SAN FRANCISCO | Oceanwide Center | 910 & 636 FT | 61 & 54 Floors | ON HOLD

[tech12]

Originally Posted by Zapatan

It still looks ~900. Either way this building is gonna be gorgeous! Can't wait

It is ~900' (910' or 905', depending on source). The 850' number is to the roof, not the full structural height.

[slock]

The latest planning documents confirm the height never changed.

In fact, the author of the article went back and corrected:

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci...us-foster.html

[Zapatan]

Nice, another taller than the Pyramid

[spyguy]

I think this rendering was already posted, but here it is in more detail:

Source: Architectural Digest

[robertjhajek]

Thanks slock for that answer

This and 181 Fremont are my two favorites. Love the facade.

[david_h]

This was just posted in the neighborhood...

[minesweeper]

Walking along First Street a few months ago, most of the buildings slated for demolition have "for lease" signs or otherwise looked vacant.

One exception was the FasTrak customer service office, but they are now moving out of 62 First Street to the new MTC building on Beale. So, it looks like the developer is letting leases expire to make sure construction can start soon after approval.

[slock]

Thanks for the update minesweeper. There's been some permit activity in the past few days which show that they're ready to move forward once approvals are in hand.

Soft Demo permit issued last week on 4/15:

http://dbiweb.sfgov.org/dbipts/defau...=PermitDetails

Permit pulled 4/21 for full demo:

http://dbiweb.sfgov.org/dbipts/defau...=PermitDetails

[edwards]

Planning to break ground in November.

New Timing for San Francisco’s Second Tallest Tower to Rise

[pseudolus]

Originally Posted by edwards

Planning to break ground in November.

New Timing for San Francisco’s Second Tallest Tower to Rise

A Socketsite commenter suggested using green glass and calling it the Asparagus Tower.

[SFSkyline]

I honestly don't know why people are so excited about this project other than the height. It's a recycled Foster design (see Hearst Tower, NYC) to go along with Pelli's recycled design across the street. The exposed elevator core looks like crap, and Heller Manus is designing the shorter tower.

[edwards]

^ most starchitects recycle their designs, people are excited as it doesn't look like most of the shoebox highrises in the city

[viewguysf]

^^ Plus, we don't have the final design for the shorter tower and we've been widely praising Heller Manus for their design of 181 Fremont. In addition, the public spaces under the skyscraper hold the potential for becoming a great San Francisco asset.

[SFTransplant]

Originally Posted by SFSkyline

I honestly don't know why people are so excited about this project other than the height. It's a recycled Foster design (see Hearst Tower, NYC) to go along with Pelli's recycled design across the street. The exposed elevator core looks like crap, and Heller Manus is designing the shorter tower.

Who says beautiful buildings can't be built twice? Also, when you've designed a more gorgeous building that meets all the arcane and magnificently detailed requirements of a project of this stature, I'd love to see it.

[SFView]

'Recycled' design is prevalent in the automobile and fashion industry. It works to great success, mixed with various degrees of change an innovation. This also applies to architecture, and other fields related to art and design to different extents.

[PBuchman]

Originally Posted by SFView

'Recycled' design is prevalent in the automobile and fashion industry. It works to great success, mixed with various degrees of change an innovation. This also applies to architecture, and other fields related to art and design to different extents.

This is absolutely correct. You'll similarly find recycled forms in Leonardo Da Vinci's artwork, Beethoven's symphonies, or Rossini's operas (in the case of Rossini it's sometimes so blatant as to be called "self-plagiarism").

I think the tower design looks incredible, even if it's not revolutionary.

[slock]

With regards to the earlier post, the shorter tower (637') is also designed by Foster+Partners, not Heller Manus. And that is the final design, as discussed in their informational presentations to planning. The windows will have sharp metal frames and the building will be covered in travertine.

http://www.fosterandpartners.com/pro...anwide-center/

[simms3_redux]

I personally love the shorter tower. I'd call it restrained but sophisticated. I like it in ways I like the Chevron Tower (now 535 Market I believe). It will inspire a sense of height and verticality that we aren't fully used to in SF (fancy way of saying it will feel and appear to be really tall), and I find offense that people are lumping it in with some of the 1970s Market St boxes (that aren't the Chevron Tower). Not every new building needs to be a unique shape or have a crown and just because we haven't done much of that in the past doesn't mean we need to overcompensate for it now by demanding that of every new building.

To be honest, I'm just as excited for the shorter tower as I am for the larger one at this point.

I also take offense to the notion that the taller tower is a recycled Hearst. That's a simplistic way of looking at either and picking the 2 primary details kind of sort of shared by each and ignoring each tower's multitude of differences.

I do agree that the westward facing treatment is less than desirable, and I'd rather the amount of time/energy/money spent [remaining to be spent just to get the building started] be devoted to resolving that a little, but this is SF - we could make demands of that and still require all the other stuff and potentially derail the whole project and as it presently stands, the project is still good enough to green light as is in my book to get it done (reading between the lines, the project as proposed and rendered now is by far a bet positive that I'd rather not risk changing it for the worse or worse, derailing it, than shooting for a 98-100% A+).

With the site as it is, we are going from an F below 50% on a bell curve to a 85-95 grade range, on a bell curve. Name another city besides maybe New York that would be as nit picky about this as we are being now.

[SFSkyline]

^ You take offense? Are you the architect? What do you have to be offended about? Oh wait, it's San Francisco. If you aren't offended by something, you must not be alive.

Regarding the project, let's begin with the shorter building. Newsflash: 1 Market is calling and they want their Spear Street tower back. So far this thing looks just like the 70s and 80s towers that are so reviled.

The taller tower has one nice façade - the one facing the bay. The other three façades look ridiculous. Just look at the color rendering above. From this perspective, half of the building is the faceted tower and half is the lifeless core. People on this forum bitch about Jasper and the Intercontinental Hotel for what this building is doing, i.e., turning its back to the city. I think the bay-facing side of Jasper is awesome, but the rear elevation is atrocious.

And on the recycling subject, there is a difference between recycling designs for things that come and go from year to year, such as cars and clothes, and permanent fixtures that define and distinguish a city. They're nowhere near comparable. Pelli took his Gran Torre and turned it into a giant dildo for our pleasure. It's a shame that neither of San Francisco's tallest buildings will be a true original. But hey, we've still got the Pyramid.

[mt_climber13]

And Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have been chosen to become the presidential candidates to lead us throughout the next 8 years.
Life is full of disappointment.