The developer behind the infamous “Monster in the Mission” project has recently lost two major Bay Area properties to loan defaults, and its founder is embroiled in a sexual assault lawsuit that has some wild allegations involving cocaine and pornography.
San Francisco’s quintessential real estate controversy from the 2015-17 era was an attempt to build a 10-story, 380-unit luxury apartment building at 16th and Mission that opponents nicknamed “the Monster in the Mission.” That proposal came from an SF-based developer called Maximus Real Estate Partners, who also owned SF’s largest apartment complex, Parkmerced Apartments, right next to SF State, and for good measure, a nearly 300-unit Marin County complex known as The Cove at Tiburon.
Well, the “Monster in the Mission” project never got approved, and the land has since been sold to the city to build an all-affordable housing complex. And as for the Parkmerced Apartments, the SF Business Times reported two weeks ago that property was placed into receivership after Maximus had defaulted on a $1.5 billion loan. And now the Chronicle reports that The Cove at Tiburon has defaulted on a $210 million loan at that property, in a story that starts as being about real estate loan woes, and quickly pivots to a wild new sexual assault lawsuit against Maximus founder Robert Rosania.
Mission Local has described Rosania as “a flamboyant champagne collector out of New York who self-applies the nickname ‘Big Boy.’” Yet in the new sexual assault lawsuit, his former executive assistant Richaele Affannato describes him as “so ‘amped up’” on cocaine and other drugs that she was “physically afraid of him.” That suit also alleges, in the Chronicle’s words, “pornography purchases by Rosania on the company’s credit card and drug-fueled outbursts.” Affannato additionally says that she was ordered to buy “male performance pills” for Rosania, that he showed her images of “women he was traveling to meet for romantic encounters,” and that when she was required to work in his home, he left “pornography on.”
That suit was filed last week in San Francisco Superior Court. The details are intriguing, but the fate of Parkmerced Apartments is obviously the more important issue, as the complex has apparently been languishing in a state of neglect for more than a year.
“I am eager to have a competent manager who will respond to tenant needs,” the district's Supervisor Myrna Melgar told the Chronicle. “I am also eager to have an owner who can realize the vision for a denser, modern, vibrant community at Parkmerced.”
Parkmerced was even approved to get nearly 7,000 more additional new apartments years ago, but that plan is obviously by the wayside now. The Cove at Tiburon may also be getting a new owner. The Chronicle notes that Maximus “may still have an impact on Bay Area housing” because of a 687-unit project near the San Leandro BART station called 899 Alvarado, which was approved in 2019.
But a San Leandro newspaper known as The Cargo reported last year that 899 Alvarado was “now just a chainlink fence in front of weeds and dirt.” And Google Street view images from just three months ago show that it is still just a chain link fence in front of weeds and dirt, with ground still not broken on the development.
Image: Maximus Real Estate Partners
