Nice take.

There's a railing at the top--the mesh may cover the railing but it's not going more than an inch or two higher than the railing which is mostly in place. For all practical purposes, it is at its full height.

Indeed. Not to mention it's already topped off.

Very interesting, I thought the crown was going to be hollow but it's actually a structure within itself, kind of reminds me of the Eiffel Tower

Sft
 

Looks great and fits in to my hometown. And even though I live in LA, this tower is superior to WG and is is taller by 200' WG adds little to the LA skyline.
Until CA gets 1200-1500' towers, these are just place holders.
China has proven that you can build 2000' in earthquake zones.

I beg to differ. Too many bland glassy 90's style facades about. I think this facade is a good fit into SF's urban character.

Suggestions otherwise welcome.

This tower is easily better than anything else on the West Coast. I can't wait until the other U/C towers join it on the skyline.

The bar to building them in SF is not earthquakes although the Fire Dept. is not too thrilled about tall towers (the record suggests in China they don't worry about such things). It is shaddows. It is illegal to significantly shade public open space and such space exists all over town (as you surely know). Salesforce was cut from 1200' to 1070' because it would have shaded the Embarcadero too much. San Francisco can be cold, even in mid-summer (when it can be especially foggy, as you also know). People value what sun they can get and the height limit on buildings is part of the price; one that all but skyscraper geeks seem very willing to pay.

I've said it too so I can't "suggest otherwise". It's a simple, elegant building. It doesn't make you go "Wow!" but it makes you go, "Hmm. Nice." That's what San Franciscans seem to want in "urban character".

The building can have a subtle, sultry look in winter light or a beautifully muted shiny one at sunset during spring. As one who looks at it during all times of every day, I'm highly pleased with it. Salesforce Tower needs to be experienced in person from various angles and times to fully appreciate what Pelli created with white metal and glass.

It is this reason of potential shadows over public open spaces, I continue to wonder where else in San Francisco can we someday build higher than 1070 feet without running into this issue, and not being oddly out of place? Salesforce Tower could be the tallest building in San Francisco for a very long time, unless some clever way(s) of redirecting sunlight is(are) found, or some acceptable trade-off changes to the shadow ordinance are made. While many of us agree (including me) the shadow ordinance has good cause and merit, I think those against tall buildings in San Francisco have also found their best secret weapon.

I don't think we are going to see anything taller than the cluster near Mission & Fremont for a very long time (longer than I expect to be around). Eventually, the pressure for more space may force higher buildings elsewhere and that seems most likely to happen in the central SOMA and/or the "Hub" to me (not sure if supertalls in the latter would shade Civic Center Plaza in late afternoon or the Octavia green in early morning in which case they aren't likely).

Was in SF this weekend and saw it for the first time at it's full height, this thing is huge, no matter how you look at it. An incredibly looming presence.. talk about "it doesn't matter because it's not 1200' or 1500'" is arbitrary and nonsense because once you actually experience it in context it is quite a sight and is very exciting to look at on the skyline.

And a simple (but not easy) way to get around the shadow ordinance would be for certain public plazas and parks to be sold off to private entities and then in that case they could be shadowed by skyscrapers. Could it happen? With enough money and willingness to building something very tall, I think so. We seem to be heading toward a privatized corporate owned society anyways (sports stadiums now named after corporations, the Golden Gate Bridge selling to corporate sponsorships to make up for budget deficits, the new Transbay Terminal and park are financed by private development money and privately owned/ run)

^^I like the fact that it doesn't have a "podium" also. Just springs up out of the ground and stabs skyward. This is pretty unusual for modern supertalls. So many of them have podiums or multiple set-backs or they taper from the ground up (this doesn't begin to taper until maybe the top 20% of its height).

Also.. the shadow ordinance isn't concrete, doesn't it just require directors of the Parks Dept. to agree with the planning commission if a building were to be shadowing a public park? Say if a development co. donated a few million to SF Parks in exchange for approving a tower that would shade a park for an hour a few weeks a year.. may be considered bribing, maybe not.

Anyway, enthusiasts should be happy with what they have now, SF Tower, the new landmark of the west.

So they haven't developed the technology to eliminate shadows yet? What's the big hold up? :koko: Or is that even possible?

There is serious research in bending light rays around very small or microscopic solid objects. Advanced research on larger objects might be above top secret for a very long time. There is one item of note: such objects would also be invisible to our eyes. Maybe there are better alternatives with optics or reflective surfaces that can be used, if the pressure to build taller becomes great enough. Anyway, I agree we'll more likely see heights raised in other areas of the city for decades, before we see anything taller than Salesforce Tower being built. I could be wrong, though... I didn't think they would raise the maximum height limit in San Francisco above 550 feet as soon as they did. It's funny how now that Salesforce is topped off, 550 looks mighty short. ...And that was San Francisco's limit for 3 decades! Also, 1070 feet isn't really that tall in the world anymore.

In spite of this, I'm still very happy and excited with the new and changing skyline. I can't wait for the rest of the towers that we know of to go up and join Salesforce in the next 5 years or so. It will be glorious.

Not sure how I feel yet about the fact that our city's 600' tabletop now looks so incredibly undersized compared to the shear mass of Salesforce. In a way it's kind of neat to have such a huge building, but every other building isn't even recognizable on its own anymore. Even the Pyramid looks half the size it did before.

http://sf-planning.org/sites/default...pplication.pdf

Looks like succinctly, the builders must perform a shadow analysis and the planning board, with input from the parks department, must conclude that the shadows don't adversely affect the park.

I think that rather than dwarfing SF's others buildings, the Salesforce Tower actually accentuates them by bringing the eye and the average height up and emphasizing the value of the supporting cast of buildings. Overall the value of the Salesforce Tower cannot be underestimated.