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

[viewguysf]

It's because most people here don't want to look like Miami or Vancouver, and why should we? I'm a skyscraper/highrise supporter, but not for seeing them everywhere in the City. San Francisco is beautifully unique, it is expanding its population at a rapid rate while still needing much improved transportation options, and people around the world generally love it here. Too many of you who don't live here have a plethora of ideas that don't fit. We are very fortunate to have what we're getting and have gotten across our downtown areas, including "The Hub" around Van Ness and Market. Educate yourselves as to what is actually happening around planning.

[mt_climber13]

The low rise white boxes all over the hills with the huge skyscrapers on the peninsula gives SF a uniquely dramatic aesthetic from far away and in the neighborhoods. SF should have the best of both worlds, tall towers and low rise residential areas. But surrounding cities should be shouldering the growth as well, since San Jose and Silicon Valley is where most of the jobs are being created, yet there are hardly any high rises in Mountain View and Palo Alto. High rises up to 400'+ should be built at the nexus of all CalTrain and BART stations throughout Northern California.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by viewguysf

I'm a skyscraper/highrise supporter, but not for seeing them everywhere in the City . . . . We are very fortunate to have what we're getting and have gotten across our downtown areas, including "The Hub" around Van Ness and Market. Educate yourselves as to what is actually happening around planning.

To be clear, I've been a San Franciscan for 35 years and I agree that almost no San Franciscans want to see highrises everywhere. I've never met anyone who would tear down a genuine Victorian or Edwardian residence to build a skyscraper or demolish any of the low-rise residential neighborhoods to build them. But I don't think that iew covers a lot of areas that could have been taller and more given to high rises than they are and on such is the area that was mentioned: Third St. That is a transit-dense corridor since we built the LRV line and it is mostly brownfield former industrial land. The only reason Third isn't zoned for 30-story towers like those in Vancouver that I can see is that it would spoil the views from Potrero Hill where resides a lot of political clout (including former Mayor Agnos who was also a leader in campaigns like the one to block the Warriors arena as I recall). And there was the "no wall on the waterfront" campaign that blocked a midrise that isn't on the waterfront but might have blocked some viw from the lower slopes of Telegraph Hill where dwell the infamous Telegraph Hill Dwellers.

Third St, Geary Blvd., the "Hub", SOMA west of 4th St and some other areas call out for taller, denser housing IMHO but, of course, not the Haight, the Castro, Noe Valley, th Mission and the other beloved historical "hoods.

Originally Posted by wakamesalad

The low rise white boxes all over the hills with the huge skyscrapers on the peninsula gives SF a uniquely dramatic aesthetic from far away and in the neighborhoods. SF should have the best of both worlds, tall towers and low rise residential areas. But surrounding cities should be shouldering the growth as well, since San Jose and Silicon Valley is where most of the jobs are being created, yet there are hardly any high rises in Mountain View and Palo Alto. High rises up to 400'+ should be built at the nexus of all CalTrain and BART stations throughout Northern California.

Were it up to me, I'd tear down the white (mostly post-WW II) boxes leavng the prominent hills pristine and build more towers in the areas I just outlined. But I also mentioned that in the transit-oriented developments near BART stations all over the system, rather than 2-4 floor garden apartments and townhomes there should be towers except that, like in the city, the local NIMBYs fought them off.

[timbad]

speaking of developments around Caltrain stations (altho not the 400' type) the office building on Brannan and almost Fourth, seen from Bluxome Alley (all of these from earlier this week)



concrete pour at the office building on Townsend and Sixth...





... and at 100 Hooper site

[gillynova]

Originally Posted by Justbuildit

^^^^
What is keeping the Bay Area from going crazy with condo tower construction like we see in Miami and Vancouver? Seems like this is a perfect area for that kind of action and we should be seeing a lot more condos going up around the bay, not just around Rincon Hill. Miami west coast. I'd like to see SF skyline extend much further southward with condo towers. I hate that we are not seeing large towers going in south of the Bay Bridge and the skyline just suddenly ends at the bridge. That sucks.

Rendering of a proposed plan south of the Bay Bridge:

It's estimated that it will being 20,000 new housing units and 35,000 new jobs. Currently, they are going through environmental review before construction.

Source: http://news.theregistrysf.com/the-wonderful-waterfront/


Also, are you aware of Mission Rock project? The high-rises here aren't that tall, but it looks nice regardless. Right now it's a parking lot for the Giants. The area will still be owned by the Giants partly and will have a big parking garage.

[gillynova]

Originally Posted by wakamesalad

The low rise white boxes all over the hills with the huge skyscrapers on the peninsula gives SF a uniquely dramatic aesthetic from far away and in the neighborhoods. SF should have the best of both worlds, tall towers and low rise residential areas. But surrounding cities should be shouldering the growth as well, since San Jose and Silicon Valley is where most of the jobs are being created, yet there are hardly any high rises in Mountain View and Palo Alto. High rises up to 400'+ should be built at the nexus of all CalTrain and BART stations throughout Northern California.

They're not 400'+ but you should see the construction around Milpitas BART station. I can send you some renderings of it if you want.

Also, there's a lot of high rises coming up or recently came up around Santa Clara and Moffett Field area.

[pseudolus]

Originally Posted by Justbuildit

^^^^
What is keeping the Bay Area from going crazy with condo tower construction like we see in Miami and Vancouver? Seems like this is a perfect area for that kind of action and we should be seeing a lot more condos going up around the bay, not just around Rincon Hill. Miami west coast. I'd like to see SF skyline extend much further southward with condo towers. I hate that we are not seeing large towers going in south of the Bay Bridge and the skyline just suddenly ends at the bridge. That sucks.

Blame Reagan's Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger

http://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Height_Limit_Revolt_Saves_Waterfront_Vistas

[viewguysf]

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=131467&page=6

This thread does need to be revived.

[timbad]

Church and Market corner...





the little project just west of future One Oak





a peek inside at the Horror on Harrison (at Eighth)









Seventh and Rausch



Sixth and Howard



Fifth and Folsom

[Jerry of San Fran]

In relation to Timbad's post yesterday here is a picture from Handel Architects web page at http://www.handelarchitects.com/projects/project-main/-1554-market.html

There has been no activity the last few days when I have walked by.

Except for the red building on the left the whole block between Market & Oak will be redeveloped within the next few years.

1554 Market St. by Apollo's Light, on Flickr

[botoxic]

_XRG4606 by Craig, on Flickr

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by gillynova

Also, are you aware of Mission Rock project? The high-rises here aren't that tall, but it looks nice regardless. Right now it's a parking lot for the Giants. The area will still be owned by the Giants partly and will have a big parking garage.

And like everything else in SF, the plan originally called for taller stuctures but not as tall as they should be at that site:


http://www.beyerblinderbelle.com/projects/79_mission_rock

Actualy, this version is more like it:


https://www.pinterest.com/james8528/buildings/?lp=true

[gillynova]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

And like everything else in SF, the plan originally called for taller stuctures but not as tall as they should be at that site:


http://www.beyerblinderbelle.com/projects/79_mission_rock

Actualy, this version is more like it:


https://www.pinterest.com/james8528/buildings/?lp=true

Wow, nice find. Thanks for posting this. I haven't seen these renderings of Mission Rock before.

I'm still puzzled into where the parking garage will be and how many spaces will it have vs. the current parking lot.

[Pedestrian]

New BizTimes "crane watch" map--can you identify them all?


http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/maps/san-francisco-crane-watch

[plutonicpanda]

Originally Posted by viewguysf

It's because most people here don't want to look like Miami or Vancouver, and why should we? I'm a skyscraper/highrise supporter, but not for seeing them everywhere in the City. San Francisco is beautifully unique, it is expanding its population at a rapid rate while still needing much improved transportation options, and people around the world generally love it here. Too many of you who don't live here have a plethora of ideas that don't fit. We are very fortunate to have what we're getting and have gotten across our downtown areas, including "The Hub" around Van Ness and Market. Educate yourselves as to what is actually happening around planning.

A lot of people from around the world love it right now too and that includes preserving freeways and 'drivability' so don't forget that. Transit needs to be expanded but not prioritized over cars.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by plutonicpanda

A lot of people from around the world love it right now too and that includes preserving freeways and 'drivability' so don't forget that. Transit needs to be expanded but not prioritized over cars.

At least 2 existing freeways in SF, the termini of I-280 and of the Central Freeway as it approaches Market Street are under some threat. The Mayor seems to be a proponent of tearing down the last mile or 2 of I-280 to make developable land and the locals living around the end of the Central are pushing to remove more of it (the portion north of Market St was removed after it was damaged in the 1989 quake).

There will not be any more freeways constructed within the city in anybody here's lifetime.

And the city has an official "transit first" policy which it is carrying out in its usual bizarrely dysfunctional fashion by making driving personal vehicles ever more difficult by turning lanes over to bikes, making them unusable by putting "bulb-outs" at every corner and abandoning many to transit-only with red paint, but at the same time not making the all-out effort that would be required to make transit capable of efficiently and rapidly getting people where they need to go. It is telling that the city leadership themselves continue to drive themselves to work at City Hall and demand free parking. Past mayors have occasionally made a show of riding Muni but don't actually use it regularly.

[viewguysf]

We have torn down one freeway completely and shortened two others since the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, causing neighborhoods and areas to blossom. I'm all for transit, use it regularly, walk miles a week, yet also drive my car all over the City. Transit policies and priorities need to be balanced for as many types of people as possible.

[Pedestrian]

^^When it comes to tearing down freeways, what needs attention is where and how they end and how that impacts both traffic and neighborhoods. You are right that the removal of the Central and Embarcadero has benefitted Hayes Valley and the Embarcadero neighborhoods. Those freeways were particularly egregious in how they treated existing neighborhoods such as the Embarcadero freeway practically hiding the Ferry Building behind a wall of concrete.

But I would argue on the downside that Gough St., which used to move well through Hayes Valley, now suffers near complete gridlock at times and I have read Oak and Fell west of Octavia are also impacted (I don't use those so can't say). Just as the neighborhood has blossomed, I think there's been a clear negative impact on traffic.

And removing more of the central so that it brings traffic to surface streets somewhere in SOMA could similarly snarl surface streets there including Mission, Duboce and so on. And unlike Hayes Valley, I just don't think the impact on that area is likely either to benefit enough or become attractive enough to be worth it.

The plans being developed for I-280 are another matter. I'd like to see more serious consideration being given to decking over the CalTrain rail yards and building on that "new" land such as I believe was done in New York.


http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/artic...e-I-280-in-SF-to-be-unveiled-6848002.php

If we need more developable real estate in that area, I'd prefer that to channeling freeway traffic into Mission Bay from whence it could go where? I foresee Gough-style gridlock on 16th St.


http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/I-280-near-Mission-Bay-would-be-razed-in-Caltrain-6254662.php

[LagunaPuerca]

It takes a special kind of madness to propose increasing automobile transport share in San Francisco, just as it takes a special kind of ignorance of history to suggest that the current state of US transportation infrastructure is due to "dysfunctional" municipal management. The Federal government has underwritten and subsidized the suburbanization of the US. Nine of ten transportation tax dollars in urban areas have exited the cores to subsidize suburban highway construction. But let's leave aside history for a moment, and consider the practical aspects of increasing auto infrastructure in San Francisco.

It is possible? The answer is no: unless we choose to initiate a Robert Moses style of neighborhood destruction (I highly recommend the chapter, "One Mile", from The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York -- it describes the construction of the Cross-Bronx Expressway), there is no room for more freeway space in not just San Francisco proper, but nearly the entire Bay Area. Besides, continuing the "greatest mis-allocation of resources in human history" (JH Kunstler's acid phrase for the US suburban project) in a time when the consequences of unbridled CO2 release are becoming apparent, is the definition of madness.

But wait, haven't we been here before? There was, in San Francisco, this thing called the "Freeway Revolt". It explains, in part, why San Francisco proper has some appeal today: it is walkable, and habitable. It is a good place to live. Unlike Philadelphia, or Seattle, or many American cities, there is not a roaring freeway between the city and the waterfront. The neighborhoods that were torn apart by freeway construction did, as they did in most US cities, become ghettos. But some of those freeways have been removed, and, behold!, those neighborhoods are returning to life.

Two of the penultimate NIMBY movements: the Freeway Revolt, and the defeat of urban "redevelopment", saved San Francisco from the destruction and depopulation that typifies most US urban cores. Add to that the limits on high rise office development and a variety of laws limiting the destruction of neighborhoods (epitomized by the "Richmond Special") for the sake of a predatory rentier class, and the result is one of the most desirable cities to live in. E.g., St. Louis population, ~1945: ~800,000; 2000: ~360,000, 2010: 330,000. San Francisco population, ~1945: ~800,000; 1970: ~700,000; 2010: 800,000. The scale of urban abandonment in most US cities is breathtaking, and San Francisco has by and large escaped that fate. It is no accident. Democracy, when it exists, and works, is a good thing.

[timbad]

Originally Posted by LagunaPuerca

It takes a special kind of madness to propose increasing automobile transport share in San Francisco, just as it takes a special kind of ignorance of history to suggest that the current state of US transportation infrastructure is due to "dysfunctional" municipal management. The Federal government has underwritten and subsidized the suburbanization of the US. Nine of ten transportation tax dollars in urban areas have exited the cores to subsidize suburban highway construction. But let's leave aside history for a moment, and consider the practical aspects of increasing auto infrastructure in San Francisco.

It is possible? The answer is no: unless we choose to initiate a Robert Moses style of neighborhood destruction (I highly recommend the chapter, "One Mile", from The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York -- it describes the construction of the Cross-Bronx Expressway), there is no room for more freeway space in not just San Francisco proper, but nearly the entire Bay Area. Besides, continuing the "greatest mis-allocation of resources in human history" (JH Kunstler's acid phrase for the US suburban project) in a time when the consequences of unbridled CO2 release are becoming apparent, is the definition of madness.

But wait, haven't we been here before? There was, in San Francisco, this thing called the "Freeway Revolt". It explains, in part, why San Francisco proper has some appeal today: it is walkable, and habitable. It is a good place to live. Unlike Philadelphia, or Seattle, or many American cities, there is not a roaring freeway between the city and the waterfront. The neighborhoods that were torn apart by freeway construction did, as they did in most US cities, become ghettos. But some of those freeways have been removed, and, behold!, those neighborhoods are returning to life.

Two of the penultimate NIMBY movements: the Freeway Revolt, and the defeat of urban "redevelopment", saved San Francisco from the destruction and depopulation that typifies most US urban cores. Add to that the limits on high rise office development and a variety of laws limiting the destruction of neighborhoods (epitomized by the "Richmond Special") for the sake of a predatory rentier class, and the result is one of the most desirable cities to live in. E.g., St. Louis population, ~1945: ~800,000; 2000: ~360,000, 2010: 330,000. San Francisco population, ~1945: ~800,000; 1970: ~700,000; 2010: 800,000. The scale of urban abandonment in most US cities is breathtaking, and San Francisco has by and large escaped that fate. It is no accident. Democracy, when it exists, and works, is a good thing.

nice one.

even the meager bridge on/off-ramps left over from the removal of the Embarcadero Freeway have a lingering deleterious effect on the trying-to-blossom Rincon Hill area, and the proximity of the bridge will probably never free it from what feels like pretty miserable traffic volumes to at least this person when walking around it.

freeways need to be removed as far as possible from urban areas. transit needs to be expanded AND prioritized over auto use. for the time being, this would just mean starting to balance the unequal situation that has existed, as LP mentions, so that everyone can use the streets.