Jewel of city skyline marketed for sale
Soaring real estate values prompt longawaited sale
The Transamerica Pyramid, San Francisco’s secondtallest building and an icon of the city’s financial might for four decades, is being marketed for sale for the first time.
“Right now, San Francisco has a very robust office real estate market,” Jay Orlandi, chief administrative officer at Transamerica, said in a statement. “We are exploring options for a possible 100% interest sale of the property, with Transamerica retaining naming and branding rights.”
With real estate values soaring, the tower and two smaller, adjacent buildings also being sold could command more than $600 million, or $800 per square foot, based on recent transactions.
Transamerica Corp., the insurance conglomerate that built the 853foot tower in 1972, no longer occupies the building. Like much of the city’s finance industry, it downsized and eventually moved its headquarters to Iowa after it was sold to Dutch company Aegon in 1999.
The building is 90% leased by primarily financial tenants including Callan, JMP Group and Northwestern Mutual, according to real estate brokerage data.
“When you see the skyline, it’s the pyramid that says San Francisco.” Mitchell Schwarzer, an architectural historian and professor at California College of the Arts
Last year, the company unsuccessfully sought to sell a 49% ownership stake in the tower, but it is now selling the entire building. San Francisco Business Times first reported that the building was for sale.
The pyramid’s distinct triangular spire and unprecedented height drew scorn in the 1970s. Built on the northern edge of the Financial District at 600 Montgomery St., it soared above the small structures of neighboring Jackson Square and Chinatown.
Allan Jacobs, the city planning director at the time, called the tower an “inhuman creation” and feared the “devastating effect of the tower on the fabric of the city.” The backlash fit a pattern of landmarkstobe around the world that were initially lambasted.
“People reacted against the Empire State Building. They reacted against the Eiffel Tower. It’s part of the history of any kind of groundbreaking, tall building,” said Mitchell Schwarzer, an architectural historian and professor at California College of the Arts in Oakland.
In 1986, antipathy toward the pyramid and other new skyscrapers led San Francisco voters to approve Proposition M, which restricts the amount of office space the city can approve each year. That law is now constraining new development amid record demand from tech companies.
As the years passed, the pyramid became a cultural fixture on coffee mugs, postcards and signs depicting the city’s skyline. It’s appeared in a range of movies — partially built in David Fincher’s “Zodiac” film about the serial killer, and dwarfed by the futuristic skyline in “Star Trek Into Darkness.”
Today, the pyramid is beloved, Schwarzer said.
“The building is probably one of the strongest identifiers of San Francisco. When you see the skyline, it’s the pyramid that says San Francisco, along with the Coit Tower and Golden Gate Bridge,” he said. “It’s not as bulky compared to the Bank of America tower and Salesforce Tower. This is actually one of the slimmer, more elegant skyscrapers in the city, so we like it.”
Despite its charms, the pyramid has disadvantages competing with modern skyscrapers, said John Ellis, a principal at architecture firm Mithun, which has offices in San Francisco.
“The floorplates at the top are so tiny. They would make great little apartments, but they’re pretty useless as offices,” he said.
Ellis thinks the building could also use renovations.
“It looks a bit shabby,” he said.
It took more than 30 years for the pyramid to lose its title as San Francisco’s tallest building. City officials embraced taller buildings in the Transbay district and approved the 1,070foot Salesforce Tower, which opened last year. After more than two centuries, San Francisco’s Financial District north of Market Street is no longer the dominant feature on the skyline.