SAN FRANCISCO | Projects: Under Construction, Approved, and Proposed

[J Church]

that's the transbay plan we've all been raving about, joel. it's redevelopment, mostly of the old embarcadero freeway ROW, to fund the new transbay terminal (long, low bldg in white at center), it's been surprisingly well-received, and as redevelopment it's more or less exempt from the usual process anyway - so it's going to happen. the only real open question is the height of the landmark tower in front of the terminal. the plan made the case for a tower roughly as tall as transamerica (853ft) to provide a focal point for the new, south-of-market skyline. in that rendering, tho, it's closer to the existing height limit of 550ft.

might also mention that just below that is rincon hill, where the planning dept is pushing a half-dozen highrises up to 550ft. that plan's reception has been more mixed, but a quartet of 400 and 350ft towers was just approved, so SF is going to get a number of decent-sized (anyway) new towers in SOMA over the coming years.

tekno, it's a lowrise hotel.

[J Church]

at top is a model of the combined transbay and rincon plans (new bldgs in white).

http://sfcityscape.com/images/rincon_plan.jpg

[FourOneFive]

Has anyone driven by Mission and Embarcadero lately? There's a pretty big crane there and some consturction going on, but I can't say I've heard anything about a project in that area. Any ideas?

Here's a pictures of the low-rise, 7 story hotel being constructed at Embarcadero and Mission:

http://63.240.68.115/FirmFiles/25/images/Mis-steu03-after.jpg

In addition to hotel rooms and loft spaces, it'll include a restaurant and Market Street Railway historic trolley store.

[EastBayHardCore]

Cool, I like the brick. Those lofts facing East will have some really cool views of the bridge and the island.

[JMGarcia]

that's the transbay plan we've all been raving about, joel. it's redevelopment, mostly of the old embarcadero freeway ROW, to fund the new transbay terminal (long, low bldg in white at center), it's been surprisingly well-received, and as redevelopment it's more or less exempt from the usual process anyway - so it's going to happen. the only real open question is the height of the landmark tower in front of the terminal. the plan made the case for a tower roughly as tall as transamerica (853ft) to provide a focal point for the new, south-of-market skyline. in that rendering, tho, it's closer to the existing height limit of 550ft.

might also mention that just below that is rincon hill, where the planning dept is pushing a half-dozen highrises up to 550ft. that plan's reception has been more mixed, but a quartet of 400 and 350ft towers was just approved, so SF is going to get a number of decent-sized (anyway) new towers in SOMA over the coming years.

tekno, it's a lowrise hotel.

Yeah, I know its nothing new but I personally hadn't seen that render before so I thought I'd post it. SoMa desperately needs a peak to its skyline and I think that render really shows why that's the place for it.

To me, what's shocking about this whole development is that lack of any serious local opposition. Although, if I were a planner I'd try to get that under-construction before too many apartments get occupied in the area. ;)

Has the SF office market picked-up at all? Its still somewhat soft here.

[J Church]

it's still soft here as well. last i heard around 20%.

[JMGarcia]

Well, at least the residential is still fairly strong. I just hope our CBD's don't get too big an influx in NIMBY's or we'll end up having to build any new office space out in the 'burbs.

[J Church]

manhattan office construction seems to be picking up, if anything.

[JMGarcia]

Well, Bank of America is the big news here. Pretty much, everything else had been in the pipeline for years, long before things went soft.

[J Church]

yeah, that's some pipeline tho.

this has probably come up in the WTC board, but if you don't mind my asking, just quickly: is there any concern that the new WTC will flood the office market? or conversely, will it improve downtown's position relative to jersey city, et al.

[JMGarcia]

The only people that seem to be worried that it'll flood the market are other real estate developers. Personally, I don't think its a competitor to midtown, more likely Jersey City and Brooklyn. In any case it'll becoming on line between 2008-2012 and that's if all goes to plan. NY can easily absorb 1.5 million sq. ft. a year.

It might even be nice if rents were a bit cheaper (guess who's complaining that might happen) and NY could attract some new business.

[FourOneFive]

Speaking of office growth, I'm curious to see where San Francisco plans to add office space once the economy rebounds in 5 years. The FiDi is all built out, and the areas south of Market like Transbay and Rincon Hill are going to be filled with residential towers. I wonder if Civic Center and Van Ness/ Market are going to be used as a secondary CBD.

[rocketman_95046]

415 remember there is alot of office space that was supposed to be built at Mission Bay. It still needs to be built and it is approved already so any office space will probably be built there or @ 555 mission :)

[FourOneFive]

I have a feeling that 555 Mission's entitlements will be pulled before its built. A residential or mixed use tower will probably go in its place. Although 555 Mission Street was a dignified design, it only reached 482'. If you look at the height limits for the area, the site is zoned for 550' (or as J Church has pointed out, 700+' with crowns and setbacks).

On a side note here, the entitlements for 535 Mission Street have been pulled, and a new residential proposal is in the works.

[rocketman_95046]

What is 535 mission zoned for?

[FourOneFive]

535 Mission is zoned for 550'. It basically sits right next to 555 Mission Street.

Here's a rendering if you forgot what it looked like:

http://www.hines.com/propertyImages/535%20mission%202%203dec01.jpg

At 24 floors, it was probably somewhere between 300' and 350'.

BTW I also updated the first page. :D

[J Church]

On a side note here, the entitlements for 535 Mission Street have been pulled, and a new residential proposal is in the works.

where'd you get that, tony?

[craeg]

Didnt they just get planning approval to operate a surface lot of the site for the next year?

[EastBayHardCore]

Speaking of office growth, I'm curious to see where San Francisco plans to add office space once the economy rebounds in 5 years. The FiDi is all built out, and the areas south of Market like Transbay and Rincon Hill are going to be filled with residential towers. I wonder if Civic Center and Van Ness/ Market are going to be used as a secondary CBD.

I was totally thinking about this the other day, but then I saw the post from J Church about how high office vacancy was I decided that the demand SF office high rises weren't in high demand. But in the future it seems pretty fair to assume that Civic Center and Van Ness will be the next areas to grow, but won't they face much stricter height and bulk requirements up there than in the FiDi?

[FourOneFive]

On a side note here, the entitlements for 535 Mission Street have been pulled, and a new residential proposal is in the works.

where'd you get that, tony?

working for the Planning Department has its perks... ;)

as for any potential towers at Market/ Van Ness, I can easily see the Planning Department arguing for a 450'-500' tower at one of the corners of Market/ Van Ness. A landmark tower should anchor that important innersection.

[J Church]

since when are you working for planning? jerk ;) but seriously - any details to share yet?

planning has already argued for 400' at the SW corner, as i'm sure you know.

[FourOneFive]

Aaron got into the SFRA last year for an internship; I get into the SF Planning Department this year. Isn't it great to be a Urban Studies student? :D

[danvillain]

i wouldn't know yet tony, but i can't wait.

ps, you think you could hook me up with some land use maps or something? a little souvenir from planning... ;)

[EastBayHardCore]

St. Regis crown progress from 101. Lookin' sharp.
http://linux.cs.sonoma.edu/~monaghan/SFSPD/IMG_0529.jpg

http://linux.cs.sonoma.edu/~monaghan/SFSPD/IMG_0532.jpg

[Procurator]

whoa, it looks really weird from that angle.

[craeg]

I posted a few months ago about how I thought the st regis' choice of cladding and window were poor. The facade seemed too busy - with bands of alternating thicknesses and windows that opened left next to ones that opened right.
Now I have to admit that I really like the (painfully slow) direction that the facade has taken. The corner glass treatments look great and the crown looks like it will really set the whole thing off. The building sort of reminds me of a giant transformer (more than meets the eye.... not zap) ready to unfold itself and walk down mission.

[EastBayHardCore]

I agree craeg, wtf is up with those weird windows? And what about those little platforms on the south west corner of the buildings? Are they gonna be like super tiny patios or something?

[EastBayHardCore]

I was just looking over some figures on the TBT on the MTC website and they said they are expecting the grand opening to be in december of 2007. Something tells me this isn't gonna happen. I mean that's a TON of work to do in the next 3 and a half years and they haven't even decided on what they are gonna do with the rail alignment as far as I know. Imagine if they have to do more environmental reports on a new alignment. Is this figure at all acurate? Or are we looking at a figure somewhere closer to 2010 more realistically?

[igzaklee]

2012.

[dabcom]

Any news on The Century, or should I say the building formerly known as The Century?

[VERTIKAL777]

is it me or do i smell a new york of cali in san fran's future????


:eek:

[FourOneFive]

^ Don't let San Francisco's NIMBYs hear that! ;)

^^ As for the Century, no news yet...

[EastBayHardCore]

I was thinking about making a trip down to 301 Mission this weekend to see what's happening on the site and take a few pics. I thought it was supposed to starts either March or February. Anyone know if the old buildings have been demolished yet?

[FourOneFive]

The buildings are all empty. They haven't been demolished yet.

[garry7772000]

San Francisco has been quiet for much too long. It's good news to know that the City is again on the move, and soon the focus will be off of the TransAmerica Pyramid Building, which is a great building, but it's time for something new to dominate such a proud skyline.

Garry

[FourOneFive]

Well, here's some news from the San Francisco Business Times:

Home to roost? San Francisco's developers get a nesting instinct
James Temple

American Financial Realty hopes to sell One South Van Ness to a highrise housing developer. A.F. Evans and Mercy Housing are teaming up to build more than 500 units of housing at Laguna and Haight. The Presidio Trust is close to choosing a developer to convert the Public Health Service Hospital into hundreds of units of housing. Malcolm Properties plans to build a 21-story tower at 631 Folsom St. (See story, below.)

And that's just two weeks' worth of news.
Driven by low interest rates and seemingly insatiable demand, housing projects are popping up all over San Francisco -- and in many cases, very high up.

Here are a few more housing projects that have taken recent strides forward:

Myers Development Co. closed the financing and purchased the land for the 51-story, 423-unit residential condominium project at 80 Natoma St. last week. The $188 million project will now be called the Hemisphere, not the Century Tower. It's slated for completion in August 2006.
Myers secured construction financing through iStar Financial and mezzanine debt financing through CIM Group's CIM Urban Real Estate Fund. Myers, through Myers Natoma Venture, acquired the land from Prudential Real Estate Investors.

CEO Jack Myers said the official ground breaking is now slated for May or June.

"The O'os have already arrived," he said, referring to the traditional Hawaiian pointed sticks that Myers, formerly a Honolulu-based developer, has made a part of each of his San Francisco ground-breaking ceremonies.

Armax International Inc. is once again pushing ahead on 1880 Mission St.
The original plans for the site, which included 183 dwelling units and 26,000 square feet of commercial space, were rejected by the Planning Commission in 2002 amid heavy protests of Mission residents and groups like the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition.

The latest version of the project includes more housing units, 192, but with a larger proportion of affordable housing and lower prices for the market-rate units, said Agustin Rosas-Maxemin, president of San Francisco-based Armax. The new designs also sliced the commercial use down to 8,000 square feet of neighborhood-serving retail.

"Basically, what we have done is taken the comment we had in the past from the community and come forward with a new design," Rosas-Maxemin said. "We're working very diligently ... to get this project approved."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So the Century, or shall I say the Hemisphere is back on track! I've updated the first page...

[FourOneFive]

Well, here's some news from the San Francisco Business Times:

Home to roost? San Francisco's developers get a nesting instinct
James Temple

American Financial Realty hopes to sell One South Van Ness to a highrise housing developer. A.F. Evans and Mercy Housing are teaming up to build more than 500 units of housing at Laguna and Haight. The Presidio Trust is close to choosing a developer to convert the Public Health Service Hospital into hundreds of units of housing. Malcolm Properties plans to build a 21-story tower at 631 Folsom St. (See story, below.)

And that's just two weeks' worth of news.
Driven by low interest rates and seemingly insatiable demand, housing projects are popping up all over San Francisco -- and in many cases, very high up.

Here are a few more housing projects that have taken recent strides forward:

Myers Development Co. closed the financing and purchased the land for the 51-story, 423-unit residential condominium project at 80 Natoma St. last week. The $188 million project will now be called the Hemisphere, not the Century Tower. It's slated for completion in August 2006.
Myers secured construction financing through iStar Financial and mezzanine debt financing through CIM Group's CIM Urban Real Estate Fund. Myers, through Myers Natoma Venture, acquired the land from Prudential Real Estate Investors.

CEO Jack Myers said the official ground breaking is now slated for May or June.

"The O'os have already arrived," he said, referring to the traditional Hawaiian pointed sticks that Myers, formerly a Honolulu-based developer, has made a part of each of his San Francisco ground-breaking ceremonies.

Armax International Inc. is once again pushing ahead on 1880 Mission St.
The original plans for the site, which included 183 dwelling units and 26,000 square feet of commercial space, were rejected by the Planning Commission in 2002 amid heavy protests of Mission residents and groups like the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition.

The latest version of the project includes more housing units, 192, but with a larger proportion of affordable housing and lower prices for the market-rate units, said Agustin Rosas-Maxemin, president of San Francisco-based Armax. The new designs also sliced the commercial use down to 8,000 square feet of neighborhood-serving retail.

"Basically, what we have done is taken the comment we had in the past from the community and come forward with a new design," Rosas-Maxemin said. "We're working very diligently ... to get this project approved."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, the Century, or shall I say the Hemisphere, is back on track! I've updated the first page...

[fflint]

Construction photo updates: new Federal Building, Bloomingdales/SF Centre addition, Saint Regis tower, and 199 New Montgomery Street.

New Federal Building, Mission Street:

The project keeps rising slowly, and it's still too early to get a good sense of the building to be:

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap4100005.jpg

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap4100001.jpg

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap4100007.jpg

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap4100008.jpg

Bloomingdales Western Flagship/SF Centre addition

Demolition of several smaller buildings along Mission St. is complete and foundation is being laid for new structure, century-old stained-glass rotunda is wrapped and appears ready to be raised up another two floors, interior light court now visible from Mission St.:

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap4100018.jpg

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap4100021.jpg

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap4100022.jpg

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap4100036.jpg

The Saint Regis

Completion of this project was reportedly slowed down to allow the hotel market to recover from post-9/11 doldrums, but it seems momentum is now accelerating (the St. Regis is now officially hiring hotel/restaurant workers). It shouldn't be long now...

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap4100023.jpg

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap4100044.jpg

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap4100045.jpg

199 New Montgomery

This small project at the end of New Montgomery is looking good. It's unusual in that it is an entirely-residential project (although there will likely be some sort of streetside retail) in the Financial District:

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap4100049.jpg

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap4100050.jpg

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap4100053.jpg

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap4100054.jpg

[EastBayHardCore]

Thanks for bringing this thread back to life fflint. It has been neglected for too long because the Califorum is where all the action is.

BTW does anyone besides me think that the Paramount has a really cool design?

[fflint]

You and I, alone, seem to like the Paramount, Tekno!

[EastBayHardCore]

2 complete opposites brought together by one 400ft residential tower. awwwww ;)

[Chi-town]

I really like 301 Mission, 555 Mission, and that new federal building.

[Chi-town]

SF highrise architecture: :sleep:

Singapore highrise architecture: :)

Tokyo highrise architecture: :yes:

HK highrise architecture: :hyper:

mainland China highrise architecture: :crazy:
Are you kdding?

HK highrise architecture is pretty good, but I wouldn't even call what's going up on the mainland "architecture".

[fflint]

Chi-town, why "argue" with someone who was banned months ago?

[Chi-town]

1. I didn't know they were banned.

2. I'm not trying to start a back-and-forth argument, just expressing a contrary opinion.

[EastBayHardCore]

whoa carol got banned? thats a shame, he/she? posted some cool pics from time to time. what happened with that?

[FourOneFive]

Thanks for posting those construction pics fflinty! All four of these projects are moving along nicely especially the Bloomingdales/SF Center.

One question about this pic:

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap4100050.jpg

Does anyone else think that SF could have "ended" New Montgomery Street with a better building? This building with a reflective top is like a shorter, fatter, uglier version of NYC's Metlife Building.

[EastBayHardCore]

Agreed, that would have been a nice place for a signature tower. It would have really made that ending a cool skyscraper canyon, maybe that's why there wasnt a nice high rise built there.

[fflint]

I think some architect should come along and add onto/behind that awesome brick "Howard Hawthorne" building. It's a great base to work with, imagine some bright, airy glass tower behind it...

[EastBayHardCore]

That would indeed be very cool. I always like to see cities keep reminders of old architecture around. Wasn't a similar thing done with 345 Cal Center, as I remember the building is actually mid-block but has four older buildings at it's base, one on each corner.

[fflint]

Update on 80 Natoma Street, a planned residential tower that has now been bumped up to 51 stories and renamed "the Hemisphere."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack on track
Developer has plans to build 51 stories of housing on Transbay Terminal site

James Temple
The San Francisco Business Times
Monday, April 19, 2004

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/578/28sanfrancisco-century.jpg

http://63.240.68.115/FirmFiles/25/images/ACF6A.jpg

Sometime in November 2003, construction firm Webcor fenced off a parking lot next to the Transbay Terminal, pulled the parking curbs and installed "indicator piles" to determine the underlying soil's composition. All were signs that a development was imminent. The question was: Which one?

Myers Development Corp. had made no secret of its plans to build a housing highrise at 80 Natoma St., while the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency and Transbay Joint Powers Authority had earmarked the site for the western portion of the $2.7 billion Transbay Terminal project, a West Coast version of Grand Central Station.

Since the Transbay Terminal plan had yet to be approved, and Myers had moved forward with negotiations with parcel owner Prudential, the answer was soon clear. The impact is still unknown.

Myers Development has pushed ahead with the $188 million development, closing on the financing and acquiring the land from Prudential Real Estate Investors in late March. Also recently revealed: The "Hemisphere" will now be 51 stories, up from initial plans for 48, making it the tallest all-residential structure in California.

Meanwhile, the timeline for the Transbay Terminal plan, initially slated for final approval by the end of last year, is unknown and city officials aren't offering clues.

Since, outside the misty realms of theoretical physics, two objects can't occupy the same space at the same time, the options include moving the Transbay Terminal over one block -- exactly where it resided in earlier plans -- or seizing the property from Myers through eminent domain. Either would add substantial expense to the project -- and no shortage of political headaches.

"There are numerous plans that the city can pursue relative to the development of the Transbay Terminal," said Myers Development CEO Jack Myers in an earlier interview. "The fact remains that I have a single site that is entitled."

He adds that he is a staunch supporter of the redevelopment goals of the Transbay Terminal neighborhood, which designates several other sites for housing highrises, and believes the projects will be complementary in the end.

-- James Temple

[FourOneFive]

In an "only in San Francisco" moment, city leaders are still trying to figure out how to build a new transit station and a new 51 story highrise on the same parcel...

Transbay project jammed
Conflicting plans leave three options
James Temple

San Francisco officials are wrestling with three options to salvage the $2 billion Transbay Terminal project, now under threat from Myers Development Corp.'s move to begin construction of a 51-story (475') housing tower on part of the site.

The terminal project received public approval from the San Francisco Redevelopment Commission this week, even while the city reviewed options for redesigning or moving the terminal and its underground rail tracks to accommodate the tower. Meanwhile, high-level finger-pointing increased over how the two huge projects were allowed to collide.

"How is it possible that both parties were allowed to go in parallel?" asked Mayor Gavin Newsom. "I'm stunned by that. I don't think this has been well managed, this process, and you can quote me saying that.... I'm very disappointed in some of the leadership on this project."

Newsom, who said he was shocked to learn that Myers' 80 Natoma St. project was proceeding a few weeks after taking office, has orchestrated several meetings of the major stakeholders. Three options are now on the table, insiders say, each with advantages and costs.

The first alternative -- reportedly favored by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, Redevelopment Agency and California High Speed Rail Authority -- is to move the Transbay Terminal over one block and change the foundation for the 80 Natoma tower to allow the tracks to run under the building.
The upside is that the tracks could exist as currently configured, which is considered the optimum layout for the high-speed rail that is eventually slated to connect with the terminal.

The downsides are that it's a highly complex and expensive procedure that would take between six and 12 months to explore -- and, according to engineers, might not work.

Myers Development CEO Jack Myers said he can't delay his development because his financing is conditioned on the project coming to market at a certain time. He said that it would also add $30 million to city costs.

Another downside is that the new foundation would increase the height of the tower by requiring one level of parking to be above ground, thus triggering the need for additional approval by the San Francisco Planning Commission.

"We simply don't think that this is going to be workable, nor is it practical in light of other alternative alignments being less expensive and having no material time impact," he said.

The alternative alignment option, one advocated at least for exploration by the Mayor's Office as well as Myers, would run the tracks under the portion of the building nearest Natoma Street, where the planned foundation would allow it.
The advantage is that it would not require any changes to the design of 80 Natoma, or any additional approvals or delays.

The disadvantage is that, because it would require the rail lines to merge earlier, it would cut down the number of lines and passenger platforms, according to Andrew Sullivan, chairman of Rescue Muni, a transit riders advocacy group.

"Either people wouldn't be able to get off on the whole trains, or the capacity for trains would be cut by two-thirds," Sullivan said. "Giving up the capacity for one building, the owner of which bought it after the draft EIR, doesn't make any sense."

The third alternative is for the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency to seize the 80 Natoma parcels through eminent domain.
The upside is that a project that would connect most major modes of transportation, and allow for high-speed intrastate transportation, would be allowed to go forward in what's considered the ideal form by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority and other interested parties. The downsides are significant legal hurdles, unknown costs and a thwarted large-scale housing project.

Eminent domain involves a long legal process to determine the fair market value of the property. Some put the value of just the dirt at 80 Natoma, with its existing city building approvals, at $30 million. Then there is the unknown value of the time invested, lost profit potential and materials costs. Myers has repeatedly said he isn't interested in being bought out.

Mayor Newsom did not rule out the possibility of eminent domain, but said it should be a last resort.

"I don't want to understate how disappointed I was that 80 Natoma had gotten so far ahead and the Transbay Terminal people had said, 'Well, we'll just eminent domain it," Newsom said. "Is that the wisest direction, or is there an alternative that will strike a balance and cost the taxpayers substantially less money?

"There is some presumption from some members of the Transbay Terminal that there will never be an engineering solution," he said. "Maybe they're right, but I wasn't convinced we had done our due diligence."

Maria Ayerdi, executive director of the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, did not respond to questions about the possible use of eminent domain, the other alternatives, or the mayor's criticism.

A spokeswoman for the authority said: "The committee is committed to working with everyone. Engineers are looking at it, from the Transbay Joint Powers Authority and Myers Development, to see what can be done."

But the Transbay Joint Powers Authority and Redevelopment Agency have so far demonstrated no reluctance to use eminent domain to make the project work. In fact, under the preferred construction plan for the Transbay project in the just-approved environmental impact report, the agencies expected to spend north of $120 million to acquire and demolish more than 20 properties -- including the four Natoma and Minna Street parcels where Myers plans to build.

Ayerdi also wrote in a June 9 letter to Myers: "If at some future date the (Transbay Terminal) project is approved, we would anticipate taking appropriate steps to move the project forward, including, if necessary, recommending acquisition of properties needed for the project."

The fact that Ayerdi wrote this letter on June 9, 2003, has raised a question in some minds: If the Transbay Joint Powers Authority knew last summer that Myers Development was planning to proceed with a highrise tower, why didn't the agency start talking about engineering solutions 10 months ago?

The Transbay Joint Powers Authority spokeswoman defended the public process: "Over 30 different alternatives were looked at. After 10 years of the community working together and three years of work on the environmental report, the locally preferred alternative was chosen."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

New Transbay Terminal:

http://www.denverunionstation.org/images/stations_s3.jpg

[fflint]

Here's a quick pic I took of the new Muni hotel under construction at the Ferry Terminal plaza (it's a couple weeks old):

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap4240016.jpg

[FourOneFive]

Thanks for the pic, fflinty! I was at the Embarcadero yesterday, and I'm excited something is rising on that barren bus turnaround that once occupied that site.

Here's a pic of the finished project:

http://63.240.68.115/FirmFiles/25/images/Mis-steu03-after.jpg

[EastBayHardCore]

I dont think there has been too much discussion about this project here. I'm more excited about the renovation of the old Emporium building than the Bloomindales, but what the hell it looks pretty nice.

The new, 338,000 sf, five story Bloomingdale’s will be one of its largest in the country, second only to its flagship Lexington Avenue store in NYC. Unlike the Beaux Arts facade of its historic neighbor, the Emporium Department Store, the look will be strictly modern with four stories of glass framed by horizontal metal panels.

The store is part of a 1.5 million sf project that includes the restoration of the Emporium, and is an extension of the world-famous Union Square District. The venue will serve as the shopping, dining and entertainment destination for more than 25 million people annually.

KA is the Executive Architect for the entire project.

http://www.kainc.com/gallery/Bloomingdales/1.jpg
http://www.kainc.com/gallery/Bloomingdales/2.jpg
http://www.kainc.com/gallery/Bloomingdales/3.jpg

The new Westfield San Francisco Centre is the result of a partnership between Forest City Enterprises, developer of Westfield Market Street, and Westfield America, Inc., owner of the existing Westfield San Francisco Centre, which includes Nordstrom's and more than 200 other specialty stops.

The development incorporates a cherished historic landmark, The Emporium department store; its distinctive facade from 1896 will be restored and strengthened, and its famed, 102-foot-diameter glass and steel dome and rotunda will be raised up three stories and restored. Public space has been added with the creation of two roof-top terraces, one allowing for a dramatic eye-level view of the historic dome and the other facing Yerba Buena. A Century Theatres multiplex, with nine cinemas and 3,200 stadium seats, will anchor the Emporium above Bloomingdale's and will connect to the existing Westfield San Francisco Centre.

Along Market Street, shoppers will have access to a variety of street-level retailers. Above, more than 560,000 sf will accommodate additional retail space and offices. A food court at the lower level will connect to the Powell Street MUNI Metro and Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system.

The new Bloomingdale's, second in size only to its NYC flagship store, will command an imposing presence on Mission Street and will connect to the new mall at five levels. The entire Westfield Market Street development will connect to the adjacent Westfield San Francisco Centre and Nordstrom’s for a total of 1.5 million sf.

KA Architecture is the Executive Architect of Record for the entire $410 million proje

http://www.kainc.com/gallery/Westfield/1.jpg
http://www.kainc.com/gallery/Westfield/2.jpg
http://www.kainc.com/gallery/Westfield/3.jpg
http://www.kainc.com/gallery/Westfield/4.jpg
http://www.kainc.com/gallery/Westfield/5.jpg

[fflint]

Daily Digest

The San Francisco Chronicle
Friday, May 14, 2004

Work gets under way at disputed S.F. site

Webcor Builders has begun excavation work at a disputed high-rise construction site at 80 Natoma St. in downtown San Francisco, on the same land where regional transit officials want to build a new Transbay Terminal.

Webcor is digging down about 12 feet to prepare the parcel for construction of a 51-story condominium tower that Myers Development Co. is legally entitled to build.

Myers and the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, which is responsible for planning the terminal, are negotiating to make both projects possible. Plans for the terminal call for high-speed rail lines to go underneath the Myers property. The excavation work is starting on the side of the parcel farthest away from the area of conflict, said Todd Saunders, a Myers vice president.
--Dan Levy

[tuy]

Thanks for the pic, fflinty! I was at the Embarcadero yesterday, and I'm excited something is rising on that barren bus turnaround that once occupied that site.

Here's a pic of the finished project:

http://63.240.68.115/FirmFiles/25/images/Mis-steu03-after.jpg

Judging by the rendering, and what I saw yesterday, it looks as though it is about topped out. I didn't have a camera with me yesterday when I visited the city. It was a beautiful day, so took a walk around the area after I finished the business that I had to take care of.

[fflint]

500,000-pound sigh of relief
The grand old dome of the Emporium gets a lift -- and now waits for its new home atop Bloomingdale's

Dan Levy, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 19, 2004

http://sfgate.com/chronicle/pictures/2004/05/19/mn_dome19137lh.jpg
In a spectacular engineering feat, the 250-ton, glass-and-steel dome of the old Emporium was lifted 60 feet in the air.

http://sfgate.com/chronicle/pictures/2004/05/19/ba_dome19143lh.jpg
The crown jewel of the old Emporium will top the new Bloomingdale's, shown here from the rear.

http://sfgate.com/chronicle/pictures/2004/05/19/ba_emporium19gr.jpg


They raised the roof Tuesday at the old Emporium.

Well, it wasn't the roof. It was the dome -- a 500,000-pound relic of San Francisco's early 20th century excitement and excess.

Thanks to a custom-designed hydraulic lifting system, the beloved glass- and-steel structure 100 feet in diameter made a safe climb to its new height of 170 feet above Market and Mission streets as a crowd of hard hats and real estate suits looked on.

Nobody on hand had witnessed quite such a dome-raising before.

"We did not really have knowledge for a project like this," said Archie Schachle, vice president for Sheedy Drayage Co., the San Francisco engineering firm that pulled off the feat.

The closest thing anyone could think of was the dismantling of the City of Paris department store dome back in 1981 and its reassembly in the then-new Neiman Marcus store on Union Square.

But that was a relatively simple matter of screwdrivers and chisels.

Tuesday's show was about lifting, whole hog, a fragile and bulky century- old structure.

When the Bloomingdale's department story and retail center, being built on the site of the 108-year-old Emporium store, opens in fall 2006, the dome will be the visual and spiritual centerpiece of the 1.5-million-square-foot, mixed-use behemoth.

"People love light, and there is going to be a lot of light streaming through those lunettes," said project architect John Tindall, looking up at the arched windows at the base of the dome structure.

Incredibly, a 1920s addition to the Emporium building had covered up the lunettes, which are small windows, robbing shoppers of the feeling that they were buying perfume in St. Peter's. During its decades-long heyday, the Emporium dome was where San Franciscans met, supped and canoodled.

Planners decided not only to remove the offending blockage -- and whatever else was left of the guts of the old Emporium -- but also to raise the dome 60 feet and restore it to its former glory.

Accomplishing this required a stabilizing concrete pad, a 120-foot steel- beam tower to support the dome and four hydraulic jacks to do the heavy lifting.

As assembled visitors looked on, an engineer flipped the switch on the jacks, which were positioned on massive horizontal beams that supported the weight of the dome. Ever so slowly, the giant dome was lifted inch by weighty inch.

It was impressive to bystanders. But foreman Don Vick, watching the 94- year-old structure rise slowly and steadily, said the job wasn't too different from adding a deck to a bridge or lifting a floor into an office building.

"It's just like putting a floor together one piece at a time," Vick said.

Workers and engineers stationed under the jacks watched the progress of the lift by eyeing tape measures that dangled from the beams. The lifting had to be done in unison on all four sides.

"It's got to go up at the same level, and you want to make sure you don't get hung up on something you don't see," Vick said.

By 4 p.m. the lift was done, and the first phase of the Bloomingdale's construction project was complete.

The dome will stay perched on the steel tower for 10 months while the Emporium structure is demolished and a new steel structure is erected around the dome. Then the dome will be lowered 2 feet to rest atop the new frame.

For those scoring at home, that makes a total lift of 58 feet.

The next phase will be construction of 200 stores, cafes and restaurants, a nine-screen cinema and 235,000 square feet of office space, the priciest of which will look out onto the newly restored dome.

One point of history: Developers Forest City and Westfield America were required by the city to save the dome if they wanted to build the project, which is expected to cost $410 million by the time it opens in two years.

And if you listen to them today, nothing to the contrary ever crossed their minds.

"Carrying through the quality of the architecture is going to make a statement," said Westfield executive Steve Eimer.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The dome of the former Emporium department store, built in 1908, was lifted 60 feet using hydraulic jacks.
The structure under the dome -- except for the original beams and supports -- had already been removed, a process that took several months.

Next, contractors built a reinforced horizontal base for the dome. A lifting tower, with the hydraulic jacks at the top, was erected under the dome and connected to the horizontal support.

On Tuesday, the dome was raised 60 feet in four hours.

During the next 10 months, the dome will remain on the hydraulic lifting tower until a new building is completed underneath it.

When the work is complete, the dome will be lowered 2 feet to rest on the new structure and the hydraulic lifting tower will be removed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lifting the Emporium dome

The historic dome of the old Emporium building, a 500,000-pound structure built almost a century ago, has been lifted 60 feet to crown the center of the new Bloomingdale's project in downtown San Francisco. The dome will sit on a supporting tower for nearly a year while a new structure is built underneath it to house shops and restaurants.

1) The structure under the dome - except for the original beams and supports - was removed, a process that took several months.

2) Next, contractors built a 4-foot-thick reinforced-concrete footing as a base on which to mount the steel tower.

3) After erection of the tower, a lifting frame was constructed extending beyond the tower to lift the dome from its base. Hydraulic strand jacks were mounted at the top of the tower.

4) Hydraulic strand jacks (controlled by hoses and cables connected to four hydraulic jacks and to the operator's console on the second floor) pulled on steel strand wires connected to the lift frame. All four jacks were operated simultaneously.

Earlier this month the dome was raised 30 feet and secured while the tower was extended in height by 30 feet. On Tuesday, the dome was raised the second 30 feet.

Source: Sheedy Drayage Co.

E-mail Dan Levy at danlevy@sfchronicle.com.

[fflint]

The old Bank of America building at Powell and Market Streets is being renovated into lofts--quite the urban neighborhood, no?

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap1010003.jpg

[fflint]

Here is a shot I took today of 199 New Montgomery rising above SOMA:

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap1010018.jpg

[fflint]

Here's the St. Regis, looking better than I've ever seen it, from Market Street. From this angle, I really like the crown:

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap1010034.jpg

[rocketman_95046]

The St. Regis is looking better all the time. I love the corners of the building and the large windows on top near the crown.

It should be great when they finish off the top tier of glass on the crown and light that thing up at night.

I had my doubts when it was going up but now I love that building.

And 199 New Montgomery is great too. I think its architecture will fit right into the neighborhood


Great pics.

[EastBayHardCore]

Nice shots. The St. Regis's crown is coming along very nicely I hope they put up a bunch of different color lights on it so they can change up the themes for 4th of july and X-mas. That loft project in the B of A building sounds really cool also, but it would kinda suck to have a view of that area with all the bums and scammers hanging around.

[FourOneFive]

The old Bank of America building at Powell and Market Streets is being renovated into lofts--quite the urban neighborhood, no?

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap1010003.jpg

What a shame. The former World Headquarters of Bank of America is turning into the flagship store for Forever 21.

[fflint]

What is Forever 21?

[Chase Unperson]

^ Women's apparel. I have never been in one, but it seems quite popular with women in their 20s judging by the frequency I see "forever 21" shopping bags being carried around.

[craeg]

better than that the national liquor open campus and urinal that it is now.

[EastBayHardCore]

^ exactly, I'd rather see them put the building to better use than let it sit there and get pissed on all day long, or even get torn down to build some new crappy lowrise for Forever 21. I hope the same thing happens to the Hibernia Bank, it's a really awesome looking building, but right now its just being used as a toilet.

[FourOneFive]

I read once that Bank of America considered turning the building into a museum of the bank's history (much like Wells Fargo's on Montgomery) in the mid-1990s. If anyone remembers the banking hall (which is currently being ripped out), it was magnificent. But unfortunately, the NationsBank merger prevented those plans from coming to reality. IMO they should have kept the branch/ banking hall on the main floor (which is now being moved to the basement), and added residential/ office space to the upper floors (as they are doing now).

Unfortunately, we're now getting a $30 million, 3 floor Forever 21, the flagship for Northern California. If anyone has been inside Forever 21 (especially the one at Serramonte), you'd realize how much of a shame it is...

[fflint]

Oh. I didn't realize they were ripping out the ornate banking hall--that really sucks. It was the place that inspired Jay's father, after popping in there to pick up some vacation spending cash, to loudly declare: "San Francisco is so overwrought!" Of course, he meant ostentatious...Forever 21 is unlikely to elicit that kind of response from tourists, I suspect.

[EastBayHardCore]

Ah that sucks then if they are gutting the place :-\ It'd have been nice if they took after the gym that moved into the old Alhambra Theatre and kept the interior but adapted it for their use. And I agree, getting Forever 21 ain't worth gutting the place.

[Chase Unperson]

^For sure. There are hundreds of Forever 21s across the country and they are more or less just a slightly hipper "old navy" for women, and "flagship" has just come to mean a rather large store in a city's tourist shopping district. Every city of any reasonable metro pop has a "flagship" Old Navy, Victoria Secret, Nordstrom's, Northface, Eddie Bauer, Armani Exchange, etc....

I don't know what other possibilities were realistic for the old Bank, but money talks and these corporate retailers got the money.

[craeg]

sorry for the woefully inadequate pic, but I was walking by on lunch today and snapped a pic of the site construction with my phone.
This is the site for the 51 story residential - The Hemisphere.
http://www.sonic.net/~craeg/hemisphere.jpg

[tuy]

Good to see something going on, even if it is only a cell phone pic.

[FourOneFive]

thanks for taking the pic! it's nice to see some action on the site!

(at least you know how to use your camera phone. I've had mine for over a year, and I still haven't figured it out...) ;)

[fflint]

Some construction-related pictures from yesterday:

199 New Montgomery under construction:

From the Moscone Center:
http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap1010002.jpg

With St. Regis in background:
http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aaap1010008.jpg

The St. Regis under construction:

From the ugly side:
http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap1010001.jpg

Behind the Pacific Bell building:
http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aaap1010012.jpg

The Mission Street facade is by far the most attractive, IMO:
http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455a.jpg

Mission Bay's commercial nexus is quickly coming online. The new Borders can be seen burning brightly on the corner of 3rd and The Embarcadero in this pic taken from SBC Park last night:

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aap1010045.jpg

[FourOneFive]

edit.

[fflint]

City halts project in the way of Transbay expansion

Steve Ginsberg
The San Francisco Business Times
June 8, 2004

San Francisco's Department of Building Inspection is ordering a temporary stop to the massive 80 Natoma St. residential project.

The department will issue a two-week, stop-work order to Myers Development so the legality of the project's building permit, as well as possible California Environmental Quality Act violations, can be studied. Myers is the project's builder.

Myers' project is being built atop land required for an underground Caltrain extension planned as part of an expansion of the Transbay Terminal.

Myers Development started construction on the project in early May. The project's 50-story height could not be supported if tunnels were burrowed underneath the residential high-rise.

Jack Myers had not seen the work stoppage order on Monday afternoon and was furious that the Transbay Joint Power Authority was publicising the order before he had received it. That order will likely arrive to Myers on Tuesday, according to a spokeswoman at the Building Inspection Commission.

"These are advocates calling the press for Maria Ayerdi (TJPA executive director) who has made it no mystery that she is trying to break my legs," Myers said. "My focus remains to work out a solution and my hope is the San Francisco Building Department will not issue a work-stoppage order.

"This has become highly political and I am trying to stay out of the politics."

The stop-work order was issued after an environmental group, Transportation Solution Defense & Education Fund, filed a request May 25 to stop the project. The group is arguing that the Planning Commission's approval for the project violated Propoisition H, the voter-approved extension of Caltrain to the Transbay Terminal.

Negotiations among the Transbay developer, Transbay Joint Powers Authority and Myers Development to work out an engineering solution that would allow both projects to proceed have been ongoing for a month without a solution.

It would cost the the authority $35 million to $50 million to buy Myers out of the project.

[Chase Unperson]

^Wow. Talk about a lack of communication. Would it have been possible to have one firm do both the terminal and the tower?

[FourOneFive]

An update on San Francisco high-rise developments!

From this week's San Francisco Business Times:

IN DEPTH: SAN FRANCISCO STRUCTURES
From the June 25, 2004 print edition

Highrise hot spots: Where plans are looking up
Elizabeth Browne

Most highrises in the pipeline have been proposed near San Francisco's downtown core, with the largest numbers of tall buildings slated for South of Market, particularly in Rincon Hill and around the Transbay Terminal. The mid-Market/Mission Street corridor could also see significant additions to the skyline.

Rincon Hill
Less a hill than the sloping industrial companion to the foot of the Bay Bridge, this neighborhood could see by far the most new highrise development. The city's Rincon Hill Plan, an attempt to update planning and zoning controls, aims to increase its potential for housing by 4,200 units. The city should have no trouble encouraging the type of development it seeks for Rincon Hill. Six projects comprising nine towers have been proposed, and four of those projects have already been approved. The next residential highrise to get under way will be Union Property Capital's 300 Spear St. towers, scheduled to begin next spring. Double towers at 201 Folsom St., to be developed by Tishman Speyer, have been approved, as has a 20-story tower at 325 Fremont St. San Diego developer Urban West Associates has proposed a set of towers of 30 and 35 stories for the site of the Bank of America clocktower at 425 First St., and projects at 375 and 399 Fremont St. are in the planning stages.

Transbay Terminal area
The city's redevelopment agency has earmarked sites for six highrises, all 30 stories or more, in the Transbay Terminal area. The towers would be part of a mixed-use, transit-oriented neighborhood consisting of nearly 3,400 new housing units, nearly 1,200 of which would be available to very low-, low-, and moderate-income households. Office, hotel, and retail space are also planned around the $2.7 billion new terminal and Caltrain station. The terminal itself, along with construction of the Caltrain extension, won't be finished until 2011, and because of land-use issues related to the construction, the accompanying highrises can't be built until after that.

The Board of Supervisors is expected to consider adoption of the Transbay Redevelopment Project sometime this year.

Six highrises in the Transbay Terminal area are already in the pipeline, however. Construction began on one, Myers Development Corp.'s controversial Hemisphere project at 80 Natoma St., this spring. The 51-story residential tower stands in the path of the proposed new Transbay Terminal, and if built, would force substantial changes to the terminal project's rail lines. On June 7, the city issued a two-week stop-work order on the project, saying legal issues needed to be worked out.

Four other towers have been approved nearby. Two are office projects: Higgins Development Partners' 23-story tower at 524 Howard St. and Tishman Speyer's 555 Mission St. At 535 Mission St., developer Hines originally planned a 24-story office building, but now wants to construct 30 stories containing 251 condominiums. A fourth approved project, Millennium Partners' 301 Mission St., would combine 260 residential units with a hotel in 58 stories.

Market/Mission street corridor
A hodge-podge of residential, office and hotel towers are in the works along Market and Mission streets from about Third Street to 10th Street. Nearest completion is the St. Regis Museum Tower at Mission and Third streets. Developed by Trizec Properties and the Metropolitan Development Group and designed by architecture firm SOM, the 42-story tower will house 102 condo units, a St. Regis Hotel and an African-American museum. Completion is set for 2005.

Also under construction is the new Federal Building at Seventh and Mission streets, an 18-story environmentally-friendly office tower that should be finished next year. Nearby, plans have been approved for a 24-story city office building at 10th and Market streets, to be developed by Myers Development Corp. Nonprofit housing developers Citizens Housing Corp. and Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp. will build an adjacent 21-story, 400-unit affordable housing project. Other approved projects include a 23-story residential project at 1160 Mission St., and 690 Market St., where eight floors will be added on to the historic Chronicle building to house condos and time-share units.

The most significant changes to the mid-Market skyline could come from Trinity Properties' proposed five-building residential complex at 1177 Market St. Four of the buildings will be 20-to-24-story towers containing 250 to 325 units each.

Other parts of the city
A smattering of other towers could join the highrise parade. Twenty-five years in the making, Shorenstein's 19-story 350 Bush St. office project was recently approved. Malcolm Properties recently proposed a 21-story, 120-unit residential tower at 631 Folsom St. And a 31-story InterContinental Hotel at 888 Howard St. has been approved. Other possible locations for building up? The Planning Department's Market and Octavia Better Neighborhoods Plan encourages slender residential towers on several sites around the intersection of Market Street and Van Ness Avenue, and California Pacific Medical Center, which picked up a site on Van Ness Avenue last year, may be thinking tall as it considers plans for a new medical center there.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[FourOneFive]

New rendering for One Rincon Hill:

http://www.pbase.com/antonio3783/image/32343577/original.jpg

photo courtesy of Lynn Sneary & Solomon Cordwell Buenz

These two towers will replace the Bank of America clocktower:

http://www.pbase.com/antonio3783/image/29888080/original.jpg

[FourOneFive]

Well, it looks like the Hemisphere is dead. The Board of Supes decided to use their eminent domain powers to seize the site for the Transbay Terminal rail lines.

From last week's San Francisco Chronicle:

Supes OK taking of Transbay site
- Dan Levy, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 29, 2004

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to use its powers of eminent domain Tuesday to take a Natoma Street property held by a high-rise developer in a decision that ends a nasty downtown real estate dispute.

The unanimous vote to condemn the 80 Natoma St. parcel clears the way for planning to continue on a new Transbay Terminal project around the site of the current transit depot at Mission and First streets.

Condemning 80 Natoma will cost $32 million, according to an appraisal done for the city, but the supervisors are on the hook for only half that amount.

The other half will be paid by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the supervisors were told by an MTC official.

Developer Jack Myers, who saw his plan to build a 423-unit condominium tower come to an end with the vote, said the land is worth more than what the city is offering.

But he acknowledged that his tower plan is all but dead.

"This pretty well does us in," Myers said.

But the developer said he would press ahead with lawsuits challenging the Transbay Terminal project's environmental impact report and the Department of Building Inspection's suspension of his work permit, even though that permit has been reinstated.

The vote was a vindication for planners of the new terminal, envisioned as a $4 billion hub for Bay Area buses, Caltrain and possibly high-speed rail service.

The project also would incorporate state-owned land and parcels that were once used for elevated bus ramps. That land would be redeveloped into a new retail, residential and office district.

The estimated cost of the project -- the $4 billion price tag is almost as large as the city's annual budget -- and the funding plan, which relies heavily on a high-speed rail bond that has yet to go before state voters, has raised eyebrows among critics.

Addressing those concerns, Maria Ayerdi, director of the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, the regional agency planning the project, said Transbay planners are already trying to cut costs by 20 percent.

In voting for eminent domain, the supervisors rejected a compromise solution offered by the city's Transportation Authority, which said both the terminal and the Myers tower could be built.

That plan envisioned a huge concrete foundation to support the Myers high- rise and underground rail lines under the tower when funding becomes available for the terminal. Myers had agreed to drop his lawsuits if supervisors adopted that plan.

In the end, the supervisors said the Transportation Authority plan was too costly.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If anyone forgot what the Hemisphere looked like:

http://63.240.68.115/FirmFiles/25/images/ACF6A.jpg

[dabcom]

Have they replaced that ugly side of the st. regis with glass yet?

[rocketman_95046]

Have they replaced that ugly side of the st. regis with glass yet?

The St. Regis update from webcor construction....

The last month has been a busy one. The manlift is finally dismantled and off site. This has made way for the last pieces of glass that are required to make the tower watertight. Vertical mullions are in place on the atypical floors, and soon to follow will be the vertical and horizontal mullions all the way up the south west wall. Drywall work continues on the upper floors of the hotel, and now many floors are receiving their first and second passes of paint. The condo section of the tower is now being outfitted with stone and tile, as well as cabinetry on most of the floors. In addition, the work on the upper floor balconies is nearing completion. The final steps will be installing the glass handrails and the large sliding glass windows. Look forward to seeing the tower with all of its glass in place by the end of October.

and an updated picture for 199 New Montgomery

http://63.240.68.115/FirmFiles/25/images/ACF23A2.jpg

[J Church]

you know what's really starting to rise, and we've hardly mentioned it? the new federal building.

http://www.metropolismag.com/images/images_0303/may/SFB-SKYLINE-CROP-B.jpg

i know flinty posted a construction pic or two a couple months ago, before the skeleton really began to climb.

and yes, i did watch that caltrans HQ documentary on the history channel ...

[EastBayHardCore]

I was just about to say the same thing J. I just happened to be driving through SOMA and decided to check it out. Both that and the new Bloomingdales are coming along very nicely, not to mention very quietly.

[fflint]

I took this from Bernal Heights on Sunday. It shows the massing of the new Fed, but unfortunately, not a lot detail: http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aadscn0715.jpg

[fflint]

Photos taken today, October 15th.

New Federal Building

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aadscn0860.jpg

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aadscn0855.jpg

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aadscn0861.jpg

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aadscn0840.jpg

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aadscn0839.jpg

St. Regis Tower

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aadscn0842.jpg

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/455aadscn0850.jpg

[FourOneFive]

The St. Regis's crown looks great!

[Procurator]

Is it lit at night?

[rocketman_95046]

^It will be as soon as it opens.

[fflint]

I'm optimistic about the plans to light up the St. Regis, if only because they have done a much better job on the crown than I expected. They have delivered on all their promises so far, aesthetically.

[fflint]

http://sfgate.com/chronicle/pictures/2004/10/22/mn_skyline-2vu.jpg

http://sfgate.com/chronicle/pictures/2004/10/22/mn_skyline-futurefolsom.jpg

http://sfgate.com/chronicle/pictures/2004/10/22/mn_skyline-rinconlocator_grfk.gif

15 seconds that changed San Francisco
A generation ago, the city had a fear of heights. But now, on land cleared by Loma Prieta, new high-rises are getting the chance to soar.
- John King, Chronicle Urban Design Writer
Friday, October 22, 2004

The Loma Prieta earthquake of Oct. 17, 1989, unleashed forces of change that have invigorated San Francisco's waterfront, revived civic treasures and sparked the creation of new city landmarks.

Now comes the temblor's final and most visible effect: a new southern skyline where people live, not work.

The full impact of this vertical neighborhood near the waterfront south of Market Street goes beyond height or the potential 7,400 new housing units. It will transform the visual image of San Francisco. Unlike Chicago or New York, cities defined so emphatically by their skylines, San Francisco is something much more: a memorable and truly unique drama of hills and buildings, trees and towers, water and light and fog.

The skyline-to-be will climb above the low-rise industrial jumble of the blocks that line the approach to the Bay Bridge. The area already has a handful of residential towers as high as 250 feet, but the city now intends to allow a dozen or more towers up to 550 feet -- adding an urban neighborhood to a city long enamored with cozy, village-like settings.

All this might seem worlds removed from the harrowing 15 seconds of Loma Prieta. But several towers will be on land once covered by ramps of the late, unlamented Embarcadero Freeway -- a casualty of the quake -- and close by the newly inviting waterfront, with its attractions that didn't exist 15 years ago.

For the new skyline to enhance the city, San Francisco must heed the lessons of Loma Prieta.

The best changes since the earthquake are the ones rooted in San Francisco's distinctive setting and values. They're imbued with the sense of community, the notion that public spaces should be enticing, that neighborhoods should include diverse populations, and that well-crafted buildings can glow with pride.

But the residential towers built so far don't reach those standards. Looking at them together, you see monochromatic gray clutter. Despite prices that have surpassed $1.5 million per unit, the structures have a cut-rate feel. You'd think San Francisco is a city that doesn't care about its appearance.

As history shows full well, that most definitely is not the case.

When the 1960s dawned, San Francisco looked the same as it had for 30 years: Low, light-colored buildings draped the hills, except for a few modest exclamation points rising over the Financial District or on top of Nob Hill.

And then everything changed.

New towers popped up above the 435-foot gothic summit of the Russ Building, the Financial District's highest peak -- and pushed out into places where nobody ever expected them to be. Portsmouth Square in Chinatown sprouted a 364-foot-high slab that may be the least beckoning Holiday Inn in existence. The Bank of America proclaimed its corporate might with 779 feet of craggy red granite.

As the 1970s began, the Transamerica Pyramid topped everything before it with 853 feet of concrete across the street from the cherished, brick-lined passageways of historic Jackson Square.

For those who loved their big city's small-town scale, each new skyscraper was another dagger aimed at the city's soul.

"People living in neighborhoods like North Beach, Telegraph Hill and Chinatown saw towers coming at them," recalls Jerry Cauthen, one of the founders of San Francisco Tomorrow, which was created in 1969 to tackle development issues. "We had 50 or 60 neighborhood groups screaming. The buildings were brutish and pretty ugly -- a lot of schlock architecture -- and the city didn't seem able to do anything about it."

So residents did. They won some battles and lost most others before deciding the best defense was a good offense -- such as a 1971 ballot initiative to cap the height of new buildings at six stories. Period. The unlikely source: a dressmaker named Alvin Duskin, who kicked off his effort with newspaper ads proclaiming, "You can help decide if our city will become a skyline of tombstones."

What followed was a crusade more than a campaign, complete with an anti-high-rise coloring book featuring cartoons with such captions as "little cable cars that used to cling to the sides of sunny hills now moved through dark canyons."

The crusade also brought apocalyptic warnings that the towers would unleash "Manhattanization" -- a charged term that in 1971 meant more than tall buildings. New York City then embodied everything Americans feared about big cities: People were moving out as fast as crime was going up in a dirty city that couldn't pay its bills.

Why should San Francisco -- snug Baghdad-by-the-Bay -- follow New York over the cliff?

The Duskin initiative lost handily. But five more variations followed in the next 15 years, and voters in 1986 put a cap on growth that for all intents and purposes allowed no more than one smallish office tower a year.

Looking back, Cauthen suggests that height became symbolic of much deeper concerns.

"There was always an element of the population that hated to see something disappear and be replaced by something much bigger, but there was lots more going on," Cauthen said. "There were beautiful buildings being destroyed, and we seemed to be submerging the hills in high-rises. All that wrapped in together."

So what happened to the fear of heights?

One answer is that San Franciscans found more pressing things to worry about -- AIDS, homelessness and out-of-control housing prices. And the recession of the early 1990s, exacerbated in San Francisco by Loma Prieta's economic aftershocks, meant that for years there was no demand for new tall buildings.

By the time there was, the skyline upheaval that began in the 1960s was a full generation in the past.

The average San Franciscan today is 36, meaning he or she was born in 1968 -- the same year the Bank of America building soared into the air, and months before pickets wearing dunce caps protested Transamerica's planned tower.

Now, the Transamerica Pyramid is the most recognizable icon on the skyline -- the only San Francisco skyline many of us have ever known.

"The genie is out of the bottle," says Michael Antonini, 58, a planning commissioner who has lived for 31 years on the city's west side, where anything larger than a single family home is viewed with suspicion. "You don't see hills like you once did ... Now height is secondary to the quality and tastefulness of what gets done. There's the potential that some really good things could happen."

The future of high-rise living in San Francisco will depend on people like Nav and Avi Singh.

The young couple moved north in May from Orange County and a townhouse snuggled close to the ground. Now they own a condominium in a much different setting: the eighth floor of the Metropolitan, a complex at First and Folsom streets in a fast-changing part of town called Rincon Hill.

The 21- and 27-story towers include a health club, a concierge, freshly planted trees along the sidewalk and a view that stretches from Potrero Hill to the Financial District. The Singhs have a car but rarely use it because they work downtown. The couple's Saturday ritual is a stroll to the Embarcadero and the Ferry Building and, if there's time, up to North Beach.

"I feel like we're getting the total San Francisco experience even though it's not a neighborhood neighborhood," says Nav, 29, a financial analyst. "The benefit of living in a nice building near work outweighs the benefit of being in an old setting."

Planners and developers know there are other Nav and Avi Singhs who, given the chance, will pay good money to live in a district that's new and tall. They might be young couples who aren't ready to settle in the suburbs, or older ones looking for a change after their children leave home.

"There's the push of bad traffic and the pull of better downtowns," says John McIlwaine, a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C., a developers' think tank. "You're buying a lifestyle. They want to go out in the evening and feel like they're part of the action."

The high-rise scene will center on about 95 acres between Yerba Buena Center on the west, Mission Street on the north, the bay on the east and the Bay Bridge on the south.

It's an area that hasn't been glamorous since the 1860s, when Rincon Hill and its stubby 100-foot peak had a brief reign as the city's address of choice before cable cars made it possible to build mansions atop Nob Hill. The blocks inland from the Embarcadero and south of the Financial District devolved into a backwater of warehouses, repair shops and light industry.

Now the nearby waterfront is in bloom, the old warehouses have become lofts or office space -- and the blocks on either side of Folsom Street are poised to take on a new identity.

The north side is under the watch of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, which has drawn up a plan that allows six towers between 300 and 550 feet on land formerly covered by ramps that tied the Embarcadero Freeway to the Bay Bridge.

Selling the ramp land to developers will help finance the $2.1 billion Transbay Terminal project, which involves an underground extension of the Caltrain commuter line from the Peninsula to a new transit hub at First and Mission streets.

On the south side of Folsom lies Rincon Hill, where the city's planning department last year made the mistake of approving two projects containing a total of four 350- and 400-foot towers. The quartet -- packed tightly in a zigzag along Folsom between Spear and Beale streets -- could block views to and from the bay.

Since then, the department has taken a more pro-active approach: It is drawing up a long-range plan for the neighborhood rather than reacting to what developers bring in the door. The department's proposal would allow four more towers between 400 and 550 feet, but they are spaced widely at the crest of the hill to prevent views from being walled off.

The changes flanking Folsom Street have other things in common beside height. Roughly 20 percent of the housing units will be reserved for low- and moderate-income residents -- a smart reminder that new urban neighborhoods should provide housing for all types of people.

And there's a focus on the ground, not just in the air, with small parks and landscaped sidewalks laced throughout the dense urban terrain.

"We're trying to create a neighborhood where people want to live," says David Habert, a redevelopment planner, "that people want to visit."

Make no mistake: What's proposed will alter San Francisco.

Instead of the Transamerica's pointy peak capping a thicket of blocky corporate towers that stops just south of Market Street, slender glassy high-rises will spike up within yards of the Bay Bridge approach. They'll be what greets hundreds of thousands of people entering downtown San Francisco each day.

That's why it's so troubling that the first set of residential towers comes up short.

The concrete high-rises that now squat near the Bay Bridge proclaim an architecture of expediency, not inspiration. You sense the developers were focused on getting City Hall to sign off and then getting the units ready to sell. The impact on the cityscape -- what the rest of us must deal with -- was an afterthought.

In a location this prominent, that's not enough. And it's the lack of ambition that's the problem, not the height.

The good news is that San Francisco has recent examples of how to get things right. They are two office towers, 560 Mission and 101 Second, which enhance the skyline with crisply detailed elegance. The buildings also improve the street-level environment -- especially 560 Mission, with a plaza that blends grass, water, tall bamboo and potted maples.

As for residential models, look across the bay to Oakland and the recent Essex condominium building on Lake Merritt. While it's modest in height at 20 stories, the graceful silhouette and the curved wall facing the water show a sophistication that Rincon Hill has yet to see.

The vertical world envisioned along Folsom Street is new to San Francisco. A shortsighted emphasis on housing quantity over neighborhood quality could result in a set of towers that block views and create wind tunnels.

But anyone who has visited downtown Chicago knows that such a district can hum with urban excitement. Vancouver does the same while also showing how high-rises can draw energy from a distinctive bayside terrain.

The challenge at Rincon Hill and Transbay is to make this tall new neighborhood the culmination of all the positive developments around it.

The stakes are too high to settle for anything less.

What the years since the Loma Prieta earthquake have shown is that for all the city's knee-jerk protectiveness, San Francisco is still a city that can achieve great things. Risks and vision have produced lasting results that enrich life on a day-to-day basis.

Fifteen years later, instead of the Embarcadero Freeway's grim wall, there's an inviting downtown waterfront that ties San Francisco inseparably to its bay. Provocative new museums invigorate the cultural and architectural scene. Union Square and the blocks around it are again filled with activity. Civic treasures such as City Hall have been reborn; so has the Hayes Valley neighborhood, long deadened by the Central Freeway.

Is there more to be done? Of course. It will be difficult to strike a balance between public access and private development along the Embarcadero, and to finish the task of reviving the Civic Center. Transbay and Rincon Hill are just getting started.

There also are whole sections of the city that, while not affected by the 1989 earthquake, are still in early, vital stages of their development.

There's the Mission Bay neighborhood, stretching west and south from SBC Park, with its long blocks of residential units and a new campus for UCSF. And the 1,491-acre Presidio, near the Golden Gate Bridge, which faces the difficult task of making a former Army base with hundreds of aged buildings blossom anew as an urban national park.

Not everything done since 1989 in San Francisco shines, of course. Look no further than the unadventurous towers of Rincon Hill or the drab residential lofts erected hastily during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. But the boldest strokes are the ones turning out the best -- the ones driven by a creative determination to make San Francisco a fuller, more seductive place. That's the lesson to remember.

Changing the landscape is always controversial in the Bay Area, and for good reason: There's a lot to lose in a region that, despite a population topping 8 million people, still casts a spell because of its intimate bond to the hills, the bay, the valleys and the sky.

But the ingenuity and vision that have shaped San Francisco in the aftermath of Loma Prieta show that change is not to be feared. It can make the urban landscape better than it was before -- even in a city as alluring as San Francisco

[rocketman_95046]

The Watermark apartment complex rising up at Bryant and Beale Streets, south of Market.

http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/pictures/2004/10/22/mn_reinventk511_mac.jpg

http://www.bryantstreetpier.com/images/picture6.jpg

[FourOneFive]

Here's two renderings of the 621 Folsom Street project (~200', 21 floors):

http://www.malcolmproperties.com/images/631folsom_overall_04a1.jpg
http://www.malcolmproperties.com/images/631folsom_04a1.jpg

[Austinlee]

Damn! Talk about a construction boom. I didnt realize San-Fran had so much being built all at once. I think this city has the best quality for new construction than any other city. For example chicago has a shitload of buildings going up but a good percentage of them are ugly or bland but damn near every one you posted is either unique or if not that than they are still nicely designed. Congrats to all you bay residents!

[J Church]

621 or 631?

[FourOneFive]

^ sorry, its 631 Folsom Street.

^^ Thanks! San Francisco does have some quality projects going up right now. Everything from skyscrapers to (urban) malls to museums.

[fflint]

INDUSTRY WRAPUPS--Real Estate

Recovery knocks in office market as vacancies dwindle
San Francisco's office market is shrinking.

Lizette Wilson
San Francisco Business Times
From the December 17, 2004 print edition

A rush of office conversions to residential use, combined with no new office construction, has whittled some 870,000 square feet from existing supply, according to a report by Colliers International.

While the actual impact on the city's office supply is marginal at best -- just one percent according to report author Tove Nilsen -- the opportunities it presents to architects and other professionals is significant.

So which buildings are in play?

Mostly small- and medium-sized Class B properties, with residential developers paying anywhere from $160 to $200 a square foot.

Buildings in Nilsen's count include buildings which have been converted or demolished this year or are expected to be in 2005.

The sites include:

*690 Market Street -- a 124,688 square foot building to be converted by Jim Hunter of HCT Investments to 106 units. Construction is slated for early 2005.

*201 Sansome Street -- a 49,000 square foot building is being converted now by Atlantic Pacific Companies/Kriti to 45 units.

*400 Sansome Street (Old Federal Reserve Building)-- a 146,013 square foot building owned by Boston Properties. A planning application has been submitted to convert it to a luxury hotel (86 units) and condo complex (30 units) with a restaurant and cafe.

*973 Market Street -- a 60,000 square foot building to be converted to 35 units under new ownership. It's in escrow now.

*150 Powell Street -- a 40,000 square foot building owned by Union Property Capital with retail on the basement and ground floor and condos and timeshares planned for the top floor. Construction is under way.

*333 Grant Street -- a 53,000 square foot building at Pacific Bell's old phone switching headquarters which was converted earlier this year to 39 upscale condo units.

*642 Harrison Street -- a 56,203 square foot building to be converted to 50 units by new owner, Garlock Companies.

*733 Front Street --a 108,000 square foot building to be converted to 73 units by new owners, Atlantic Pacific Companies/Kriti.

*717 Battery Street (Musto Plaza) -- a 32,667 square foot building to be converted to 42 units by new owners. It's under contract now.

*301 Mission Street -- a 102,000 square foot building in the approval process to build 320 units.

*375 Fremont Street -- a 47,122 square foot building in the planning stage for 250 units.

*1 South Park -- a 50,000 square foot building that was demolished earlier this year by owners Peter and Elizabeth Meier and is tagged now for an unspecified number of units.
Said Nilsen: "The conversion of secondary quality property is pushing up rents for prime properties as the market becomes tighter and vacancy rates go down. This might make the much-awaited recovery of the office leasing market occur sooner than predicted."

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2004/12/20/newscolumn7.html

[fflint]

In sum, that is a minimum of 990 housing units proposed for existing commercial buildings--not bad.