation was destroyed in 2021 following an incident involving a vehicular crash into the property. 33 Tehama offers 700 square feet of ground floor retail space.

Construction incident
On February 15, 2017, a construction malfunction of the climbing formwork occurred, prompting precautionary evacuations of neighboring buildings. The developer's first official statement read:


 * "This afternoon, an incident occurred at the 33 Tehama site between levels 35 and 36 where an interior forming system had a partial hydraulic failure while being raised to the next level. The interior forming system and the concrete placement arm have been secured and are being evaluated by engineers to bring it back to level. No injuries and no damage has been reported."

On February 17, 2017, the developer released another statement and construction resumed on the site:


 * "When a Hydro jack failed causing the tilt, Lendlease, the project's general contractor, immediately secured all equipment and materials. The interior forming system and the concrete placement arm were secured and were evaluated by engineers to bring it back to level."

Flooding
On June 3, 2022, a water pipe on the 35th floor of the apartment building burst, causing rooms to be flooded and necessitating indefinite evacuation from the building. According to city records, the flood damaged 95 of the 403 units and caused severe damage to the building's Elevators, Fire Alarm system, and electrical systems, with some stairwells and hallways of the building needing to be completely stripped. According to some reports, this flooding had occurred at least once before, with one resident noting that it was his second time being displaced from the building because of water damage.

On August 10, 2022, the building was flooded again from water leaking out of the same pipe where the first flooding originated. This flood damaged an additional 22 units, as far down as the 4th floor. Building management restricted access to tenants, many of whom had been planning to remove personal property from the building by the end of the month. Several lawsuits have been filed, with allegations that Hines Interests Limited Partnership improperly maintained the property, and that their response to the disaster has been negligent. Some residents were told that their lease was still in effect even though they had stopped paying for Hotel rooms, and some residents claim that repair contractors stole items from the apartments, cashed 2 fraudulent checks, and used tenant's names to check in to the hotels Hines was using as emergency lodging.

Hines rebuked the claims of the lawsuit, stating "We have provided our residents with temporary housing and funds for personal expenses. We have also worked tirelessly to repair the building, engaging leading experts to identify and address the building's mechanical problems." Hines has paid out approximately $13 million in accommodations, parking, and other tenant expenses related to the flooding.