FIRST-CLASS WAY TO GET AROUND
Transbay Transit Center in downtown SF boasts a sprawling 5.4-acre rooftop public park, plus 100,000 square feet of retail space
When architect Fred Clarke and his team were first envisioning San Francisco’s new Transbay Transit Center — which officially opens to the public this weekend — they knew they needed to do more than merely provide a way for people to get in and out of the city.
“Transit centers, particularly in the United States, have a way of killing neighborhoods, not creating neighborhoods,” he said. “We wanted to reverse that with this building.”
This is not your great-grandmother’s Grand Central Station. The sprawling complex — rebranded as the Salesforce Transit Center thanks to the company’s $110 million contribution — stretches a little more than the length of five city blocks along Mission Street between Second and Beale streets. Perhaps the only thing the two buildings share, beyond their function, is a central hall rising 125 feet from floor to ceiling, he said.
As a 21st century transporta-
tion hub that will immediately serve AC Transit, Muni and other buses, the center boasts modern digital display boards, an LED ticker tape art project in the main entrance that serves to amuse and inspire, sensors that reflect the movement of buses and an undulating geometric envelope that marries both art and mathematics. The aluminum casing, a nod to the city’s tech industry, allows natural light to pass through its porous facade, while also quite literally reflecting the neighborhood in its mica-flecked paint.
And as a new San Francisco icon and community resource, it boasts a sprawling 5.4-acre rooftop park that is actually 13 distinct
gardens connected with meandering paths. There’s a fountain encircling the roof that shoots water in time with buses running along the platform below, an open-air amphitheater, areas of open grass, space for children to play and a yet-to-be-opened restaurant. A glass-encased gondola will, beginning in late September, whisk pedestrians from the corner of Mission and Fremont streets 70 feet through the air to the park.
“Being able to support and create and make a healthy environment is really an interesting assignment for a bus terminal,” said Clarke of Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects. “You don’t imagine it having that kind of power, but it really does.”
The expansive building will be a formidable bar to meet as planners begin imagining San Jose’s Diridon
Station, which city officials and transportation planners hope will serve as the region’s new gateway to both Silicon Valley and the Bay Area. The Salesforce Transit Center’s opening comes as Google is planning its own development around the Diridon station, bringing up to 20,000 workers to San Jose’s downtown, plus homes, shops, restaurants and office spaces.
San Francisco’s new terminal will ultimately host nearly a dozen transit agencies, including Caltrain and high-speed rail, with an underground tunnel connecting passengers to BART. That won’t happen until 2028 at the earliest, said Dennis Turchon, a senior construction manager for the Transbay Joint Powers Authority. Until then, it will mostly serve buses, with Muni at street
level and AC Transit, Amtrak, Greyhound and WestCat taking advantage of an exclusive on- and off-ramp from the Bay Bridge that sails over city traffic along an aerial guideway.
But funding for the second phase of the project is far from certain. The first phase, initially budgeted at just under $1.2 billion, nearly doubled in cost to $2.259 billion. Part of that included a $400 million federal grant to complete the train station below the terminal as part of the first phase, rather than doing that work later, Turchon said.
Construction bids also came in much higher than anticipated, he said, which added to the ballooning budget.
“There were so many things that were being constructed at the same time — really massive projects,”
Turchon said. “So, we had a lot of competition and that drove up prices.”
The second phase of the project will extend Caltrain’s railroad tracks from Fourth and King streets to the new transit center. It’s estimated to cost $4 billion for the tunnel and another $2 billion for related work, he said.
Ongoing maintenance and operations of the transit center will be partially funded through Salesforce’s 25-year naming rights agreement, as well as contributions from the Greater Rincon Hill Community Benefit District, and through leasing 100,000 square feet of retail, which is still under construction.
The new tenants so far include a gym, Philz Coffee, a dentist’s office and a restaurant, which will likely move in during the summer or fall of next year, said Christine Falvey, a spokeswoman for the joint powers authority. But, in the meantime, pop-up restaurants and coffee carts will provide quick bites to travelers on the go.
And, to quell fears that the shiny new transit center will become a home for drug users or a magnet for the city’s homeless residents, the authority plans to offer classes and other activities to attract residents and visitors. There are cameras throughout the building, ample exits and entrances and San Francisco police to patrol its grounds, said Randy Volenec, the Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects’ project manager for the transit center.
“We want people to feel welcome here,” he said.