Mark Ritchie

President, Ritchie Commercial

 

Commercial Real Estate and Development Columnist

Columns contributed second Wednesday of every month

Mark has spent his entire career in commercial real estate including in the 1980s working for Lincoln Property Company building and leasing four Downtown San Francisco high rise office buildings. He teamed up with his late father in 1987 and came to San Jose to rebuild that office. Ritchie Commercial currently has offices in San Jose, San Francisco, Walnut Creek and Santa Cruz and is active throughout Northern California in full service commercial real estate brokerage and property management.

Mark has been awarded Office Broker of the Year, Hall of Fame and Mike Murphy (For Community Service) Awards by the Association of Silicon Valley Brokers, ASVB. He has chaired the boards of the ASVB multiple times, as well as San Jose Museum of Art and History San Jose. Mark is a senior fellow of American Leadership Forum Silicon Valley.

Mark also served as Honorary Consul for Uruguay in San Francisco for 25 years. He graduated in 1979 Phi Beta Kappa from UC Berkeley in Economics and Political Science with a minor in Practice of Fine Art.

He is a passionate surfer and skier, and a single father of two girls.

Ritchie: Rebuilding downtown San Jose

Opportunity Zone Fund investor-developer Urban Catalyst closed this month on the last piece of the two-acre assemblage of land kitty corner from San Jose City Hall starting from the existing Chevron gas station up to St. John Street. This may have been the smallest piece of land ever that controlled such an important large site...

Ritchie: Art is good real estate

Some might interpret the title as a reference to the hopeful rebirth/purchase of the tragically shuttered San Franciso Art Institute campus by Steve Jobs’ widow, as it is one of the most spectacular pieces of real estate anywhere. It is two acres on Russian Hill with the incredible twist that the Diego Rivera mural it...

Ritchie: Surf solutions—Silicon Valley to Santa Cruz

San Jose and Santa Cruz have had a symbiotic relationship in commerce and leisure since the non-Indigenous modern founding of both regions in the 19th century. From mass clear cutting redwood logging to the tourism boom of early days to the tech boom of today, if you still believe that is going on. It is....