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Posted Apr 27, 2008, 4:17 PM
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Only Mostly Dead
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Marin
Posts: 5,234
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From today's Chronicle, an article about Wednesday's presentation on new height limits around Transbay:
Quote:
Reaching for the sky South of Market
John King, Robert Selna, Chronicle Staff Writers
Sunday, April 27, 2008
For years, San Francisco planners have talked about loosening downtown height limits to allow towers south of Market Street that would climb past anything in the area.
This week, they'll spell out where - and how high - they want those skyscrapers to go.
Details will be made public on Wednesday when city officials present zoning proposals for sites on blocks centered on the Transbay Terminal at First and Mission streets. But officials already are indicating they see room on the skyline for several new towers that would exceed the current 550-foot height limit.
The recommendations will begin a rezoning process likely to take at least 18 months. The final result will be shaped in part by the politics of a city that has done battle over tall buildings for decades, and where many residents look at towers as view-blocking blights.
"San Francisco's sensibility isn't to embrace height for height's sake," said Dee Dee Workman, executive director of San Francisco Beautiful, a civic group active in environmental issues. "It's more about life on the ground than icons in the air."
At present, San Francisco's tallest skyscraper is the 853-foot Transamerica Pyramid. Since it opened in 1972, nothing has been built above 650 feet.
The Planning Department's study of new heights - which includes a look at shadow impacts and historic preservation issues - is driven in part by the desire to raise funds for efforts to replace the existing bus terminal with a new transit station that would serve future rail commuters as well as bus passengers from throughout the region.
By raising heights, money from property tax receipts and sale of public property could be steered toward the new terminal.
The notion of extra-tall towers also is the culmination of efforts since the 1980s to shift the focus of downtown development - taking growth pressure off neighborhoods such as Chinatown and North Beach and steering it south of Market Street.
Even without a boost, the area today is booming: There's a 645-foot residential tower under construction just east of the Transbay Terminal, and an office building near completion on the west. A pricey fish restaurant opened this month in a former auto repair shop on Minna Street, an alleyway next to the terminal. Art-themed lounges have settled along once-quiet Second Street.
"We are working in the place where the 1985 plan allowed the greatest density. The policy actually worked," said Dean Macris, a development adviser to Mayor Gavin Newsom and the planning director at the time under then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein.
Macris also served three years as planning director under Newsom. In 2006, he and other planning officials made headlines by floating the idea of a 1,000-foot tower at the Transbay site, with Transamerica Pyramid-scaled skyscrapers nearby.
Since then, even taller proposals have appeared on the horizon.
The most visible is on the Transbay block, where last fall the Transbay Joint Powers Authority awarded the Hines development firm the right to purchase land next to the station and erect what the authority called "an iconic presence that will redefine the city's skyline."
As part of its $350 million bid for the land, Hines submitted a proposal for a 1,200-foot high-rise that would be the tallest tower west of Chicago.
Without going into their specific recommendations for the area, city planners suggested last week that developers will need to tailor their wishes to the proposed zoning, rather than the other way around.
"They're trying to maximize their heights," Macris said. "Our obligation is to the skyline and the city as a whole."
Tall buildings and their perceived impacts were a constant theme during political debates in the 1970s and '80s. One example is still on the books: Proposition K, a 1984 measure that banned "any structure that will cast any shade or shadow upon any property under the jurisdiction of ... the Recreation and Park Commission."
The anti-height fervor downtown quieted in the 1990s, and there's been little controversy about the towers erected during the past decade along Mission Street.
But just as the construction of the Transamerica Pyramid stoked opposition, there's been a strong reaction to the new One Rincon condominium tower next to the Bay Bridge. Rooftop mechanical structures make it even more prominent.
"People are startled," Workman said of One Rincon. "It's such a contrast to everything else you can't help but look at it - and you see it from all over the city."
Planners have heard the responses as well. But because the Transbay area already is studded by towers, they believe that adding a handful of others as a sort of crown won't spur the same reaction.
One Rincon and the Transamerica Pyramid "introduced new high-rises into areas that didn't have high-rises," said Joshua Switzky, the project manager for the height study. "What we're talking about is adding height to what's already the core of the city. This is an incremental tweak."
-- For a 360-degree view of the skyline near the Transbay Terminal, go to sfgate.com.
History of the city's towers
1961 - Construction of the 17-story Fontana Towers next to Aquatic Park causes an uproar on nearby Russian Hill. City imposes a 40-foot height limit along the northern waterfront.
1969 - The Bank of America Building opens, at 779 feet the tallest building in San Francisco. A few months later, plans are unveiled for the even taller Transamerica Pyramid, which eventually rises 853 feet.
1972 - One year after voters defeat a ballot initiative that would restrict heights of new buildings to six stories, the city puts an urban design plan in place that lowers the maximum heights downtown to 700 feet.
1984 - Voters approve Proposition K, which prohibits towers from casting new shadows on existing city parks.
1985 - The city approves a downtown plan placing a 550-foot cap on new towers - but raising previously low heights south of Market Street.
1986 - Voters approve Proposition M. Rather than restrict heights, it clamps down on new office buildings for the next decade.
2003 - Aiming to bring more residents downtown, the Planning Department begins work on a rezoning plan for Rincon Hill that will allow nearly a dozen towers above 35 stories. The tallest building allowed in the plan, 641-foot One Rincon, is scheduled to open in 2008.
2005 - City officials approve a redevelopment district around the Transbay Terminal that allows six residential towers of 35 to 55 stories on land once covered by freeway ramps. The towers would rise from public land sold to raise money for rebuilding the terminal.
2006 - Planning Director Dean Macris suggests allowing extremely tall towers in the Transbay area, with the tallest on the terminal site. "It's a big idea, but we think the time has come for the city to think along these lines," he says.
2007 - Three teams of developers and architects submit proposals for the Transbay site. The winner, Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects and the development firm Hines, recommends a 1,200-foot tower next to a terminal that would be topped by a park.
To get involved
The San Francisco Planning Department will release its initial proposals for new zoning in the terminal area - along with recommendations involving historic preservation, street improvements and other urban design issues - in a public meeting Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at Golden Gate University, 536 Mission St., Room 2201.
-- For more information on Transbay area planning studies, go to transitcenter.sfplanning.org.
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