In today’s San Francisco Chronicle, John King discusses the changes — while perhaps not quite visible yet — taking place in the Transbay area of SOMA.
Behind the scenes, Transbay district evolving
John King, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, January 5, 2009
The calm isn’t the result of economic ills, say the bureaucrats and architects focused on an area that 20 years ago was defined mainly by freeway ramps. There’s ample work going on – but it’s the sort that takes place in offices and hearing rooms, involving computers rather than cranes.
“Everyone wants to make this happen,” said John Rahaim, the city’s planning director. “We’re full speed ahead.”
The low-profile planning is a contrast to the sporadic drama of the past two years.
In 2007, government officials grabbed headlines with a competition for the rights to build a skyline-popping tower in San Francisco as part of an effort to fund a major transit hub at First and Mission streets. The Planning Department followed last year with a proposal for new zoning that would allow several towers to approach or exceed the height of the 853-foot Transamerica Pyramid, the city’s tallest building.
Now, three agencies are in the middle of initiatives for the area – and at least one development team is pursuing plans for a tower well under what planners have indicated they’ll allow.
The most obvious sign of what’s to come is on the block bounded by Howard, Beale, Folsom and Main streets. A longtime parking lot is fenced off to everyone but construction workers, while the block’s two small one-story buildings await demolition.
The block this year will sprout a temporary terminal for buses bringing commuters to the Financial District from other counties. It’s scheduled to open in August, followed by the demolition of the existing terminal.
If the schedule holds, the spring of 2010 would see a groundbreaking for the new Transbay Terminal. The $1.2 billion project includes the temporary terminal and bus ramps to the Bay Bridge and is part of a larger effort to bring commuter trains and high-speed rail within one block of Market Street.
“All told, upwards of 150 consultants are working on this right now,” said Fred Clarke of Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, the Connecticut firm designing the terminal.
The firm also was selected with developer Hines to erect an office tower on the Transbay block along Mission Street – a skyscraper that likely would climb at least 1,000 feet.
Besides turning heads, the tower will help fund the terminal. Hines has agreed to pay $235 million to the Transbay Joint Powers Authority.
“We haven’t fully engaged in the work on the tower” given the moribund economy, Clarke conceded. Still, “We’ll be starting the entitlement process in ’09.”
Those entitlements will be affected by the Planning Department’s district plan for the area bounded roughly by Mission, Third, Folsom and Main streets.
Besides the zoning issues, planners will map out how the Transbay district – projected to be the densest part of the city – would work in terms of pedestrian ambience and traffic circulation. There also will be an economic component in terms of the fees that would be charged developers.
According to Planning Director Rahaim, the department hopes to release a draft of the plan in February. That would allow the formal public process to begin; it also would mark the start of environmental studies that are required before a plan is adopted.
“This is a plan for the long term,” Rahaim said, downplaying the recession’s impact.
Redevelopment bids soon
In the meantime, a fresh test of the area’s appeal to developers will come Jan. 22, when the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency takes bids from developers vying for an acre-plus site at First and Folsom streets.
This is one of several blocks freed up by the demolition of the ramps that led from the Bay Bridge to the Embarcadero Freeway, which was razed in 1990. A 2005 redevelopment plan maps out the blocks as a residential district akin to what’s taking shape on Rincon Hill, with thin towers rising from townhouse-scaled bases.
The First and Folsom site is zoned to allow a 450-foot tower as well as approximately 150 affordable apartments.
Whatever occurs with the redevelopment land, at least one private developer is pursuing plans for a Transbay tower.
The site is 350 Mission St., now occupied by a low office building. But it stands across from the Transbay Terminal, on a block where planners have proposed heights of 700 feet.
Instead, developer GLL Properties seeks to build an office tower of just 27 stories, roughly 350 feet. The lower height is dictated by the relatively compact site: Go any higher and the extra elevator banks would chew up too much rentable space.
Unusual design
The design aims to make 350 Mission stand out in other ways. The glass skin would taper in and out both vertically and horizontally, aiming for a jewel-like faceted texture. At the ground, the lower 50 feet along Fremont and Mission streets would open to the sidewalk during the day – serving as a de facto public space.
“This can’t be, because of its size, a landmark building on the skyline. It can be a landmark at street level,” said architect Craig Hartman of Skidmore Owings & Merrill, the tower designer.
Like the Transbay tower, 350 Mission can’t proceed until the larger environmental studies are complete. After that, the economy will call the shots.
“This is an entire district of the city that is transforming – not just in its density, but in its character,” Hartman said. “We need to make it as different as possible from living in the suburbs.”