Salesforce Tower raises stakes high
Love it, hate it or a little bit of both, building dramatically alters skyline
Say this about Salesforce Tower: The 1,070-foot high-rise nearing completion at First and Mission streets commands attention — and demands a response.
It’s 200 feet taller than the Transamerica Pyramid, downtown San Francisco’s previous high peak. The full-barreled bottom is twice as stocky as any other recently built tower in the neighborhood. For much of last year, the structure climbed at a rate of two stories per week.
But numbers alone aren’t why people are talking about the new kid in town. Here are five reasons Salesforce Tower is so provocative — whether you love it, hate it or feel a little bit of both.
It’s everywhere: Like President Trump on CNN, the tapered obelisk of metal and glass is
impossible to avoid.
Last week, for instance, I happened to visit the island of Alameda, and guess what punctuated the horizon beyond Willie Stargell Avenue, a hazy mirage amid blocks of mock historic suburban homes. A few days later, there it was above the billboards of Bayshore Boulevard along Highway 101.
Co-workers tell of unexpected perspectives from Geary Boulevard in the Outer Richmond to the Marin Headlands.
These are more than fleeting glimpses. They’re the visual proof that cultural tumult goes far beyond a skyline’s silhouette. San Francisco and the region are changing in profound ways, and Salesforce Tower shows that they aren’t just passing fads. Size matters: There’s a reason the silvery shaft is so tall: City Hall wanted it that way.
The design competition that planted the seed for Salesforce Tower and the adjacent Transbay Transit Center was held in 2007, and one goal from the start was “an iconic presence that will redefine the city's skyline.” After Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects was selected, a new neighborhood plan specified that the tower “should be the tallest building on the city’s skyline,” with a height of at least 1,000 feet.
By comparison, downtown heights in the 1980s were capped at 550 feet.
The 1,070-foot summit was reached even though there are “only” 61 stories within the 900 feet of inhabitable space. The office floors have a ceiling height of almost 14 feet, several feet more than what’s found in a typical high-rise. The 170 feet above the top floor is purely for show — the panels now being installed will conceal mechanical equipment and a sizable void.
In other words ... it’s a stretch. Perpetual flux: From the moment it began to climb in January 2016, Salesforce Tower has put on a show.
First it was a thick concrete bar ascending with grim determination. Then, steel floors started snapping into place like some Erector Set on steroids.
The concrete and steel soon broke free of nearby buildings, followed by curtain-wall panels scrambling upward in a quest to close the gap. And let’s not forget the two gaunt cranes rising ever higher— likened to everything from robotic arms to ominous pincers, always on the move.
No wonder the newcomer has attracted so much attention in recent months. Not only can you see it from just about every vantage point west of the Caldecott Tunnel, it’s alive! Will it ever stop? Yes. By mid-August, the tower should be fully enclosed. But even then ...
Design mysteries remain: There still are unanswered questions about how the tapered titan will touch the ground — including its half-acre plaza at Fremont and Mission streets, which will double as the main entrance to the Transbay Transit Center, set to open early next year.
The approved plan features a grove of redwood trees and an enormous sculpture assembled from concrete blocks salvaged from the old terminal. But apparently Salesforce is no fan of the design, and the development team of Boston Properties and Hines is expected to submit a new version next month to the City Planning Department.
Despite the late hour, any major revision needs a thorough review. This will be the district’s civic crossroads — we deserve a design that welcomes the public at large. The shock of the new: Salesforce Tower is immense. It is, by far, the tallest of a new crop of high-rises that have altered the balance between this city’s natural hills and its built terrain.
And many longtime residents don’t like it one bit.
“I would hope that you could recognize this monstrosity of a building to be nothing more than graffiti in the sky,” one wrote me in March. “It has completely ruined and polluted our beloved skyline.”
That’s also the view of Dianne Feinstein, the city’s mayor when the downtown height limits were lowered.
When Chamber of Commerce leaders visited the fourterm senator in Washington last month, the conversation quickly shifted to “how much she hates the city’s new skyline,” one person at the meeting told Chronicle columnists Matier & Ross.
But consider this: The initial reaction to Transamerica Pyramid, downtown’s summit from 1972 until last fall, was exponentially more intense. There were protests not only from neighbors but also such groups as the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects. The architectural critic of the Washington Post warned of a threat to “one of the most breathtaking skylines of the world.”
The story of the Bay Area since the 1960s is defined by the tension between a region with global aspirations and one that doesn’t want to lose what made it special in the first place. Salesforce Tower raises the stakes, like other towers have before.
The question is what happens when the shock of the new wears off — and whether most of us then will wonder what the fuss was all about.