Something is happening at 222 Second
 

They have a flatbed in the lot with a sample of the glass wall which looks darker than in the illustration. Not sure if they are testing it out or showing it off to potential tenants but they look ready to start something soon.

I walked by this site this last weekend, and, although it didn't occur to me to go have a closer look, nothing on brief glance caught my eye as being happening yet. I'll try to get over there this coming weekend and pay attention - or maybe even one of these long light evenings - if no one else beats me to it

i work down the block. i think its still in use as a parking lot.

confirmed this evening: still a functioning parking lot.

When Tishman Speyer went back to Planning this February to modify their design, a letter form their attorney stated that the target date for groundbreaking was July 1, 2013.

p. 58, last sentence of first paragraph:

http://commissions.sfplanning.org/cp...2013.0029X.pdf

Hopefully they're still on track.

6/16/2013
 

Photographic evidence of said parking lot (you can sort-of make out the flatbed on the left side of the photo):

http://i.imgur.com/ENVYEm1l.jpg

They took away the glass it looks like though (I passed by and caught the 10 right there today). 222 Second is contingent upon Foundry III leasing...

looks like the parking lot has finally been closed.

We'll probably have activity soon
 

By sheer coincidence I saw a guy in the Civic Center BART station this morning holding one of those large sign boards required to be posted by the Planning Department. It was for 222 Second St. and was dated starting 8/5 and lasting for six months. It listed frontages on three streets that I assume will be closed off to street parking during onstruction.

Checking the permit database, they received their shoring and excavation permits about two weeks ago. It looks like they waited the required 15 days and are about to get the ball rolling. Turner Construction is listed on the permit.

I also heard through the grapevine that they were moving forward. Heard long ago about Google pulling out of Foundry III and subsequently heard TS was waiting to lease that building up before starting 222, but I have since heard that they are in talks with another tenant for Foundry and are moving forward with 222 irregardless of what happens at Foundry.

I always find it funny how people in SF just love that density figure and shout it out at every opportunity :) If you tell them that the city is only the 14th largest in the US, behind even Austin or Indianapolis, then you'll hear that core city population is meaningless and the metro area is what is really representative of a city size (which I totally agree with). But don't tell them that this density figure is just as meaningless! :haha:

Densities for downtown cores and metro areas would be the numbers I would really be interested to see, to be able to compare different areas on the same basis...

Glad to see this one is about to start!

1. city limit populations are pretty arbitrary, and that does not apply only to SF.

2. How is density meaningless? SF is more dense than any other big city aside from NYC, and is even second densest in the US on the metro level as well (after LA at #1).

3. The downtown core of SF contains the densest census tracts you'll find in America outside of NYC, and those tracts make up a contiguous chunk containing the Tenderloin, Chinatown, and part of nob hill. It's a denser chunk than anything in downtown Boston, Philly, DC, Chicago, or LA, etc.

The reason plenty of people like to bring up the fact that SF is a densely populated place is because it is a densely populated place.

Don't forget that SF is a rapidly growing city. Projections are for over a million people in the city in the next 35 years, which is more than 20% growth, in what is already the second most dense city in the US. This is before considering the immigration bill that may bring tens of thousands of new tech workers to the SF bay area that are not at all in current census projections. SF punches above its weight on just about every economic measurement, esp. compared to someplace like Indianapolis. Which btw SF will overtake in population by 2015, even though Indianapolis has 7x as much land area.

Detroit has 130k fewer people than Indianapolis but nobody with any sense would argue that Indianapolis is a more important city to the US economy than Detroit, even in its present state. That is because Detroit is simply the center of a complex Auto industry ranging from Michigan, to Canada down to Ohio and PA. SF is likewise a fixture of the tech industry that makes it more ultimately important than larger cities like Phoenix, Jacksonville, and Indianapolis.

Meaningless was the wrong word but as you say, arbitrary. SF is basically a square 7x7 miles of residential area + downtown core. The density figures are calculated using this area. LA has got forests and mountainous terrain of about the same size within its city borders + airport, etc...

I'm not saying SF is not a dense city, nor the 2nd densest. I'm just saying that this 17K/sq m figure continuously thrown out there is arbitrary and not really representative of SF in general (Metro) when comparing to other cities.

You do realize that SF proper also has tons of non-residential land, right? 19% of the city's land area is parkland, which is the most of any big US city if I'm not mistaken (or near the top at least, can't remember), and the city also has it's sizable industrial/warehouse districts, a large port (in terms of area, not cargo/operations), some undeveloped hilltops, a large abandoned navy yard, significant chunks of downtown that are purely commercial, etc.

And what makes you think this is unique to SF? All cities have non-residential parts which skew their density numbers, as well as some parts that are more/less densely populated than other parts. Regardless of what is arbitrary or not, SF comes out as the second densest big city in the US, no matter what measurement you're using; downtown core, city-proper, urban area, or metro area. SF is second across the board. And that's why people aren't bullshitting or boosting or whatever you think they're doing, when they talk about SF's density. You seem to have convinced yourself that SF is a special case where the density number is for some reason meaningless, or less accurate than the numbers for other cities. I'm not sure why you feel that way.

I'm going to intervene with larger rendering:

http://www.louieintl.com/wp-content/...-Francisco.jpg
Source: www.louieintl.com

what a huge impact this one will have, amazing.

1. There is no point in inserting yourself into an exchange between two other forumers from 3.5 years ago
2. I didn't "shout" a density figure--I provided it in response to a forumer who wrote "I can't wait till San Fran gets some real density going on....Seems now it only rivals L.A. and San diego." That is obviously, objectively false.
3. Who cares what you "would really be interested to see" regarding population density? This thread is about a specific highrise proposal, not about you.

1. Well I was glad he was putting an end to this OT business... but since it's going on, I'll go one last time, promised! :P
2. You're not being objective when using density figures based on 46 sq miles compared with over 300 for SD and over 400 for LA. We all agree city limits are arbitrary. And I think that forumer meant more skyscraper density and not more people per sq mile.
3. Not just me - you could benefit from that data :)

Again, I'm not saying SF is not dense - it is and that's a reason it's so enjoyable to walk there. I'm a big buff of density figures and if people think that figuring out the population of an city/metro area is bit flaky (where does it end), it's even more difficult with density. Having google map layers that showed density on a city block basis (for both people and built stories) would be fantastic! Then it would be a piece a cake to compare two cities just by looking at them side by side.

^^Troll much? I think you are sort of alone in your argument. Most of the inner Bay across 5 counties is a solid built up environment of around 10,000 ppsm, with San Jose dipping to ~5500 ppsm as a city (though I wonder if that includes all the mountains down there) and places south of SF in the 12-13,000 range, Berkeley at 11,000 and Oakland similar. I suppose you haven't heard of the area's infamous fog? Unlike LA's basin, that opens up to the ocean and allows the marine layer to burn off more easily, the Bay Area is mountainous and confined. The same reason for the density is the reason for the fog.

Ok so I heard that the city just went from ~15 100,000+ SF commitments in the market to ~21. This could be why TS wants to break ground on this, why I've heard that someone's looking at Foundry III, why a couple buildings on the market with large roll are attracting serious interest, and why Jay Paul is now scrambling to start his building (though we know he'll take Rocketspace).