[BTinSF]

Commentary: S.F.'s next tower hidden from view
John King, Chronicle Urban Design Writer
Sunday, March 29, 2009

Two years ago, the competition to win the rights to build San Francisco's tallest tower drew powerful developers, celebrity architects and fervent public interest in the proposed designs.

Now there's another competition just two blocks away, the grand prize a site with room for a 60-story tower at a major entrance to the Financial District. But only three teams bothered to respond - and the way the rules are currently written, the public won't be allowed to glimpse any of the proposals until the city selects a winner.



Blame the sluggish response on real estate jitters and the recession. But keeping the rival bids under wraps is a move that runs counter to San Francisco's tradition of public access, and it should be reversed before the site's fate is decided this summer.

The block in question fills the northeast corner of First and Folsom streets, and today it's not much to look at: asphalt and rubble alongside a ramp that on a typical weekday deposits 25,000 or so cars into the city from the Bay Bridge.

But as the downtown map has shifted, this long-remote block has emerged as a hinge between the Financial District and the young Rincon Hill neighborhood. It also sits due south of the Transbay Terminal, site of the 2007 competition, where government agencies intend to build a grand transit hub alongside a tower taller than the Transamerica Pyramid.

To help fund the terminal, the First and Folsom block is being offered to developers by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency. With it comes generous zoning that would allow a 605-foot residential tower along First Street, flanked by lower structures.

To put this in perspective, it's 36 feet lower than One Rincon, the skyscraping head-turner that opened last year next to the Bay Bridge.

ublic not given glance

Redevelopment is no stranger to competitions: Like other public agencies, it has awarded parcels this way for decades. What's different this time is that the sale of public land doesn't include a scenario where the public can glimpse the competing visions.

Instead, a staff report this month shrugs that "the details of the proposals, including the concept designs ... will remain confidential until a recommendation of a development team is forwarded to the (redevelopment) Commission for exclusive negotiations."

Asked about the procedural veil, planners stress that the block is part of a 40-acre redevelopment district rezoned in 2005 after two years of public review.

"We have a prescriptive redevelopment plan that is very specific" in terms of what can go where, said Transbay project manager Mike Grisso. "We're just talking about the architectural finishes."

But architecture isn't wallpaper. Done well, it's an art that can add a dimension of excitement and urbanity beyond the cautionary limits of planning and urban design.

You see this on Montgomery Street, where George Kelham's stone-clad Russ Building from 1928 soars with a romance missing from similarly scaled towers of the 1960s. More recently, the clunky gray Paramount high-rise at Third and Mission streets is no match for the suave St. Regis across the street.

As for the block that's up for grabs, the three teams are anything but interchangeable.

The lead architect for Avant Housing is Richard Meier & Partners. The 1984 recipient of the coveted Pritzker Architecture Prize, Meier is best-known for the Getty Center in Los Angeles, the embodiment of the New Yorker's clean, almost clinical style (the firm also did San Jose City Hall).

By contrast, AvalonBay Communities is paired with Arquitectonica, a flamboyant chameleon based in Miami. Here, the firm has a hand in Infinity - two clover-shaped green-glass towers near the waterfront - and a new apartment complex in Mission Bay where jagged stripes of red concrete pop out from the Berry Street facade.

The final is a Chicago developer, Golub Real Estate Corporation, with Solomon Cordwell Buenz as the lead architectural firm. Though it has a San Francisco office, SCB is a veteran of Chicago's high-rise scene, mainstream and crisp. Its work includes One Rincon, a tower that shows the visceral reaction towers can stir, even when they fit within zoning.

ossible presentation

By the end of last week, redevelopment officials were suggesting they may change course and arrange for a public presentation of the proposals after the schematic designs are presented in May.

Let's hope so.

Architecture isn't the sole criteria for choosing who builds tomorrow's city. But it is the most public art form we have - and when high-rise design is more eclectic than ever, this is no time to pull down the shades.

E-mail John King at jking@sfchronicle.com.

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