SAN FRANCISCO | 222 Second | 370 FT | 26 FLOORS
 

I'm not sure if there is a thread for this project yet but here is an update from www.socketsite.com:

The project sponsor, TS 222 Second Street, L.P., proposes to construct a 26-story, approximately 350-foot-tall office tower containing approximately 430,650 square feet of office space. The project would also include [4,600 square feet of] retail space and an enclosed [8,750 square foot] publicly accessible open space at the ground floor, and two levels of sub-grade parking containing 54 parking spaces.

As proposed, the project would be a rectilinear tower of diminishing bulk from the building base to a height of approximately 350 feet. At the fifth floor, the north façade of the building would be set back 5 feet from Howard Street and the west façade would be set back approximately 20 feet from the westerly property line. At the 17th story, the east façade would be set back 24.5 feet from Second Street, and the South façade would be set back 44.5 feet from Tehama Street. In addition, the fifth floor would include a further 5-foot recess, or “reveal,” on all four facades, intended to emphasize a visual break above the first four stories of the building—at a height of about 60 feet—and thereby establish a sense of continuity with nearby historic structures.

he site is currently occupied by a surface parking lot. As part of the project, the sponsor proposes to acquire and incorporate into the project site a 1,650-square-foot (20-foot–by–82.5-foot) portion of the adjacent property, which would increase the size of the project site to 25,575 square feet, and to demolish the existing loading dock at 631 Howard Street, which occupies the portion of the adjacent parcel to be acquired. The existing building at 631 Howard Street would remain.

Two basement parking levels would be provided beneath the project site, with access provided via a two way driveway from Tehama Street for a total of 54 marked parking spaces, with capacity for approximately 80 vehicles with valet parking. The basement would also include approximately 46 bicycle parking spaces, which would exceed the 12 spaces required by the Planning Code. Three additional service van spaces would also be provided in the basement.
Construction is estimated at 21 months with occupancy as early as 2013. The project architect is Heller Manus in association with Thomas Phifer and Partners.



http://www.socketsite.com/222%202nd%...0Rendering.jpg

http://www.socketsite.com/222%202nd%...0Rendering.jpg

http://www.socketsite.com/222%202nd%...20on%202nd.jpg

http://www.socketsite.com/222%202nd%20Street%20Site.jpg

TS = Tishman Speyer. Very reminiscent of 555 Mission, another TS building. It's not bad and much better than a parking lot, but I don't expect to see it rising in 2011 for a 2013 occupancy.

i hope it gets built sooner rather than later, not just because it looks like a nice building and a good addition to that intersection, but also because it means we wont have to look at the back side of one hawthorne anymore.

^Ha! So true. This would obliterate my view of that, which is a good thing!

the massing of this building makes it a carbon copy of 555 mission, not that it's a bad thing at all, as 555 mission has one of the best glass curtains in the city. i can't wait to see this one go up!

what i'd really like to see though is for that stretch of howard st between this development and the foundry buildings to be all be glassy and finally start looking like it is part of the central business district, but i hope there won't be any future developements on that nice 2-block stretch of 2nd st towards market though!

Here are some massing studies that show how it, and the rest the of the Rincon Hill and Transbay plans, will look within the current skyline:

http://www.socketsite.com/222%202nd%...yline%20SE.jpg

http://www.socketsite.com/222%202nd%...kyline%20W.jpg

Images courtesy of www.socketsite.com

Wow if all those towers were to go up that would be crazy kewl.

I can't wait till San Fran gets some real density going on.

I want it to rival chicago and new york!:banana:

Seems now it only rivals L.A. and San diego.

Population Density (from Wikipedia)
SF: 17,323 ppsm
LA: 8,205 ppsm
SD: 4,174 ppsm

Highrises (existing and u/c, from Emporis)
LA: 511
SF: 420
SD: 151

San Francisco has a much higher population density than LA or SD--indeed, among big US cities San Francisco is second only to New York. As for highrise density, LA has more highrises but they are spread out--San Francisco's highrises are all concentrated in a single high-rise core. Which is one way to consider density--concentration.

Perhaps you have some other kind of density on your mind?

:previous: Might as well give the figure for Chicago: 12,750 ppsm (a bit more than 2/3 as dense as SF)

Then, of course there are the other ways a city can "rival" another. SF certainly "rivals" anyplace in North America except New York, which is 10 times its size, in terms of high culture (opera, symphony, ballet) and dining (fine and otherwise). It's got in the Bay Area (if not within the city limits), all the professional sports (LA still doesn't have a football team--we still have 2). It's a center and focus of several major industries: tech, biotech, organic and artisanal food production (including fine wines), finance. And the Bay Area rivals the other places mentioned in higher education with 2 top 10 national universities and a number of smaller colleges and universities.

I could go on, but I don't want to divert the thread into a city competition. The point is simply that for a relatively small city in population and geography, SF is very "dense" in what makes urban living desirable for most of us.

nice proposal - very similar indeed to 555 mission. we'll have to see tho what the glass will look like in person. too bad they couldnt go taller

I wanted to see these bigger (same source as above)...

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...rioEastTow.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...rioWestonB.jpg

I didn't know all those things where involved in what rivals a city.

All I've really thought where density and how tall they're tallest building was.

Good impact for a 26 story building.

its not about rivalry. theres WAAAAY more to what makes a great city than density and the tallest building. i want to repeat that. theres way more to what makes a great city than density and the tallest building, period.

If plans like the Treasure Island redevelopment, and hunters point/candlestick actuallly pan out, SF will have a few spread out high rise districts like L.A., along with it's dense core.:tup: I personally would like to see that. But this is off topic...my apologies.

This was approved by Planning yesterday 4-3. Next it goes before the BOS for final approval of the variances they are seeking.

And an updated rendering:

http://www.socketsite.com/222%202nd%...g%20Corner.jpg
Rendering from www.socketsite.com

Is this development still going forward?

According to an SF Business Times article from June, "Tishman Speyer is shopping 222 Second St." to potential tenants and contractors. So, they are indeed working to get some lease commitments in order to proceed with construction.

As long as office demand stays strong downtown, it seems like this could get going sometime in the next year.

^Indeed, you may be exactly right. From JK Dineen in the SF Business Times:

The caption that goes with the photo of the current parking lot at that link says:

Given how hot SOMA office space is, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see them build this on spec.

Definitely seems possible. TMG Partners started the $87M rehab of 680 Folsom on spec back in November and then just two months later they signed Riverbed to 160,000 SF.

Leasing signs are up:

Wow, that seems like good news.

Nice. I have a thing for simple, classy towers, so I really like this project.

Nice! I'm pretty excited about this one. It has a nice design (it's reminiscent of 555 Mission, which is one of my favorite towers in SF) and will have a relatively big impact on the skyline and immediate area despite being somewhat short, as it will be both on the edge of downtown and be taller than most buildings within a few block radius of it (with nothing taller to the south).

I am excited about this building as well...especially if the glass curtain wall turns out like the rendering below. The 'overlapping' sheets of glass are kind of reminiscent of scales. Love it.

http://www.hellermanus.com/images/po...-View_crop.jpg
www.hellermanus.com

Plus, it will largely block the ugly side of One Hawthorne. Not to mention: one less surface lot in SOMA!

Wow, those "scales" are super cool! This just gets better and better.

^Yeah it's pretty cool.

Good points, those are some other good things. It's kind of amazing how One Hawthorne looks so nice from one side, yet the other side is mostly a boring concrete wall. It's like the architect got lazy while designing it, or they ran out of money for a complete glass skin or something. Though it might have just been done in anticipation of another tower going up right next door...but it's still ugly. Anyway, it's exciting to see the highrise core of the city expand outwards, and this whole part of downtown will feel so different when/if all the proposed transbay and rincon hill redevelopment towers get built. Now we just need the NIMBYs in telegraph hill, northbeach, chinatown, nob hill, etc, to stop screwing with every tall proposal in the northern part of downtown....though with 8 Washington Street and 350 Bush approved, and the new City College campus built, as well as a few more 10+ story buildings approved in the Tenderloin and along Van Ness, things are looking up (no pun intended hurrf durf).

According to the SF Business Times, Tishman is planning on breaking ground early next year...

Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci...ry-square.html

That's a bit disappointing that it won't start until next year. I was really hoping that one could start this year. They still seem serious about building it though, so that's good.

And, it's good to hear that Foundry III will break ground soon.

Maybe the timeline has moved up a bit?

Great news! Let's hope this momentum continues.

Looks like they're planning to start construction this summer. The footprint of the tower has been slightly downsized (the tower will now have 430,650 square feet of office space and 2,100 of retail, vs. 450,000 and 5,000 previously) because they weren't able to acquire the loading dock from neighboring 631 Howard, but the height remains the same.

http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2....html#comments

The render:

http://www.socketsite.com/222%202nd%...ing%202013.jpg
socketsite

I'm happy to hear it had to slim down a bit, but it still looks too bulky, and maybe too glassy, for its location to me. it's kind of a boring design too, but mostly it just feels out of place. wish they had gone a different direction with this one.

I like the bulkiness. It's masculine and fills in the canyonized street wall nicely. I don't really like the look of skinny twiggy towers poking up everywhere (Rincon Hill). Plus it is replacing a parking lot- that's huge progress.

i work a block away and think it will serve as a nice contrast on 2nd. I can't think of any pure glass buildings along 2nd (closest being 555 mission which is between 1st and 2nd), and it will also be very close to the old pactel building.

Tishman just got the building permit issued, so hopefully we'll have another groundbreaking soon:

http://i.imgur.com/TiCrE0t.png

Also, I'm not sure what the standards are for determining building height, but according to this planning document, the roof height is 350' and the total height (including mechanical parapet) is 370'.

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.