In today’s San Francisco Chronicle, the Matier and Ross column made mention of TJPA’s design competition for the transit center and high-rise tower.

Transit hub moves ahead, even if train never arrives
Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross
Monday, December 19, 2005

Think of it as the Terminal of Dreams — a new Transbay Terminal and high-rise in San Francisco that is gaining momentum without so much as a promise that the money or high-speed railroad needed to make it happen will ever be there.

Today, the Transbay Joint Powers Authority will announce plans for an international design competition for the four-story terminal and a 70-story hotel, condo and retail tower. That would be about on par with San Francisco’s tallest building, the Transamerica Pyramid.

“It creates a world-class transit hub linking the Bay Area’s most vital commuter systems and surrounds it with a new neighborhood,” said Mike Nevin, chairman of the joint powers agency.

The tricky part, transit insiders say, is that the agency has pledges for only half the project’s $2 billion estimated cost.

The other half won’t materialize unless state voters pass a bond for a $10 billion bullet train from San Francisco to Los Angeles — a project that keeps being pushed onto a side track and may not even make the ballot for years.

Nonetheless, the locals say they’re ready to move forward — and up — with or without the bullet train money. Their big fear is that delays will only drive up costs.

The idea, then, is to start construction and line up a developer to finance the project while the hotel and housing market is still strong, in the hope that if they build it, the bullet train — and bullet train money — will come.

And if the train never arrives?

“It’s going to be a transit center hosting bus, rail, BART and Muni Metro” via an underground people mover, said Adam Alberti, spokesman for the Joint Powers Authority.

So in other words, they’re hoping the money already promised, plus some financial magic, will be enough to build at least a basic terminal plus the tower.

And the sooner they get going on project, Alberti said, “the cheaper it’s going to be to build.”

Or overbuild.

I am enthused about the design competition, but not so much about the “overbuild” comment above. Let’s dream big here and do something wonderful.