From today’s San Francisco Business Times:
Transbay Transit Center on the hunt to fill 100,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space
Annie Sciacca, Reporter- San Francisco Business Times
December 11, 2014
Steelblue LLC for Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects
Plans for retail at San Francisco’s $4.5 billion Transbay Transit Center are shaping up, and the agency behind the massive “Grand Central Station of the West” is hunting for a retail specialist to build out, lease and manage the space.
The Transbay Joint Powers Authority plans to issue a request for qualifications this month for a retail lessor and manager for the massive site. Designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, the transit center will eventually offer 160,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space — much more than one of San Francisco’s most successful retail sites, the Ferry Building, which offers 50,000 square feet of retail. The first phase of the retail space — 100,000 square feet — is expected to open in 2017 when the multi-modal transit center at the heart of the emerging Transbay neighborhood starts welcoming commuters.
The center will have 40,000 square feet of retail space at Natoma and Minna Streets, with a second floor of 60,000 square feet of space. The design will incorporate a lot of light and will be highly “transparent,” said architect Fred Clarke, adding that the ground floor will be built so that stores “spill out onto the street.”
Also above the ground level will be the rooftop park, with an amphitheater and two eateries. One will be a 11,000-square-foot, two-story restaurant that will seat 250 people and will likely provide food to the amphitheater and outdoor event space. There will also be a café and bar that will fit another 200 people. The large restaurant will have a roof deck, perched 90 feet in the air on top of the 70-foot-tall park. The smaller café will sit near the bridge from the Salesforce Tower to the park.
All that is part of phase one of the retail build-out, set to open in late 2017. A second phase, with 60,000 square feet of underground retail in a waiting area for the train station, will open when Caltrain adds service into the station.
The retail design has been in the works for a few years. The architect and members of the TJPA presented the plans to the citizens advisory board Tuesday night, and is expected to show the board of directors the plans in a presentation today. Next week, it will issue the request for qualifications for a master lessor for the retail component, and the company chosen will manage the space and find tenants.
Those who meet the qualifications for the master lessor will be issued the official request for proposals in March 2015. The department will select a finalist in June and execute an agreement by September 2015, giving the master lessor two years to pre-lease the site by the time it opens in 2017.
The TJPA wouldn’t say how much revenue it expects the retail center to generate annually. However, retail in the city generally leases for between $35 and $65 per square foot. Besides the designated eateries in the rooftop park, the department hasn’t specified how much or what kind of retail must go on each level, leaving it open to be “market-driven and flexible.”
“It’s a mixed-use neighborhood, with office buildings like the Salesforce tower. Many buildings are residential, and 100,000 commuters (will go through the Transit Center every day. It’s the center of whole new vital neighborhood,” Clarke said. “And it’s no longer hypothetical — it’s happening at this moment.”
Transbay Diaries 