Why is everybody so surprised that the tower is now 1,070 feet? I thought that had been common knowledge for at least several months, if not longer...though I guess it may have been known mostly just with the people actively following the project.
I'm glad this isn't dead and I'm still liking it despite the decrease in height (still would be SF's first 1,000'+ highrise), though I'm also one of the few who preferred Pelli's design over the SOM design. It's not that I didn't like the SOM tower, but it struck me as a design that would possibly look outdated and maybe even a bit cheesy, 20 or 50 years down the line, especially considering how much taller than the surrounding towers the Transit Tower would be (thus causing it to be extra visible). The Pelli tower is a bit more boring and conservative in design, I can't deny that, but it seems to fit better with the existing skyline SF has to work with, while pushing the height envelope at the same time. And despite the relative "boringness" of the Pelli tower compared to the SOM one, it still seems pretty elegant and good-looking to me, especially in a city like SF where many skyscrapers are bland boxes from the 60s-80s. Another bonus is that by staying with a relatively conservative and somewhat shorter design, the wrath of dormant NIMBYs is less likely to be incurred upon completion.
One thing I'm excited about is the fact that if this does get built, we may be more likely to get additional buildings in the sub 1,000 foot range, but hopefully taller than the current 400-600 ft. plateau the city has going on. I'd love to see a few more 600+, 700+, and hopefully 800+ towers (including the 915 ft./640 ft. SOM proposal, and 700 ft. Heller Manus proposal) get built, which would provide new, shorter, peaks that would help fill in the gaps between the three main peaks of the Transamerica/Bank of America buildings, the Transit Tower, and One Rincon Hill.
We may not get another supertall for a long, long time, but I'm OK with that as long as this and a couple more 600-900 footers get built in addition to the more commonly proposed/built 200-400 foot towers. SF isn't a
gigantic city (especially in terms of physical size), just a big one...and we already have a shit ton of highrises built and more planned, tons of office space built and planned (and tons more office space elsewhere in the region in SJ, Oakland, and the suburbs), lots of residential units recently built/under construction and planned (though we could always use tons more, especially affordable units) and a beautiful backdrop for it all regardless. Meaning, when it comes to economic growth, as well as skyscraper dick-measuring/civic pride type stuff, a single super tall seems perfectly acceptable to me for SF, at least at this point in time and probably the near future too. Plus, unless we get some decent infill in the 600+ foot range, having more super talls will just mean having yet more awkward looking peaks that are far taller than any surrounding buildings, unless they manage to get built right near the transit tower or Transamerica/BofA.
And fifteen years ago just the thought of this would have been insane, so all things considered I'm quite happy with the way things are going. I just hope this proposal stays alive and has no more height chopped off of it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roadcruiser1
They can't. The FAA won't allow it due to the proxmity to the airport and a law from the 1970's also prevents it because no building can create shadows on parks and plazas.
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I think you may be confusing SF and SJ. San Jose has FAA mandated height limits in the downtown of about 300 ft., due to the location of the airport, which is just north of DT SJ. SF's heights limits, as mentioned, are in large part because of NIMBYs complaining about their pretty views being blocked, so-called "Manahattanization", etc, etc (you know, the weird types who view SF as a quaint fishing village or some crap). Also, some anti-gentrification stuff was part of it, which as I understand actually helped save both the Tenderloin and Chinatown from getting drastically altered in the name of urban renewal (and racism) and the expansion of the downtown highrise core (which is what happened to a former Filipino area that was adjacent to downtown SF/Chinatown/North beach, as well as a huge chunk of the Fillmore district, aka the former "Harlem of the West")...so their is a good side to some of the NIMBY stuff at times. Can you imagine if both Chinatown and the Tenderloin were like Union Square and the financial district instead of what they currently are? Or worse, if they had been turned into a bunch of crime-ridden public housing projects, such as what happened in the Fillmore? It would have been quite a hit to SF's culture and lower class population.
That shadow stuff is relatively new though, If I'm not mistaken, and it's pretty dumb. The downtown area should be exempt, it's pretty ridiculous how some people expect parks in the middle of a sea of highrises (one of the largest highrise seas in one of the largest downtowns in the nation, no less) to be 100% shadow-free, especially seeing as 99% of those parks aren't exactly used for sunbathing or family picnics or anything like that.
I'm all for height limits in many areas, in the name of preservation of feel/rents/views/etc, as long as they aren't ridiculous (I'd like to see more 100-300 foot residential buildings in denser neighborhoods away from downtown, for example, including way more affordable stuff, but I'm also all for keeping many or most areas dominated by single family homes in the exact same form as they are) but existing downtown highrise areas, such as the Financial district, Union Square, SOMA, and Civic Center, should be allowed to build out to their full potential, or at least very close to it (and there's still plenty of potential in those areas, especially SOMA). Same goes for the tenderloin to an extent, but I would hate to see one of SF's remaining lower class areas get heavily gentrified, so I'm hesitant on that if it doesn't include lots of affordable housing. I wouldn't mind seeing more towers on Russian Hill, Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, or Cathedral Hill either, which are also existing highrise areas. Some more in SOMA/South Beach/Mission Bay, in the area south of Rincon Hill would be nice too (even if they're shorter ones), in order to soften the abrupt skyline drop-off from One Rincon hill. Basically I feel it's very possible for SF to have a much taller and more built-out skyline (and thus a larger population, more business, more money, etc, etc), while at the same time retaining it's many small-scale, historic, densely packed, lowrise and midrise areas, which some people seem to think is impossible for some reason (though many of those naysayers just want to keep their nice views, I think). So yeah, hopefully Sue Hestor and all the members of NIMBY groups such as the "telegraph hill dwellers" fall off a mountain or something, and SF can stop getting held back so much.
/end tangent
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