Deluxe hotel planned at 61-story skyscraper in Transbay district.
61-story mixed-use tower at 550 Howard St. to feature 180-room deluxe Rosewood Hotel
San Francisco’s next major skyscraper — a 61-story mixeduse tower planned for 550 Howard St. in the Transbay district — will break ground in the first quarter of next year and will include a deluxe 180-room Rosewood Hotel, the developer announced on Thursday.
The 800-foot tower, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli — the same architects that designed the Transbay Transit Center and adjacent Salesforce Tower — will total 1.1-million square feet and include about 250,000 square feet of office space, 170 condos and 79,000 square feet of shared amenity space, the developer said.
The Rosewood Hotel portion of the project will occupy 15 floors with plenty of the highend bells and whistles that allow the brand’s Rosewood Sand Hill hotel in Palo Alto to charge between $1,000 and $1,300 a night — a lap pool, spa, indoor/outdoor restaurant, events spaces, patisserie and something called the Manor
A rendering shows the planned 800-foot tower designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli, the same architects that designed the Transbay Transit Center and adjacent Salesforce Tower.
Club, the brand’s “signature private lounge concept,” according to the news release.
Sonia Cheng, chief executive officer of Rosewood Hotel Group, called San Francisco “an ideal destination for the Rosewood brand,” she said.
“As one of the most dynamic and innovative cities in North America, San Francisco offers an eclectic mix of culture, cuisine, art, technology and adventure,” she said.
While it feels incongruous to be plotting the details of a new soaring glass tower at a time when many of the city’s existing soaring glass towers sit empty, real estate developers are nothing if not optimistic. The tower will take more than two-anda-half years to build, with the hotel build-out slated for completion a bit later, in 2026.
The commitment to start construction is especially bold considering the tenant that originally committed to the office space, Salesforce, backed out of the deal because of increased remote work brought on by the pandemic. The 806-foot tower will be the city’s fourthtallest building, The developer is F4 Transbay Partners, a joint venture of Hines, Urban Pacific and Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
Veteran hotel consultant Rick Swig said that San Francisco had a hotel room shortage prior to the pandemic and that is still likely to be the case afterward, assuming Moscone Convention Center will again be bustling and tourists are once again standing in line at the Powell Street cable car turntable. The only new hotel slated to open in the next year is Line, a 232room boutique hotel at 950 Market St.
“If you had asked me before March of 2020 I would have said San Francisco is undersupplied with quality hotel rooms at all levels, from economy up through luxury,” he said. “At some point in 2024, when we are stabilized, that same shortage will exist. It’s about 5,000 rooms.”
San Francisco’s hospitality market has been among the slowest to rebound nationally, with it’s “revenue per available room” dropping 70% from $203 in May 2019 to $62 according to the July report from the American Hotel & Lodging Association.
Two of the city’s biggest hotels — the 1,024-room Hilton Parc 55 San Francisco, located near Union Square, and the 1,921room Hilton Union Square — were both closed for more than a year before reopening earlier this year.
Andrew Robinson, executive director of the East Cut Community Benefits District, said that the hotel would bring more foot traffic to Salesforce Park and would also create high-quality jobs for residents of the affordable housing that make up 30% of the units in the district. Another hotel is planned for 555 Howard St., across from the Rosewood site.
“Having two new hotels across the street from each other will only amplify the volume of visitors coming to the neighborhood and exploring the park and the waterfront along the Embarcadero,” he said. “It will help make the East Cut a destination.”