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

[simms3_redux]

^^^I agree with you. I am not in the least bit saying that SF is seeing more construction than NYC. SF isn't even seeing the same level of construction seen in Chicago (well, maybe *today*, but not typically). However, where SF has NYC beat is the concentration of construction and the skyline altering construction. NYC is just so massive, it can eat a few supertalls more subtly than SF can eat 10 new 400+ footers in one low density area adjacent to the existing skyline.

If you looked at a map of NYC/Manhattan construction, you would see more of a spread with a few decade-buildout mega developments (i.e. WTC and Hudson Yards). If you looked at a map of SF, you would see virtually all of the high-rise construction in one very confined area. Add to that the fact that most of these towers are one-off towers. This is all being financed and built by competing groups. This isn't master-planned by one development partnership (or lone developer) as you find in both Miami and New York.

Most of the major national players, from architects to contractors to developers to lenders, are simultaneously building towers that are very tall for the city in one zone (and they all worked very hard to get a piece of the SF pie). This new construction will literally double what is already one of the US's largest skylines, from several angles. THAT is not something that can be said about other cities, not even NYC. That is what I'm saying.

And it's not even all high rises. A new LRT subway is being built underneath the above ground construction. A new transit terminal is going vertical right now (a transit terminal significant enough where there are maybe 1-2 others like it UC, one in New York as part of WTC). SFMOMA is spending hundreds of millions on a starchitect designed expansion, which means 2 luffing cranes up for that.

Can anyone who has lived in SF long enough tell me if there has been a single other transformation of the city as radical as what is happening in S FiDi, SoMa, and adjacent areas? Really throughout the city, but the areas above are going from pure surface lots to a sea of towers in a matter of a couple of years.