The Salesforce Tower will stand for centuries, but the employees are gone

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

the fact that those techies might be all wearing Patagonia just emphasizes their sameness and how much into corporations they really are... kind of like the supposed "hip" techies that used to wear North Face but are now all into Columbia windbreakers---which to me is all mainstream corporate Karen-wear.

Say what you want--Allbirds are DAMNED comfortable!

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

^That's what they said about the Eiffel Tower.

Anyway, I thought Salesforce had bitten the dust and gone under from the doom and gloom of that article as if I'd missed something.

Yes an a lot of money and time has been spent Turing the tower permeant

even saying that its far from standing the test of time it hasn't even been around for 200 years yet.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

I didn't interpret the article as saying that tech lacks soul, but that the Salesforce Tower does. I can see why some people might say that; again, I like the way the tower looks from a distance against the skyline, but I can see why some people might call it "soul-less corporate architecture." That wouldn't be unique to this particular building; a lot of current corporate architecture looks like that.

He kept harping on the tech takeover and definitely has an anti-tech slant to his piece, so I interpreted it as both.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Given that Salesforce had full-building leases on 3 corners of the intersection at Mission and Fremont (including the eponymous tower) and had been in discussions for additional space in the Oceanwide Center and Parcel F tower, I think it's reasonable to expect that they'll consolidate in the iconic tower, probably forget about additional space in Oceanwide and Parcel F and probably sublease some space in the other buildings at Mission & Fremont. But those employees working several days a week in the office plus the ones working full time in the office will probably keep the Salesforce Tower well occupied.

Yep, if you look up at this intersection, you can see all 3 buildings, plus some neighbors.


Photo by me.

[Cirrus]

I stopped reading after the first couple lines of doomsaying. I don't need to devote time in my life to that bullshit.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

I stopped reading after the first couple lines of doomsaying. I don't need to devote time in my life to that bullshit.

Ditto. Since I know for certain the tower will not be empty--because the man who leases all of it said so and I heard him say it--there's no point in reading a piece by a clueless person who believes otherwise.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Say what you want--Allbirds are DAMNED comfortable!

I had to look up Allbirds, I've never heard of it.


allbirds.com

Yeah, total Karen shoe. Pair these with yoga pants and a North Face windbreaker. Could you see someone wearing those say "Excuse me, can I speak to your manager?? It is IMPOSSIBLE to be out of IMPOSSIBLE Burger."

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

I had to look up Allbirds, I've never heard of it.

You're from Pasadena for God's sake. What can one expect.

in the heart of one of SF's hippest hoods (Hayes Valley):


https://www.instantstreetview.com/@3...MnPVyPqZROvsSw

Next you're going to admit you don't own an American Giant hoodie:


https://www.american-giant.com/pages/retail-locations

Locations:

BERKELEY, CA
LOCATION
1801 FOURTH STREET
BERKELEY, CA 94710

SAN FRANCISCO, CA
LOCATION
2076 CHESTNUT STREET
SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123

SAN FRANCISCO, CA
LOCATION
165 NATOMA STREET
SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105
(This is the one that matters to techies)

NEW YORK, NY
LOCATION
96 GRAND STREET
NEW YORK, NY 10013

[sopas ej]

I'm soo not hip. American Giant hoodie? ¿Mande?

[mhays]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Ditto. Since I know for certain the tower will not be empty--because the man who leases all of it said so and I heard him say it--there's no point in reading a piece by a clueless person who believes otherwise.

If he's announced a lease, sure.

If he's expressing optimism, well, that's his job.

If you hear a developer or leasing agent say tenant interest is high, the proper thought isn't congratulations, but "well played."

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Tech definitely has no soul.

Spending all day sitting in front of a laptop is soooo not sexy or full of personality, I don't care how you dress.

When I think of "soul" in a corporate sense, what comes to mind is those traders in the film The Wolf on Wall St.

And tech has even sucked the soul out of that industry. Tech is the OPPOSITE of soul. If soul is MATTER, then tech is ANTI-MATTER. There is nothing soulful about tech. Tech is anti-human. It degrades our species in every way.

Originally Posted by homebucket

I’m not saying tech is soulful. I just don’t see how it’s any different from any other industry? It’s a job. Is a salmon filleting plant more soulful?

Unless you're doing something you're passionate about, then pretty much any job or industry is going to be soul sucking. But, I get what you mean. I generally hate technology and feel that it's a regression of humanity, not to be too dramatic about it.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by mhays

If he's announced a lease, sure.

If he's expressing optimism, well, that's his job.

If you hear a developer or leasing agent say tenant interest is high, the proper thought isn't congratulations, but "well played."

They have a lease, nobody's looking for another tenant and Benioff was talking about redesigning the spaces more of less along the lines of the AirBnB spaces I posted above. The fact that they are planning to do that I take to mean he's planning to stay.

What Salesforce IS doing is drawing back along the lines I previously posted:

Salesforce cuts back on S.F. office space, canceling lease at unbuilt Transbay tower
Photo of Roland Li
Roland Li
March 9, 2021
Updated: March 10, 2021 2:38 p.m.

Exclusive Update: Salesforce is listing part of its San Francisco offices at 350 Mission St. for sublease. Go here for the latest information.

Salesforce has canceled its 325,000-square-foot lease at the unbuilt Parcel F tower in San Francisco’s Transbay district after the company adopted a permanent remote work policy.

Developer Hines said at a city hearing Monday that the 61-story project’s “initial lease commitment ... is no longer in hand.”

Salesforce declined to comment. The company said last month that its remote work shift could lead to a reduction and reimagining of its office space, without providing specifics. Under the post-pandemic plan, the majority of its workers would stay home for at least one to three days a week.

Salesforce is San Francisco’s largest private employer with 10,000 local workers and 54,000 global employees. It has agreed to buy Slack, the work communications company, which has offices nearby in the Transbay area . . . .

The project at 542-550 Howard St., one of the last tower sites in the Transbay district, has additional challenges. Chinatown activists oppose the project because of the shadows it would cast on Willie “Woo Woo” Wong Playground in that neighborhood, which has led to city hearing delays.

Hines, Urban Pacific Development and a Goldman Sachs affiliate bought the site for $175 million in 2016, and the project has undergone nearly five years of city reviews. A Board of Supervisors vote is scheduled next week (they approved it after receiving "guarantees" that the project would break ground this year).

Cameron Falconer, a Hines executive, said during Monday’s Board of Supervisors subcommittee hearing that the project has had a “very long road and a number of significant delays that have impacted the project’s economics, budget and viability,” adding “hundreds of millions of dollars” in costs.

Hines is also seeking to pay $47 million in affordable housing fees, rather than building 33 on-site affordable condos, a change that would require city approval. San Francisco has the world’s highest construction costs, which makes building affordable housing in towers a financial challenge. The fees would help finance 192 affordable homes at a nearby site on Howard Street that Hines and its partners own.

At the Monday meeting, Supervisor Aaron Peskin pressed city staffers and Falconer, suggesting that the project be redesigned to prevent it from casting a shadow on the Chinatown park for 15 minutes a day during parts of the year.

He also criticized the affordable housing fee payment schedule, which requires the developer to put up a letter of credit but not hand over the cash until the money is needed for the affordable units.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/business...e-16013047.php

350 Mission is a much shorter building, also of recent construction, across the street from the tower. Salesforce leases all of it. The fact that they are talking about subleasing only part of it is actually reassuring regarding the tower. If they didn't think they needed all the space in the tower and also some in 350 Mission, they'd probably sublease all of 350 Mission as well as the taller building across Fremont St (third corner of the intersection) which Salesforce owns and pull back completely to the tower.

Anyway, note no mention of the tower in this recent article by SF's premier commercial real estate reporter.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Unless you're doing something you're passionate about, then pretty much any job or industry is going to be soul sucking. But, I get what you mean. I generally hate technology and feel that it's a regression of humanity, not to be too dramatic about it.

Tech is a pretty diverse field in of itself though. It's not just cloud computing and software. There's consumer electronics, gaming, AI, IT/cyber security, biotech, aerospace, autonomous vehicles, renewable energy. A lot of these employees believe it or not are actually passionate about these emerging technologies.

Would you rather the US not innovate in this particular industries? Ok, so you don't like tech. What is the follow-up then?

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by homebucket

Ok, so you don't like tech. What is the follow-up then?

That's like saying you don't like finance (since somebody compared "The Wolf of Wall Street"). That movie made it all look glamorous (which is odd given they are engaged in criminal activity). Now watch "Margin Call" and see how soulless that industry can be.

Generally, at least the people in start-ups and certain consumer-oriented parts of the industry like gaming strike me as pretty passionate about it.

[iheartthed]

1- Finance is about the most soulless industry that exists. 2- Wolf of Wall Street was about sales. Salespeople exist in every industry, including tech.

[jtown,man]

How is there even a debate? Salesforce took SF from an average skyline to an incredible one.

[Pedestrian]

The ongoing rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine and a collective hope for some normalcy in 2021 is translating into a noticeable if still modest uptick in demand for small and flexible subleases, at least in comparison to the past three quarters. Inquiries are being made, tours are increasing — predominantly for spaces under 10,000 square feet — and a few companies that last year advertised their office spaces on the sublease market are now pulling back portions of their listings as they plot out their return, according to a number of local brokers interviewed for this story.

“I've had several clients ask me to take their space off the sublease market now,” said Ben Osgood, founder and managing director of Recreate Commercial Real Estate. “Just one week ago I received two offers from potential sublessees really kind of at the same time for the same space, which I think is significant in itself that we're actually getting offers now. Before it was tours, but that's just window shopping. Offers are a true expression of an intent to move forward with a transaction."

By the time Osgood presented the two offers, the client no longer was interested in subleasing.

"They said that they've had internal discussions and are going to be returning to the office at the end of the summer," he said, adding that he has fielded calls from fellow brokers with similar experiences.

Wes Powell, a managing director at JLL who represents landlords, said that JLL saw a “doubling of tours'' in January. That month alone, JLL gave 64 tours of office space, up from an average of 30 tours per month in the fourth quarter. He added that the firm’s tenant representative team is also getting “weekly calls to pull (sublease) space off the market because these companies are putting together a plan to reoccupy.”

“We have seen a number of tenants who early in pandemic put space up for sublease — small- to medium-sized companies in San Francisco,” said Powell. “Now they are saying, ‘If the space hasn’t been subleased, then we need it back.’”

https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranc...co-market.html

I have a feeling quite a few companies who gave up space will regret it.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

How is there even a debate? Salesforce took SF from an average skyline to an incredible one.

If only it's 2 mates--Oceanwide center and 550 Howard (aka Parcel F)--get finished soon (I see little doubt it will eventually happen but when?).

The Parcel F development team of Hines, Goldman Sachs and Urban Pacific Ventures is still claiming they will break ground this year in spite of Salesforce abandoning its plan to lease space (the Board of Supervisors exacted "guarantees" of that before approving the project) and you would think someone would snatch up the half-built Oceanwide for a bargain price.


https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranc...-approval.html

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by homebucket

The soulless take is interesting because I don't really see how tech lacks soul compared to any other traditional industry

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

[Steely Dan]

i'd like to hear an honest consensus architectural assessment from san franciscans of saleforce's new SF tower, not the highly selective and self-reinforcing feedback loop responses given to us by someone who CLEARLY has an axe to grind.

i myself feel like it's the crowning peak the SF skyline has desperately needed as it grew ever more "plateau-ish" over the decades since the heady days of transamerica and BofA.

but i'm just an internet skyscraper nerd from chicago, not a san franciscan, so what do i know?