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SAN FRANCISCO | Treasure Island / Sun Tower
i should probably wait to post this, as we don't have renderings yet or even very specific details. but a new redevelopment plan was announced yesterday for the island, which is in the center of san francisco bay midway between the city and oakland--and it has the potential to be one of the most innovative and exciting projects anywhere in the world.
some background: the island is manmade, built for the 1939 world's fair and meant for conversion to an airport after--but then the war intervened, and it became a naval base. the base was closed several years ago, and for now, base housing is being rented out and a hangar is being leased for film production. the island is 400 acres and is connected by causeway to the natural island of yerba buena, through which the bay bridge tunnels between its two spans: http://thedude.com/images2/treasure_island.jpg (very large image) so, the plan. the idea is to create an essentially car-free, self-sustaining new town on the island. the plan would cluster 5,500 housing units in 140 acres around a new ferry landing. this would require a half-dozen or so towers, including an 'iconic' skyscraper that might be as tall as 50 stories--a 500-foot highrise in the middle of san francisco bay. the rest of the island could then be used for organic gardens, for wind turbines (the island can get quite windy), and for wetlands that could be used for wastewater treatment. an ecological--and urban--dream of a place. http://sfgate.com/c/pictures/2005/11/08/mn_plan.jpg how likely it this? it'll have to navigate a couple of years' worth of hearings and studies, there will no doubt be opposition, but the developer is ready to go. Towers, farm seen for Treasure Island Self-sustaining neighborhood of 5,500 residences proposed John King, Chronicle Urban Design Writer Tuesday, November 8, 2005 The would-be developers of Treasure Island in the middle of San Francisco Bay have unveiled a startling new image for the island -- one that includes 20 acres of farmland and at least six residential towers. The plan calls for as many as 5,500 housing units on the west side of the island facing downtown San Francisco -- nearly twice the number previously proposed. Most of them would be within a 10-minute walk of a new ferry terminal across from the city's historic Ferry Building. And 260 of the island's 400 acres would become public open space, including a tidal marsh cut into the northeast corner of the manmade island. The island's development team has changed as well. It is still led by Kenwood Investments, which includes political lobbyist Darius Anderson, allied with housing giant Lennar Corp. But this summer, Kenwood added another equity partner: Wilson Meany Sullivan, which led the much-praised restoration of the Ferry Building. On Monday, Chris Meany of Wilson Meany Sullivan described the changes as part of a larger push for a project shaped by environmental principles. "You need a large number of households to support the services that a community requires," Meany said. This includes the estimated $20 million cost to cut a ferry terminal into the west side of the island, instead of using a pier on the Oakland side inherited from the U.S. Navy. "Moving the ferry to the west side unlocks the rest of the island," Meany said. "Suddenly, it's an extension of San Francisco rather than a distant part of the bay." The scheme, which will be shown Wednesday to the Treasure Island Development Authority, still has details to be filled in. A slender residential tower is proposed at the ferry terminal, for instance, but no height is specified, other than it probably would be at least 40 stories. North of the terminal is a string of neighborhoods with parks with views of the city and several towers in the 15- to 20-story range -- but the exact layout and heights are being refined. Development team members say they will present a full plan next month to the Treasure Island authority, a mayor-appointed body that manages the island. If San Francisco's Board of Supervisors gives initial approval next summer to an agreement outlining what can be built as well as the financial structure of the deal between the city and the developers, the next stage would be an environmental review and final development plan -- a process likely to take at least two years. The new proposal responds to criticism from environmental activists that the prior plan was too suburban and car-reliant. The activists also argued that a self-contained residential neighborhood could not work with the 2,800 housing units envisioned by developers. The changes also reflect a political reality: The redevelopment of Treasure Island has been bumpier than anyone predicted when the Navy transferred control of the former military base to San Francisco in 1997. The authority created by Mayor Willie Brown awarded development rights to both Treasure and Yerba Buena islands in 2003 to Treasure Island Community Development, a team organized by Anderson, a prominent Democratic lobbyist who had raised money for past political campaigns of Brown and then-Gov. Gray Davis. Anderson since has held at least one fundraising event for Mayor Gavin Newsom. More recently, management of the island took on aspects of a soap opera when Newsom appointed then-Supervisor Tony Hall to serve as the authority's executive director in 2004 -- and then watched approvingly as the board fired Hall last month after charges of financial mismanagement. Hall responded with claims that the island's developers were receiving a "sweetheart deal." In this context, any proposal to increase the project's size could be attacked as a giveaway to well-connected developers. But Newsom administration officials say the island needs density to thrive. By comparison, there are few services available for the residents of the roughly 1,000 apartments that now exist. "Treasure Island is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to embrace sustainability -- and sustainable in this context doesn't just mean organic farming or solar and wind power," said Michael Cohen, the mayor's director of base re-use and development. "It also means residents don't have to go back to San Francisco for everything -- and that requires a critical mass of people" to support shops as well as alternative forms of transportation such as the ferries. The "green" aspects of the new proposal include features that, if approved and followed through on, would be rare in urban settings. For example, the high winds that routinely buffet the island would be converted into assets by erecting rows of wind turbines on several stretches of the island. Behind each row of turbines -- designed so as not to harm passing birds -- trees would be planted to deflect breezes within residential areas. The proposed 20 acres of organic farmland in the center of the island would function both as a food source and an educational opportunity. The amount of land could raise enough food for 2,000 people, as well as be a place to show inner-city youth how agriculture works. Even the towers are proposed to be designed to minimize the street-level impact of wind and maximize that amount of sunlight that could be captured on photovoltaic systems integrated into buildings. Not all details have changed from prior plans. The proposal maintains a 100-foot-deep parkland along most of the bay, as required by the State Lands Commission, as well as shopping and restaurants and a conference center facing Yerba Buena Island. The 36-acre federally operated Job Corps facility to train youth would remain. Also, 30 percent of all units would be required to be sold or rented at below-market prices. Dean Macris, the city's planning director, was shown the proposal Friday. "The basics are all good. The proof of the pudding will be the next stage," Macris said. "They need to create an experience on the island that is different enough to attract people from around the region." Redesign of Treasure Island unveiled Revised plans intended to be denser and ‘Green’ By Emily Fancher Staff Writer A revised vision for Treasure Island imagines an urban neighborhood with a handful of high-rise towers, hip restaurants and boutique hotels that is also a model for environmental sustainability with an organic farm, renewal energy and limited use of cars. The bold new plan for the 400-acre former naval base unveiled Monday calls for more housing on less land — a stark difference from the more suburban plans originally proposed for the island. It’s also a dramatic contrast to the island’s current landscape dotted with aging, Navy-built housing, weed-strewn lots, and a drab wastewater treatment plant. City officials are currently negotiating for the Navy to transfer roughly 450 acres on Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island to The City for redevelopment. The Navy closed the base on the islands in 1993. Together, the islands are often described as some of the best real estate in the world with commanding views of San Francisco and offer a blank slate for building where a new kind of “green” development can be imagined. The redevelopment plans for the islands released last year called for environmentally sustainable practices including using green building techniques, creating wetlands and harnessing solar energy. The new plan released Monday proposes denser housing clustered around the ferry terminal transit hub and a potential doubling of housing to up 5500 units — a response to critics who argued the islands need be self-sufficient, with enough residents to support transit and vital services such as a grocery market. It also reflects the need for the development to be a regional destination that draws visitors to its parks, restaurants, stores, hotels and marina. Howard Strassner of the Sierra Club’s San Francisco chapter said the old plan paid lip service to sustainability, but was essentially a suburban development. In a leap from suburban to urban, the revised proposal places 90 percent of the housing within a 10-minute walk of the ferry terminal to limit car use. “The plan has been pretty radically reconceived in a positive way to really imagine a kind of utopian project,” said Adi Shamir, dean of undergraduate studies at California College of the Arts, who saw the plan last week. But whether the revamped plan will satisfy the environmental community’s high hopes for the island remains to be seen. The plan will be presented to the Treasure Island Development Authority board Wednesday and the public will continue to have a chance to weigh in over the coming months and years. Many details from final building heights to building designs are still in flux. Though construction could begin by mid-2008, the project will likely take over a decade to complete. “We’re very excited about what we’ve done,” said Jay Wallace, project manager for the developer. “This is a fabulous step.” |
It sounds as though they’ve taken into consideration a lot of the concepts put forward by UC-Berkley students in their design. There was an article in the Chronicle in June that discussed this. I have attached it below.
I’m glad that the student’s ideas are gaining traction. It validates what they are doing in their classwork. It reminds me of the biggest new thing we’ve got going on in Atlanta – the Beltline. This idea started from a Architecture graduate student’s thesis. - - - - - - - - - - If a green utopia on Treasure Island sounds far-fetched, dreamers have a plan By John King - San Francisco Chronicle - Thursday, June 2, 2005 Right now, San Francisco has a rare chance to do something that's historic and audacious: create the world's first green urban neighborhood on our very own Treasure Island. Instead of a windswept former naval base with poor access to the Bay Bridge, 403 human-made acres could be a community where 20,000 people live mostly automobile-free lives. Energy would be generated by windmills; shops and parks would be within walking distance. Downtown San Francisco would be a 10-minute ferry ride away. Far-fetched? Absolutely, and a long shot as well. There's a developer in place, but there also are state regulations and well-intentioned constraints at every turn. But if ever there were a time to dream, it's this week, when San Francisco plays host to the World Environment Conference, and the notion of green cities is high on the agenda. On Treasure Island, environmentalism and urbanism could fuse as never before -- a vibrant community that creates its own energy, treats its own waste and has a transit system so convenient that cars are superfluous. And before you blanch at the thought of 20,000 or more people living where 1,400 now reside, consider this: Environmental activists are the ones pushing us all to think big. "There's the opportunity and the necessity to develop Treasure Island in a way that exemplifies the idea of sustainable development," says Eve Bach of Arc Ecology, a San Francisco environmental group. "To support the kinds of services you need on an island requires a lot of people." That's a far cry from the plan that has evolved in procedural fits and starts over the past decade. The current scenario calls for 2,600 housing units in four new neighborhoods, with 200 more tucked into the wooded natural hills of Yerba Buena Island to the south. There'd be attached homes modeled on traditional San Francisco neighborhoods, modest towers near a new ferry terminal on the island's southeastern cove, even an "eco-village" with community gardens looking toward Berkeley. As for open space, start with a 350-foot-wide park facing San Francisco and a 250-foot-wide counterpart looking toward the East Bay. Add ball fields as part of a recreational strip in the middle of the island. The finale: Treasure Island's northern 72 acres would be a "nature park" with ponds and wetlands to help treat the island's storm water as well as provide natural habitat. Plus -- to pay for the above -- there'd be hotels and conference space and boutique shopping near the cove. "Here's an incredible opportunity to present something of respite to the Bay Area -- parks and wetlands -- but also a place of vitality and life," says Karen Alschuler, a principal at SMWM, the planning firm working for Treasure Island Community Development, the developer selected by the city to convert the former naval base. Give Alschuler and her team credit: It's a good plan as far as it goes, especially the efforts to make the open space a functioning part of the larger environment. But it's not the stuff dreams are made of. That's because every line of every drawing is shaded by pragmatic and political considerations. The cap on housing comes from a citizen advisory group that concluded work in 1996, the year before the U.S. Navy closed its base. The wide bands of parkland along the shore are a dictate of the State Lands Commission, which controls what is done on filled land along the bay. There's also a chunk in the middle of the island that's off-limits to any change at all because it houses the Job Corps Center, a federal program that trains at-risk youth in fields such as restaurant work and the building trades. Navigating all this favors endurance, not imagination. Developers study the checklist -- such as a legal agreement with the Board of Supervisors that could come this fall -- and steer clear of anything bold that might raise a red flag to potential opponents. But sometimes bold is what's called for -- perhaps right here and perhaps right now. What could be is glimpsed in a set of visions crafted by urban design students last semester at UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design. Professor Elizabeth Macdonald led six teams through a study of Treasure Island, and then had them draw up plans for a community shaped by "ecologically responsible approaches to transportation, energy, water and waste disposal issues." "There's timeliness -- decisions are being made that will be set in stone," Macdonald says. "Treasure Island offers a great opportunity to really create a showcase." While the student plans differ in specifics, certain themes are as pervasive as the island's stiff afternoon winds. Some feature lines of windmills to capture those gusts and put them to use. Most move the ferry terminal so that it faces downtown San Francisco; visibility is priceless. Street surfaces are designed to filter runoff into the ground, not into sewers. More dramatically, the housing units don't include parking. Cars are kept off most of the island, allowing for narrow streets used by bicycles and the island's own shuttle system. And here's the grand counterintuitive leap: The student schemes call for a population much larger than the 7,000 residents now envisioned. Not to give the developer a windfall, but to make everything else work. Ferries and shuttles, for instance. Developers promise to make them convenient, but it's hard to build frequent service around day-trippers and a small population scattered across the island. Or what about a place to shop? The official plan calls for a cluster of shops and residents in what it dubs Ferry Plaza Village. But that's at the southeast end of the island away from most of the residents -- and the development team concedes that the approved population isn't large enough to attract neighborhood-focused retailers. "Once you start thinking about a car-free island, you start thinking about types of places that are needed so people don't need to leave -- a serious grocery store, for instance," Macdonald says. Push the imagination further. If Treasure Island has the systems in place to handle its own energy, its own water and its own waste, suddenly a job corps there makes sense. Corps members could learn to operate the green infrastructure -- a possible ticket to more lucrative jobs than, say, learning how to prepare salads. One official who has seen the student work is Mark Palmer, green building coordinator for the city's Department of the Environment. He's intrigued. "The island really does need to have a density to support all the lifestyle features we'd like," Palmer says. "I hope we have an opportunity to reopen the density and population discussion, because it deserves another look. " Yes, all this has a utopian glow. It can also be sniped at from a dozen directions. Won't the ferries cause pollution? Won't the windmills kill birds? Why not make the whole island a park? Even this starry-eyed columnist is skeptical that an auto-free island could exist. It's hard to imagine thousands of households comfortable with the notion that a car is something you rent every month or two for a getaway to Big Sur. But one thing I know for certain: The only credible way to ask people to give up automotive convenience is to surround them with everything they want. Such as a good supermarket. Movie theaters. More than one restaurant to choose from when you don't feel like cooking after a day at work. All knit together so tightly that it's an enticing alternative to any big-city neighborhood you can name. Arc Ecology's Bach, for instance, outlines a scenario where neighborhood life revolves around the link to the mainland. "Imagine if the ferry terminal became the place to pick up mail, like the post office in Carmel," Bach says. "The place where you buy groceries, where you locate the drop-in childcare, where there's space for community activities ... you can build in all of these things." Indeed you can. All you have to do is dream. http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1...trendering.jpg A plan crafted by UC Berkeley students shows a cluster of windmills on the island. Illustration by Justin Doull, Aditi Rao and Jeff Williams http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1...greenspace.jpg A Treasure Island Community Development plan shows a central greensward, with a view of San Francisco. Illustration by Chris Grubbs courtesy of SMWM http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1...opmentplan.jpg Chronicle Graphic based on an illustration done by Conger Moss Guillard Landscape Architecture. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- An island of treasures Redevelopment plans for Treasure Island include 2,600 housing units, extensive open space, preservation of several former naval buildings and a visitor-oriented commercial district with hotels along the island's southern shore. While details of the plan are likely to be revised further at a community workshop on June 14, below is the current version. Eco-village: 475 housing units, including lofts, would be designed on so- called green building principles around a central garden. Westside Park: This low-rise neighborhood would contain 607 townhouses and flats in what developers call a "typical San Francisco fabric." Cityside: These 646 units line up to face spectacular views of San Francisco, with the possibility of one or two mid-rise towers. Clipper Cove: Another 646 units would be clustered near the proposed ferry terminal and might include the island's tallest buildings. Ferry Landing Village: This area could include hotels, a conference center, and shopping areas similar to Fourth Street in Berkeley, along with a 400-slip marina. North shore: This large open space would include wetlands that double as part of the island's water reclamation system. Source: Treasure Island Community Development, LLC. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If a green utopia on Treasure Island sounds far-fetched, dreamers have a plan |
^ beltline grew out of a class project? not bad.
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Very intriguing project, I hope this happens.
Then again, I'd always imagined that Treasure Island would serve as a magnificent location for legislative assembly buildings if California or the West Coast were to secede. Oh well, auto-free, high density, eco-friendly utopia works as well. |
Sounds great, maybe I can qualify for one of the low cost units.
Car-free is an interesting concept considering the bay bridge runs thousands of cars over the island every day. I think you may need parking for residents but nobody should need cars to get around the island. |
new model
http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/200...kingcolumn.jpg
It's got high-rises, it's got organic gardens and it just might be a model for cities everywhere John King Thursday, December 15, 2005 Whether or not it ever gets built, the most intriguing development proposal in America right now involves our very own Treasure Island. It's got organic gardens and a 60-story tower, wind farms and glitzy hotels. Restaurants beckon beneath an enormous glass roof that doubles as a solar panel. You don't need a car because everything essential is within walking distance, including a ferry straight to downtown San Francisco. And here's the most intriguing thing of all: This urban utopia is being pushed by one of the largest developers in the United States. That's why I hope that as San Francisco examines what Lennar Corp. says it wants to do with this 393-acre artificial island from the 1930s, cynicism doesn't totally cloud the fact that we're being shown an unprecedented vision of urban growth -- one crafted in response to the Bay Area's odd blend of urbanity and environmentalism. Yes, the revised plan trotted out last month -- followed by models and polished images this week -- packs an intense amount of development onto an island that few outsiders have visited since the Golden Gate International Exposition of the late '30s. There'd be as many as 5,500 housing units on an island that now has 750 apartments built by the U.S. Navy before it closed a base there in 1997. There would be two hotels, a conference center and a commercial district near a proposed ferry terminal sliced into the west side of the island. There also will be five residential towers near the ferry. The model includes a central high-rise twisting 60 stories into the air, though Anthony Flanagan, president of Lennar's urban division, stresses that everything being shown is conceptual: "What we're trying to define is the character of the community, not the specific architecture." So far, this is pretty much what you'd expect from a developer involved in five other base conversions across the country, including Mare Island in Vallejo and San Francisco's Hunters Point Shipyard. But look at the project's green wrapping. The northeastern half of the island is treated, in the plan, as a landscaped world apart, a 120-acre swath with ball fields and marshes as well as conventional parkland and 20 acres reserved for organic farming. The scheme has wind turbines along the shore, and streets mapped to deflect that wind. Towers would come with photovoltaic panels to generate electricity for the island; so would a glass canopy atop the open-air retail zone near the ferry. Most ambitious of all, 90 percent of the housing is clustered within a 10-minute walk to the ferry. Developers would be required to subsidize ferry service from the day the units open -- say 2009 in the most optimistic scenario -- so that new residents wouldn't feel they need to own a car that can't force its way onto the Bay Bridge during rush hour anyway. Why push sustainable notions to such an extent? Because Lennar and co-developer Kenwood Investments finally realized where they are. The Bay Area is a region where many of us think we can have it all -- scenery to rival Yosemite and neighborhoods that make New York seem dull. Food grown by nearby farmers, and urban culture at its most cutting edge. With that parochial perspective comes a sense of entitlement that says if developers want to do business here, they'd better pay attention to what we want. In this case, "we" are the environmental advocates and planning watchdogs who have spent years saying a site this unique deserves a unique future. And they're absolutely right. If large-scale growth is allowed to replace the remnants of the military base that closed in 1997, it had better be special. Otherwise, let the island's 20 million cubic feet of black sand filter back into the bay from whence it came. What Lennar and Kenwood sought to build until last month wasn't special at all; it was quasi-suburbia. It was fashioned to win approval by avoiding controversy, but it had no spark. The new approach is a profound change, especially the $20 million ferry terminal: Lennar first wanted to use an existing pier that faces Oakland. And the shift in the development approach is a tribute to critics who lobbied for a better plan, rather than simply saying no. None of which means that what is on the table should now be rubber-stamped. Here are two examples of things that need to be looked at more. Seismic issues can't be glossed over, certainly if high-rise condos are supposed to be attached to submerged bedrock closest to Yerba Buena Island. And even if towers make sense, consider this: The central high-rise would be taller than the nearby towers of the Bay Bridge. Aesthetic rationale aside, should a private enclave take precedence over public monuments? The new Treasure Island proposals need intense scrutiny during the next few months as more details are released, and before San Francisco's Board of Supervisors votes on whether to endorse the broad outlines of the plan. It might turn out that this shining Xanadu is pie in the sky. But what we have now is a starting point, a fascinating attempt to strike a balance between environmental principles and big-city life. If the Bay Area can find a way to make it work, the entire nation will pay attention. http://sfgov.org/treasureisland |
Looking good!
http://sfgov.org/site/treasureisland_page.asp?id=21914 Revised Land Use and Open Space Plan Presented by Treasure Island Community Development December 2005 Part 1 (PDF) Part 2 (PDF) Part 3 (PDF) Part 4 (PDF) |
looks good, Use to live on the base housing out there best views of the prison and san fran, I thought that island was sinking?
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Interesting concept.... But if there is an emergency how are people living on the island going to get out if there are no cars?
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d-nice, the island will need to be shored up.
phillyskyline, cars would be perfectly legal. there would just be less need for them. that said: http://www.watertransit.org/images/map.gif your best line of defense in a disaster, as proven during the 1989 earthquake and 9/11. this is our new WTA system, now partly funded and very much in development. |
that is too cool.
one other famous resident of Treasure Island was the late Jim Morrison. He lived there as a kid when his dad was in the Navy. |
I lived there also for a few months back in '94. This is an ambitious plan. I tell ya though... they would have to greatly improve the mass transit availability to the island. I remember waiting up to two hours for a bus over to San Fran...
The penthouse on that 40+ story res tower would have the #1 view of the skyline. |
Ah, the 108. It's much more frequent now--every 15 mins peak, no worse than 45 mins in the middle of the night. But under the plan there'd be ferries every few minutes.
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Very nice then... now if it was just a tad warmer in july/aug... :) Still couldn't take my heart away from home.. but very very cool.
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Actually, the way they're dealing with the wind is clever--notice how the "east-west" streets are at a funky angle?
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Hadnt seen this before, very interesting.
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This is a cool and rare opportunity. I'd live there if I wouldn't freeze my balls off, especially if it is that windy.
Of course, I'd freeze anywhere in the Bay area, unless I were inland where it is hotter. :) --don |
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*** an excerpt from another piece on the TI plan, this one with a more critical take [for the full article--and some purty renderings--click the ellipsis below]: Quote:
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However, the redevelopment plan includes extensive ferry service, including a new ferry dock, and the intention would be that ferries would be the primary transportation mode for getting to and from downtown. |
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This sounds really sweet! I had a friend who lived on Treasure Island a few years ago and all I could think about was the potential it had.
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you know, no one ever posted this article from may.
CASTLES ON THE SAND Is the multilayered development plan for Treasure Island a vision for ecotopia or a pipe dream? - Sam Whiting Sunday, May 21, 2006 http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/200...m_treasure.jpg The Treasure Island Chapel has no congregation so there won't be a displacement when the church is underwater. In the new and improved model for the redundant Navy base, the ground underfoot will be notched out so a ferry can come right through the Avenue of the Palms, the church parking lot and garden, and dock up against what is now Avenue B. In the morning, after a 10-minute float, San Franciscans will debark for a day in the new regional park while organic farmers whistle off to work the back 40. In the evening, thousands of new Treasure Islanders will debark into a retail plaza and meander home along paths to a series of nine neighborhood parks running parallel to the Great Lawn along the western shore. Each neighborhood will be defined by a low residential tower, between 15 and 18 stories. There will be some affordable housing among the 5,500 units, and, of course, much more of the unaffordable kind, most prominently in the skinny, twisty 60-story condo tower that will stand and sway just to the north of the historic crescent-shaped Administration Building. "The idea is to make at least one tower, just like Venice, that marks the arrival point for the ferry, sort of, like a campanile," says architect Craig Hartman, whose campanile will be twice the height of that other Campanile, the nonresidential one over in Berkeley. The shimmering new 600-foot campanile doesn't yet have a name. But it ought to be called the Sun Tower for two reasons. One, it will be built of glass embedded with photovoltaics facing south to capture solar power. Two, it is designed to evoke the pointy 400-foot Tower of the Sun from the Golden Gate International Exposition held here in 1939. Built specifically for that purpose, as a New Deal make-work project, the island is essentially a 400-acre sand box. A rectangular rock seawall was filled with sand and gravel dredged from the bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, according to the city government Web site. The name Treasure Island comes from the assumption that there was gold in the dredgings. Seventy-seven years later, speculators are still searching for the gold on Treasure Island. Three years ago the Treasure Island Development Authority, a state redevelopment agency that oversees the property, selected the Treasure Island Community Development, a partnership of investors, to come up with a plan. A year ago the consortium hired Hartman, 56, a partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. His notable contributions to the San Francisco skyline are the 30-story 101 Second Street office tower and the 42-story St. Regis Museum Tower next to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. A downtown tower is, of course, necessitated by the lack of horizontal building space. Treasure Island will be nothing but horizontal building space. The three historic structures at the entrance -- the Pan Am Clipper terminal and the two seaplane hangars behind it -- will remain. The sprawl of Navy housing, school, theater, bowling alley, gymnasium and all the other boarded-up Dust Bowl detritus will be "deconstructed," meaning scraped and recycled. And that is how they will leave it. Hartman's plan is to manufacture density by going vertical. Cram all the people onto one-quarter of the island and turn the other 300 acres into parkland, marshland, farmland. It will be a mini Chicago -- a flat place on the water with Modernist skyscrapers shooting up from the crops. "The practical thing is to use height to make it less consumptive of land and to make it dense and focused to the ferry terminal," Hartman says. The vast north and east shores will be open space surrounding a 20-acre organic farm where produce for the island's restaurants and markets will be grown. "It's not really meant to be a commercial enterprise," Hartman says. "It will grow enough greens to supply 2,000 people." With what? "It depends on how much salad you eat." There will be no industry on the island unless the people who live in the tower condominiums happen to be farmers, descending from the 60th floor in overalls and work boots. Everything will be within a 10-minute walk from the new ferry terminal. That convenience alone will cost $20 million. The existing battleship pier on the east side -- part of a previous ferry plan -- is of no interest. Nobody wants to ride a ferry all the way around to the back, when the action is on the front, Hartman says. Treasure Island is within the boundaries of the city and county of San Francisco, the point of view is that it is just another San Francisco neighborhood, no more isolated than the avenues. And a lot less isolated if the ferry runs, say, every 15 minutes on that 10-minute run from the Ferry Building to the nearest point on the island. Cars will be de-emphasized on the island. There will be one parking slot per residential unit, but only half of those will be in the neighborhood. The others will be stored away. There won't be any boxy garages in front of houses and there won't be any curbs in pedestrian areas because there won't be any cars. If that doesn't cure the urge to drive, there is the neck-straining, stress-inducing merge onto the Bay Bridge from the island, flooring it from the stop sign to build up enough speed to avoid a whiplashing rear-ender. "The intent here is to make this a new national model for what a wholly sustainable community can be about," Hartman says. "It involves the land, it involves a response to the microclimate." Anybody who has stood out there in the western wind would probably rate it a "macroclimate," one more thing it has in common with Chicago. But Hartman has a plan for that. He's going to switch the entire orientation -- streets and all -- a quarter turn counterclockwise so his new neighborhood will face south instead of west and south. "If you turn it 45 degrees, you can actually buffer the wind," Hartman says. "You open up the island to the sun and you also are blocking the wind if you arrange the buildings and landscape right." Even if he manages to redirect the wind and direct the ferry into the west side, there is still the little problem that has been on the Bay Area collective mind the past month or so. That is the likelihood of a 100-year earthquake. Before any infrastructure is built, the island's rock seawall will be strengthened with a system of rock piles anchored in bedrock. The low and mid-rise buildings will be anchored by conventional pilings. It gets trickier with the skyscrapers, but Uri Eliahu, president of Engeo, the geotechnical consulting firm on the project, has a simple system for that. In order to anchor a 60-story tower, "you build a 130-story tower and pound it down into the ground," he says. Eliahu is joking, but not by much. The towers will be anchored by a system of drilled case piles just like the structural supports on the new east span of the Bay Bridge, he says. "A hole is drilled in the sand and this steel pipe is advanced to whatever depth," he says. "All the dirt from inside the pipe is removed. All the reinforcing steel is placed into this casement." The tallest towers will be glass wrapped with an "exo-skeleton" of X braces, like the Alcoa Building downtown, or the Sears Tower in Chicago. If a major quake hits, the towers will be standing, even if they are standing in the water. In any case, Treasure Island will be no worse off, "and probably better off," Hartman says, than the towers at Mission Bay or South Beach, or for that matter, the Skidmore office at One Front Street, on the corner of Market. There is a scale model of the plan up on the 24th floor, and standing behind it, Hartman sees it for what it is. "This is a massive, massive project compared to anything you'll see almost anywhere else," he says, and that includes the new Beijing Finance Street he designed, with 25 buildings currently under construction. To get a handle on a 600-foot skyscraper, it is 50 feet taller than the One Rincon Hill tower already approved to become the tallest residential tower west of the Mississippi, according to estimates. If the Sun Tower goes to its full height, it will render One Rincon Hill a short-lived record holder, like Mark McGwire's 70 home runs in 1998, three seasons before Barry Bonds out-enhanced his performance with 73. "It's a creative scheme. Introducing high-rises here makes a certain amount of sense," says Dean Macris, planning director for the city and county of San Francisco. "When you have a flat piece of earth, the introduction of views improves the quality of life." Behind the Sun Tower will be "the three sisters," about a third as tall. In all, there will be 13 to 15 towers ranging from 15 to 60 stories. The population may be 12,000, about the same as in Hartman's own commuter town of Larkspur. "We're not attempting to build a town. This would just be a neighborhood," says Anthony Flanagan, president of the Urban Development Division of Lennar, a national home building company, which is part of the team. Town or neighborhood. Either way, where will the buyers and renters come from? "We're basically going to be providing different types of products that will appeal to different parts of the market," Flanagan says. "Some people may want to be on the ground, because maybe they have kids. Maybe they want a larger floor plan. Others may love high-rise living and want to have a great view of the city and would be willing to pay for that." Flanagan also believes people will be willing to pay Four Seasons prices for a luxury hotel with a view back at the city, so it is being added to the mix. For the lower end, 15 percent of the 5,500 units will be rentals. The developers will shoulder the cost of all new infrastructure, from sewer lines on up. Flanagan won't even estimate what it will cost beyond "hundreds of millions of dollars." If all goes perfectly, it will be under way by 2009, to honor the 80th anniversary of the world's fair. But there is a lot that can go un-perfectly, starting with the height of the Sun Tower, which may be knocked down to 400 feet, the same height as its ancestral Tower of the Sun. No one will know for another two years, which is how long it is expected to take for the plan to reach the Board of Supervisors for final approval and permits. There is also the technicality that the land is still owned by the Navy, but that should be resolved by then, after 10 years of talking, at least two high-flying ambassadors -- Annemarie Conroy and Tony Hall -- and several shot-down concepts. The usual naysayers haven't found too much to say nay about this incarnation. Yet. "It needs significant public vetting," says Supervisor Chris Daly, whose district includes Treasure Island. "We are past due." Daly applauds the relocated western ferry terminal, and the open space, but laughs off the high-rise concept as "The Vancouver model, only in the middle of the bay." As for the tall skinny buildings to protect sight lines? "Aren't all the towers slender?" he asks. "It's kind of a buzz word." Buzz-kill Daly will get his due this summer when the development plan, which is not legally binding, is expected to go before the Board of Supervisors. Public testimony will be invited. "We're getting an entitlement, and in exchange for that entitlement, the city is getting a regional park (one-third the size of Golden Gate Park) and 30 percent of the housing will be affordable," Flanagan says. The public is also getting the missing link between the city and the bicycle lanes being built on the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge. From Yerba Buena Island, it's a downhill coast to the terminal and onto the ferry. So will it ever happen? "I started working on Mission Bay in 1982 and people said, 'Is this ever going to happen?' '' responds Planning Director Macris. "It's taken 20 years." Treasure Island developers are slightly less patient. They'd like to get it done in 10, building in phases. People living in Navy housing won't be transitioned until the land is needed. Then they will get the first crack at the 575 units of market-rate housing on the island that will be available in July 2007. "From our perspective, it's not just the towers but the holistic vision for how the land use and urban design will create a successful project," says Jack Sylvan, Treasure Island project manager in the office of Mayor Gavin Newsom. "The public benefit that's being provided out there is the most extensive of any project that we know of in recent history." Hartman calls it the most extensive in ancient history too, or at least "since 1907," Hartman says. "I don't think there has been anything like this, in one single piece, since the earthquake." E-mail Sam Whiting at swhiting@sfchronicle.com. |
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I thought San Francisco: Treasure Island was the newest porn flick?
None-the-less, its a fun looking project. ;) |
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"If a major quake hits, the towers will be standing, even if they are standing in the water."
I like that image--"standing in water". :tup: |
I haven't been out to the bay area since my navy days over in Alameda in the 80's. I didn't realize that they closed Treasure island. I heard about Nas Alameda and Oakland army base. Plan seems interesting. If they do complete this project, I'll have to go out west and check it out. Treasure island will always mean- Firefighting school - to me. Which is where you went in the navy for this training.
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All of these former bases are now redevelopment projects of one sort or another. Even the Presidio, now a National Park, is being cleaned up, the non-historic structures removed and replaced with rentable modern construction like George Lucas's "letterman Digital Arts Center" because Congress mandated the park be self-supporting (mostly through renting out the buildings). |
Concord north of the freeway wasn't handed over. I don't think they're doing much with it, but it's still military.
So's Moffett, sorta/kinda. http://www.mv-voice.com/story.php?story_id=1889 |
^ we also have travis air force base too. isn't that apart of the bay area too? ;) considering the region's long history with the department of defense, it's a shame we don't have a major military base located in the central bay area aside from moffett.
btw steve, i loved your homer simpson quote so much i had to use it on my myspace. :D |
Hey now!
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From today's San Francisco Chronicle:
Treasure Island makeover plan gets thumbs-up Board of Supervisors is next hurdle for $1.2 billion proposal - Robert Selna, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, October 31, 2006 The city commission overseeing the former Treasure Island Naval Station approved a plan Monday to spend more than $1.2 billion to transform the 403-acre island and its smaller neighbor, Yerba Buena Island, into a self-sufficient community with 6,000 homes, a new ferry terminal and 300 acres of open space. The seven-member Treasure Island Development Authority, appointed by the mayor, gave its support for a building blueprint that has been three years in the making. The plan calls for nearly $500 million in private investment and $700 million in borrowing by the city through the issuance of bonds backed by property taxes collected from the island after development is completed. The lead developer, Kenwood Investments, which is controlled by Democratic lobbyist and fundraiser Darius Anderson, is working with Miami-based home builder Lennar Corp. and local firm Wilson Meany Sullivan, which led the Port of San Francisco's Ferry Building restoration. The developers plan to replace the former military housing and other structures with homes and retail and commercial buildings using "green" construction methods. The developers would pay an estimated $40 million to the Navy for the decommissioned base -- part of their $500 million investment -- and would anticipate collecting $370 million in profits by completion in 2022. The plan is scheduled to be introduced to the Board of Supervisors today and will likely be voted on by the end of the year, according to Michael Cohen, head of military base reuse projects for Mayor Gavin Newsom. "I'm optimistic about the reception the plan will get from the Board of Supervisors because I think the development plan makes an overwhelmingly compelling case," said Cohen. "We're using private investment to create a 300-acre park in the bay and 1,800 units of below-market-rate housing without a penny from the city's general fund." Some of the below-market housing units would be created by private developers, and the rest by nonprofit builders with backing from the city and other sources. Private builders would be required to sell or rent approximately 740 units at prices within reach of households earning at or below the median income in San Francisco -- which for a three-person household is $82,000 a year. Renderings of the proposed new island village show a ferry terminal connected to a retail center as part of an urban core with a 40-story tower and hotels. Several residential neighborhoods would radiate from the core area and feature townhouses, flats and a 14-story residential tower. To discourage driving on and off the island, the plan calls for most housing to be clustered within a 10-minute walk to the ferry and for a free shuttle to serve the neighborhoods. A congestion pricing scheme would levy an estimated $5 fee on motorists driving on and off the island during commute times. Completed in 1938, the manmade Treasure Island is composed mainly of bay fill and is susceptible to earthquakes and flooding. As a result, it will require significant seismic stabilization, including a 50-foot-wide reinforced zone around the entire perimeter of the island. Environmental contamination from the former industrial uses needs to be cleaned up, and the future neighborhood situated in the middle of the bay will need an entirely new utility and wastewater collection and treatment system. The project must undergo a review of its impact on the environment and on traffic patterns and commerce in the area. Moreover, as changes are made, details of a final agreement between the developers and the city remain to be negotiated and approved by the Treasure Island Development Authority, the Board of Supervisors and the mayor. "We continue to have tremendous constraints that we will have to overcome, but our work to date shows a path of success," said Jay Wallace of Kenwood Investments. "It's a complicated project, but we have a critical path we can proceed upon to make Treasure Island a great place for future generations." -------------------------------------------------------------------------- and since we all love renderings here, i transfered these renderings of the project from some other threads around here... http://i.pbase.com/g5/27/712527/2/67719093.1kQPEvOP.jpg http://static.flickr.com/122/255786347_1850879533_o.jpg http://static.flickr.com/90/255787142_2c15ebab70_o.jpg http://static.flickr.com/112/255786349_c6ca906075_o.jpg http://static.flickr.com/81/255786351_ccd93de021_o.jpg http://static.flickr.com/107/284382286_1555606042_b.jpg |
Hmmmm, not sold on the idea of having a FARM there. This space should be used as public parks/recreation. I would be willing to bet the farm would be surrounded by a huge fence to keep people away from food (it would be necessary), and would just detract from the appeal.
I would just like to see a big park, development around it, and then the transportation links as well. Also, the development looks too spread apart, doesn't look like it has a 'urban village' feeling to it, and being semi-isolated like it is, they could do some cool stuff. I just wonder if they are trying too hard to be 'eco-friendly' and will ultimately neglect and shut out the very community they are trying to help. After all, this is a project for the people of the Bay Area, not a monument to a urban planner who 'thinks it would be cool' EDIT - also, it looks way too formal and regimented, no organic shapes (the park looks like a bunch of rectangles...wow...) - also, I would love to see lots of small parks/squares mixed in. It is the small 'micro parks' that are really people friendly, not something massive. |
:previous: I'm not certain but I think most of that open space is less seismically stable than the areas of the island that are planned for building. I worked on the island in 1989 and recall sand boils as well as severe building damage in those areas. That's probably why they aren't planning to build there and are even turning part of into a lake (maybe they figure nature would do that eventually anyway). As to the "farm", maybe it's one of those coop things where individula residents can get a small plot and grow their own veggies. Those have existed elsewhere in the city.
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anything exciting regarding progress on TI?
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a very large component of this project's public success (it has been exceptionally well received) is the careful attention paid to 'green' issues. i don't see how the positioning of the streets, the wind rows, the ferry terminal, the organic farms, the photovoltaic skins, the turbines, and the myriad of other green features mean they are 'shutting out' the residents. there is plenty of open space in the plan (not just around the farm but throughout the plan, e.g. near the new ferry terminal) and the inclusion of community gardens at various scales have been very successful in many cities. |
Any news on this project?
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Nope. Most of those folks who think the project is great aren't planning to live there themselves. Personally, I think it would be a great place for a huge gambling casino. Think about it. "What happens on TI stays on TI." |
I can't comment on the weather but there will always be people who want to live on the edge of a given city. The fact that it's an island and will have quite a bit of open space will add to the appeal. Plus it seems it will be an attractive development. It will be SF's Roosevelt island.
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^^^You movin' there?
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I lived on Yerba Buena Island for six months with the Academy of Arts. God there was nothing at all there, but quite honestly it wasnt all that bad. Was a neat feeling being in this tiny forrest between SF and Oakland. For me there is something appealing about island life, especially if a plethora of activity sits a stones throw away by boat. I'd reckon I would be in consideration of purchasing if I could consider purchasing. Where do I sign up.
BTW, If you are driving into san francisco from Oakland you can see my building and the little deck we had. Actually it was more of a roof than a deck. |
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there are a lot of places i wouldn't chose to live - but they're still successful developments. most people will drive (just like everywhere, sadly) but the ferries will be viable for the people 'commuting' to the financial district on weekdays. avoiding the toll plazas will make the congestion somewhat more bearable. as for the casino - i was always a big fan of the idea of turning treasure island into some sort of 21st century adult urban playground. casinos, high end bars, restaurants, retail, etc. it would be awesome. like taking a little slice of macao and transporting it to the middle of the bay :banana: |
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Inspired by Marvel 33's post http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...&postcount=803, I checked out SOM's website and found some cool renderings that are worth a glance.
From:http://www.som.com/content.cfm/bending_the_grid http://www.som.com/resources/content...1_21586620.jpg http://www.som.com/resources/categor...resized616.jpg |
:previous: Interesting--->Seems to show both One Rincon towers, 375 Fremont, 301 (or is it 300) Folsom and both 300 Spear towers, but not 45 Lansing.
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2 - I personally think it is safer to live in a newer building in a landfill area (say Mission Bay), where they drive the metal piles down to the bedrock than to live in an older building on the hillside. The ground there may be more stable, but the building certainly isn't. |
^^^If you're on TI, just make sure you're on at least the 4th floor (higher is better). And keep an inflatable boat in the closet.
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