Can't wait for renderings. :D

Great job but I'd like to note that the situation will be even more dramatic than shown because the Millenium tower should be there just to the left of the other new buildings and one or more of the new Rincon towers would be in the background (I'm pretty sure I can see at least the site of the One Rincon South Tower just to the right of the TransBay group ).

Now, the question is, will they be slender, with some kind of a crown, or massive with a flat roof ?

I hope they make the Transbay Tower the tallest on the west coast, the US Bank Tower in LA has held the title for a good time period now and that needs to change. With 301 Mission and Rincon Tower rising the skyline will look incredible from the south once all the projects are completed. I never thought SF would be building skyscrapers like this again...

^Looks like your hope has a chance in hell. A little birdie has whispered in our ear: it may be 1250' tall.

looks like it would fit the skyline perfectly...hope it becomes reality.

This Planning Department hates flat roofs. They will require AT LEAST some kind of sculpting to hide the HVAC equipment (a la the St. Regis), but odds are since they seem determined to create a real landmark that they will want something dramatic.:cheers:

This is just beyond good news. Hopefully this ball keeps rollin'.

here are some new images of the new towers.

(thanks to j church for copying the images from the presentation!)

http://sfcityscape.com/forum/transba...ure_island.jpg

http://sfcityscape.com/forum/transba...w_from_280.jpg

http://sfcityscape.com/forum/transba...erial_view.jpg

can we all say SEXY!

^That's hawt

But that ^^^ could really scare the NIMBY's

The really surprising thing to me is that most of those towers have already been approved. I count about 10 of them approved and, as we know 4 are under construction (the Millenium Tower is shown as complete in the rendering).

It's good to see that the SF fear of heights is disappearing. :tup:

Approaching 2 months since the last post was made in here. There is zero news about this tower?

The Transbay Terminal project will be going on for the next 25 years,, give it some time... we still have many approvals,, land sales, financing, etc.. to go;)

The way I see it in SF is, you have a busy, chaotic downtown (like it is now), but within 10 blocks, you can be in pre-war 2 story homes or other such buildings.

San Francisco is about contrast, and what better way to contrast the vast majority of the city (low-rise/single family homes) with a 1000' skyscraper downtown?

Lets do it!

The reason housing is so expensive there is the lack of new housing developements. More of these types of projects could make housing more affordable.

I hate to admit that you're probably right.
But the important thing is that the tall one won't come last.

The 1000 ft plus tower is just a vague proposal at this point. They haven't even said how tall it will actually be (they are hinting at 1250 ft or more) and they certainly haven't sprung it on the NIMBYs who will doubtlessly scream so loud you'll hear them in Reno. I would actually call this quite literaslly "pie in the sky" except for the fact that some of the usual nay-sayers seem to want the TransBay redevelopment so badly, they may swallow the tower too which seems like the only way to pay for the terminal.

It may--or at least next to last. The land across Mission St where an 850 ft. building is proposed has already been aquired by a developer who seems game to build (and, of course, the Millenium on the other side of the terminal block is already under construction).

The 850 footer would be the nearer gray one in this picture (the Millenium will be just a bit taller than the existing building just to the left of the tallest dark blue tower and just behind that building):

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...RANSBAY-SM.jpg

Is it just me, or are skyscrapers becoming less taboo and more accepted (at least by NIMBYs)? It seems that they are becoming more of a fact of life rather than some strange and alien thing that is built.

However, I firmly believe that if something is built in San Francisco that is over 700, 800 feet, it better be something architecturally significant - not just some glass 'thing' that looks like everything else being built. The Bank of America building (or 555 California...) and Transamerica tower are just beautiful and its nice they stand out, but if something taller is built, it better not be some trendy piece of modern junk - it better be something that people will want to look at for the next 100 years.

What makes a lot of the buildings in SF unique is their cladding/fact they are not just glass curtain walls, and I would hope something new and big would carry on this tradition.

I thought the development was pursuing to abolish height limits in this part of the city. They should just keep increasing the height until people start protesting. I wonder what would happen if they just kept going until they got to like 2000 feet ... heh, now that would be something amazing to see in SF.

i don't think we'll ever see SF abolish height limits altogether for any part of the city, including transbay or rincon hill. at transbay, you're see the planning department raise height on certain parcels to allow for increased development that will help fund the new transbay transit center. personally, i think a 2000' building would overwhelm san francisco's skyline. a 1000'+ would be just fine! :D ;)

I'm not sure, I think the FAA limit is 2000 feet anyways. I actually stole the idea from the Freedom Tower. It would be neat to see SF build a skyscraper with symbolic height(s) at 1849 feet (to roof) for the Gold Rush, 1906 feet (structural) for the 1906 earthquake, and 2000 or 2006 feet (spire) for the 100 anniversary of the earthquake. Now that should bring quite a bit of revenue and tourism :psycho:

Maybe I'm getting too greedy, lol. 1,350 feet sounds great ... for now :yes:

mm, well i think for the same reasons none of the new wtc buildings are 911' tall, using the 1906 earthquake to provide a symbolic height doesn't really make sense. it wasn't really a triumph in san francisco, mostly an infamous disaster. 1776 was a great symbolic triumph for the us so therefore . . .

Hey, lets crack the glass ceiling of 850 before we start thinking about 2000ft.

At this point anything above that 1250ft'er that people were floating around would be ridiculously out of scale imho.

It would be nice if we could avoid junking up this thread about an actual concept for the Transbay development with totally self-indulgent fantasies about dreamed-up towers that are totally divorced from all reality.

True, I guess I was just dreaming out loud ;)

But yeah, just the fact that these towers exceed 853 feet, is a sign that times in SF are changing. :)

I never thought of a building height of 1906 feet or even 2006 feet, just because those dates don't commemorate something joyous or happy. But I have before thought of a building being 1,850 feet, to commemorate the year California was admitted to the union as a state. But of course, such a building could be built in any of the state's major cities, such as Sacramento, particularly since they are the capital. It would just look pretty odd there. Either LA or SF would be a better choice, but I think fear of earthquakes would preclude any building being much taller than 1,000 feet in those cities.

Its definetly possible, just not right now. I think that after the public sees that having a supertall building like the Transbay Tower in SF is safe and visually apealing to both tourists and locals alike, then they will feel more comfortable discussing future buildings like this or taller.

Let's wait for the next official announcement on Transbay before we continue to speculate on possibilities. Such announcements are due soon, and could contain even more good and unexpected surprises.

I also agree that the design will need to be world class or it will look awful.

Maybe once Rincon and some of the other under-way projects are done, we will have a better idea.

Guess the real test will be a firm drawing up a real plan and making some real renderings with the proposed building. My guess would be it would need to be staggered to look right.

The competition and development plan announcements for Transbay should give a good framework for the basis of the new designs. The International Completition is expected to draw applicants from many of the biggest and best names in architecture on Earth. Even after the winners of the Transbay Terminal and Towers are selected, the designs and heights may continue to change towards further refinement, just as they are for the WTC buildings in New York City. San Francisco should not settle for anything less in quality and attention. Having Renzo Piano design at least one of the towers is a good start.

San Francisco really need a supertall skyscraper in its skyline. Glad to hear about these proposals.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought there was a special meeting somewhere around late October, I dont think they will announce anything final at this meeting, so whats so special about it?

We need to wait for the agenda to be posted by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA) on or after Tuesday, October 24, before we can better know the reasons for this “special meeting” Friday, October 27 at noon, Room 400, City Hall. It is still possible we may be getting a better first hand update from the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency instead. Again, we should also wait until any agendas are published, or actual meetings take place. However the situation, it is good to keep on alert.

I heard they had cancelled the other two meetings that should have already taken place. So, there might not be anything "special" about it besides the date. But its always exiting to hear new news from TJPA regarding Transbay.

If anything, it's Manhattan that's been San Franciscized lately.

Not that it's too much of a bad thing though.

Yes, Reminisence, you are probably right. I am actually expecting the official information to come from SFRA. I was just hoping we could get some kind of preview or hints of information from TJPA. Maybe, maybe not...

Even if San Francisco adds one or two, or even three +1000 foot supertalls, it is still a very long way from becoming another Manhattan or Hong Kong. However, the planners are looking at Vancouver and Chicago as models. We are already seeing such influences in new construction such as 300 Spear, One Rincon Hill and others.

^^^ Sigh, yea, that is true, according to emporis.com SF has only like 398 highrises and compared to NYC and HK which have 5,503 and 7,548 highrises respectively, San Francisco cluster of highrises seems like a small dot to NYC and HK.

as a san franciscan who now lives in new york, i would never like to see my hometown let highrises spread across san francisco as they do in new york. san francisco truly does have a special character, and that would be destroyed if we buried it under highrises. that's not to say that i don't support highrise development in certain neighborhoods (financial district, rincon/transbay, treasure island, nob hill, SoMa, the van ness corridor, civic center, and mid-market).

new york and san francisco are two completely different creatures.

For me, Transbay is just the start of a wave. Historically, I would think SF is known more for its building density than its building heights. However, with people growing more and more against urban sprawl, and with SF being such a small area city (compared with other cities), eventually the city will need to grow taller to keep up with demand. In terms of comparision between SF and Hong Kong or New York, its not really usefull as the two arent even in the same realm. But there is definetly plenty of space for highrises in the city, just ask the people who are against all those empty parking lots in the city, I know I am.

Skyscrapers are nice and all, and most of the new skyscrapers get all the attention, but it's not a fluke that the most interesting and lively parts of the City are more or less those neighborhoods with 3-5 story buildings - the Haight, the Mission, the Marina, Chinatown, North Beach, etc. are not known for their height-defying buildings, that's for sure.

Man could you imagine San Francisco having a high rise building boom to the tune of Hong Kong's! I'm not really sure I'd like it but then again I would. I feel so ambiguous.

Honestly, I would like to see the skyscrapers only on the east side of the city, just more and bigger. But the area between San Jose and San Francisco, for example, I honestly don't think skyscrapers would really fit (well, the business are fine, where there is already stuff, as it does fit in well), but I think a lot of the charm of the area would be lost if it was too heavily-developed.

Also, it would be badass to have some 20, 30, 40 story stuff in the East Bay (like downtown Concord, Walnut Creek)

Another prime area will be the 880 corridor - this area will just become more and more urban (cue music from Scion commercial) as the value goes up, and people choose to live here to save on commutes and take advantage of the location.

:previous:

Exactly as kenratboy said it. I think right now, I'd just like to see more skyscrapers and taller, much taller.

Theres some of the Bay Area that I would think can never have tall skyscrapers because of the nearby airports and thier FAA height regulations.

Its hard to imagine SF like Hong Kong but I think a comparision between SF and Chicago are more realistic. Not that its a downturn because Chicago has some nice architecture too. :yes:

This was one of the image panels in the Transbay Downtown Heights Study presented by SFRA last May 31, 2006.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...ridProgram.jpg

Notice the clustering of towers around Transbay Terminal have similarities.
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...ay-aerial1.jpg

...And here is an image from a SFRA publication given about 2 years earlier showing two conceptual "550 and 450" foot tall Transbay residential towers. The towers seem to have Chicago feel about them. The imagined towers are probably closer in height to those at One Rincon Hill.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...conceptual.jpg

Edit double post

If I remember right, the presentation that was made, reflected the modeling of the Transbay Tower project similar to the area around The John Hancock Center in Chicago(which would explain the images above). The only thing we have yet to know is what the approximate heights for Transbay will be. Even though there is speculation that it will be somwhere aound 1250 feet or more, who knows what might happen after these upcoming meetings, especially since the time slated for the design of the Transbay Towers themselves is up and coming soon. We may end up modeling after The Sears Tower or higher and not The John Hancock Center, I say this being curious just how high they intend on taking this project :ack:

If the new plan is inspired by Chicago, we won't be disappointed.
I only hope that it won't be reduced in magnitude. Last time they did it (the Embarcadero center that was a pale version of the Rockefeller center), the result was pitiful.