First, the inimitable Cathedral of Christ the Light at Grand and Harrison:

Below, the left picture shows that the large Uptown project is coming along nicely. The right picture shows the 78-unit Jade at 1511 Jefferson (completed last year), with Uptown construction in the distance:

901 Jefferson (left) has been unveiled since the last update and is well on its way to completion. Meanwhile, the Ellington near Jack London Square (right) chugs along:

And what else should make its way into the new Broadway Grand building, besides… Starbucks? At least another branch of Ozumo will make up for it:

The Essex high-rise residential project at 100 Grand is contributing to the development of a new streetwall along Grand Avenue. Here are three views of this major addition to the Valdez area, from Broadway (left), from across Grand (middle), and from the tip of Lake Merritt (right):

As usual, full sized versions are hosted on my Flickr account. As a side note, I will most likely post construction update photos to Flickr (in the construction progress photo set) on a semi-regular basis, even if the photos do not make their way into a formal post on the blog — so if you are interested in even more construction update photos, that photo set is a good place to look.

555 Mission (from Geary and Jones)

301 Mission (from Jackson Square)

Thirty-three story office tower 555 Mission topped off a couple months ago. The 645-foot Millennium Tower at 301 Mission, to be the tallest residential building west of the Mississippi River, just topped off last week. These may be the newest examples, but they represent only the beginning of the wave that will wash over South of Market in the next couple of decades, reinventing the identity of a neighborhood once better-known for its parking lots and ramps leading on and off the Bay Bridge.

Manhattanization? Some continue to cling to a knee-jerk disdain of high rises, but as we work to embrace ever-smarter growth, this concept seems increasingly embittered and outdated. But rest assured: San Francisco will never be Manhattan, and Rincon Hill is more directly inspired by Vancouver in any case. Then again, partial emulation of one of this country’s most successful urban locales is not really such a bad thing either. Whatever label you want to attach, the densifying city can be a beautiful sight.

Opponents have stipulated that the tower is out of place and does not fit its context. The Tribune article quotes James Vann from the Coalition of Advocates for Lake Merritt, who remarks:

“The proximity to the lake is one thing,” he said. “I’m more in favor of the bowl concept of development around the lake, where buildings closer to the lake are lower in stories and then you rise as you move away from the lake.”

The idea of crafting this sort of shape to the skyline is not a bad one, but both Vann and the tower’s opponents have overlooked the fact that Oakland’s tallest structures — the Ordway, but also Kaiser Center (390 feet) and 1999 Harrison Street (371 feet) — are already located directly on Lake Merritt, so the tower would not really be out of place at all:

There is one point on which I agree with the tower’s opponents, namely that remaining vacant spots on and immediately around Broadway should ideally be filled to high density, so as to take full advantage of proximity to the BART line. However, the assertion that the Emerald Views tower does not fit the context seems entirely wrong, as I believe the above rendering demonstrates.

So, if the building is truly not out of context, then what is the problem? The tower would be erected on the historic Schilling Garden, once part of the estate of Alfred Schilling. However, this is not a story of a greedy developer stealing public open space for the sake of the bottom line. The Schilling Garden is already closed off to the public — in fact, before the Emerald Views controversy started, most Oaklanders probably did not even know that the park was there. The site is right next to Snow Park and Lake Merritt itself, both of which provide thoroughly public open space. In the aerial view pictured at the right, Lake Merritt is at the far right of the image, and the large green area on the left side of the image is Snow Park. The area outlined by the red box is the “secret garden” that would be the site of the proposed Emerald Views tower. The aerial shot makes clear that this tower leaves untouched most of the green space in this area, and since the Schilling Garden is private, no public open space would be removed.

In fact, the project would return the garden to the public. The site is 31,830 square feet; above, I remarked that the tower footprint was only 12,200 square feet, so more than half of the site would actually be returned to the public in the form of true open space, a 20,322 square foot park that incorporates trees, benches, and other elements from the current garden. In addition, the woefully underutilized Snow Park would be improved and redone into a destination spot for downtown residents and visitors. The new Snow Park could feature picnic areas, a putting green, and a children’s discovery garden.

All in all, this project strikes me as a good one. The project offers the opportunity to put high-density housing in a transit-oriented location that could benefit from additional residents and vitality, and it would give Oaklanders new and improved public open space to enjoy. I would encourage any and all Oakland urbanists reading this post to attend tonight’s public scoping meeting (or to send in written comments, by December 10, 2007) to emphasize the benefits that this project could bring to the city of Oakland.

Top image courtesy Oakland Tribune; middle image courtesy Novometro; bottom image courtesy Google Maps.

631 Folsom, a.k.a. BLŪ, is a 21-story building in Rincon Hill with narrow floor plates — just half a dozen units on each floor, for a total of 120 units, along with ground floor retail. The image on the left is the rendering, and the image on the right depicts the current state of construction:

Left image courtesy Handel Architects.

One of the future shining beacons downtown (at least, until the Transbay Tower is built) is 301 Mission, better known as the Millennium Tower. The Millennium is a 645-foot condominium tower designed by Handel Architects, located at the northern end of the Transbay Terminal. Here are two images of this tower. The image on the left is a rendering, and on the right is a construction picture:

Left image courtesy Handel Architects.

This picture, taken from several blocks away, shows the rising Millennium Tower beginning to take its rightful place on the skyline:

Next door to the tower will be an 125-foot (11-story) building that will have more condos. The great part of this whole project is the fact that the Millennium Tower and its much shorter neighbor are adding 419 additional homes within spitting distance of what already pretty much is, but will one day really be, the most transit-oriented location west of the Mississippi River. The bad part? We are also building four layers of underground parking (350 total parking stalls) at this transit-rich location. Here is the construction pit on the site, excavating the parking garage, which will be located under the shorter building:

Moving a couple blocks up the street from the Millennium, 555 Mission will add 34 stories of office, along with a small retail component. The image on the left is the rendering, and the image on the right depicts the current state of construction:

Left image courtesy Heller Manus Architects.

Now that both 555 Mission and the Millennium are going up, a nice “canyon” is starting to develop along Mission Street:

Switching gears to Civic Center, the 20-story Argenta building will add 179 units and a small street-level retail component at Polk and Market. This project serves the City’s dual purpose of revitalizing the mid-Market corridor and of increasing the height and density of structures in the immediate region of the intersection of Van Ness and Market. The leftmost image is the latest rendering, and the two images show the construction progress from two different angles:

Leftmost image courtesy Anka Property Group.

Nearby, a 100-foot (8-story) mixed use building (with 50 units of housing, 21,200 square feet of commercial space, and additional office space), is rising at 77 Van Ness Avenue, at the corner of Fell Street:

The Hayes (a.k.a. 55 Page Street) is a 128-unit residential building in Hayes Valley. Below, the leftmost image is the rendering, followed by two pictures depicting construction. The second picture, taken from Market Street, illustrates the angular “chaos” that The Hayes adds to the buildings in the area, because of the way this building is set back just behind Market but is still oriented into the regular north-of-Market street grid:

Leftmost image courtesy Heller Manus Architects.

Finally, two large holes in the Tenderloin are, at long last, being filled. The first is at 990 Polk (the southeast corner of Polk and Geary) and will add housing units for seniors, though I’ve heard conflicting numbers as to the precise number of units. As of a few months ago, the City was quoting the project at 143 units, but the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation has cited the number as 110 or 160 units. In any case, there will be between 100 and 200 units. The picture on the left depicts what the building might look like, and the right picture shows the construction progress:

Left image courtesy Tenderloin Neighborhood Development.

In addition, two new buildings will be constructed at 125 and 149 Mason, between Ellis and Eddy, in the shadow of the Hilton hotel. The larger building at 125 Mason is currently under construction:

This project, carried out by Millennium Partners in conjunction with the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp. and Cecil Williams and Glide Memorial, is actually the off-site affordable housing component of the Millennium Tower, and it will add 137 units of affordable housing just one block from the Powell BART/Muni station. 125 Mason will be 14 stories tall and will have 81 one- to four-bedroom apartments. The smaller building (149 Mason) will be 8 stories and will have 56 studio apartments. Because the neighborhood is so dense, lacks open space, and is more well-known for prostitution and drug dealing than for its positive attributes, it is easy to forget that the Tenderloin has one of San Francisco’s largest concentrations of children. The families who will call this building home will benefit from a courtyard and play area that are part of the complex.

Just one final note: both of these first two construction posts are quite long. Future posts in this series will probably be a bit shorter and more manageable, but I wanted to get a substantial start. More of these posts will be coming in the future, both to jumpstart new projects and to show the progress that has been made with these projects.

I’ve already written up my impressions of the whole competition and of the Pelli design here and here, so I don’t have much more to say just right now. Nothing is set in stone yet, and this proposal will now enter the muddy processing for planning and approving new projects in San Francisco, which hopefully will be carried out with taste, purpose, care, and vision. It will be exciting to follow the planning and construction of this project for the next several years.

Was this decision based carefully on design considerations, or was it all just a matter of money? Perhaps not coincidentally, the jury’s votes lined up in descending order of developer sales offers. Hines, the developer of the recommended Pelli design, offered to pay $350 million for the land. Forest City offered $145 million to develop the Richard Rogers design, and the jury chose that design as its second place choice. Of course, the SOM design took third place, and Rockefeller only offered $118 million — just a little over 1/3 the Hines offer. I don’t mean to suggest that the jury did not carefully consider the design, but money is, of course, a central concern. After all, the primary purpose of the tower is to have an additional source of revenue that will be allocated towards funding the Transbay Transit Center.

However, this is not the end of the story, nor does it imply that the Pelli design as it currently stands will necessarily be built. The opinion of this jury has been submitted to the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, who will study the recommendation and discuss it with the city. The project must also still receive the stamp of approval of the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission. In other words, now the real process for planning a development in San Francisco begins.

In an earlier post, I did tentatively name the Pelli design as my favorite of the three designs, but with a couple caveats. First and foremost: the tower should be redesigned from a 100% office tower to a mixed use tower. Combined with other office buildings that are being constructed in the immediate vicinity, we do not necessarily need 82 additional floors of office space flooding the market. A tower that integrates office, hotel, and residential uses would be more appropriate for this area, particularly in terms of fulfilling the goal of turning Transbay into a functional transit-oriented neighborhood. If the switch over from office to mixed use substantially decreases the $350 million offered by the developer, the city and the TJPA should take a closer look at the other two designs.

I do love Pelli’s idea of a rooftop park for the Transbay Transit Center: if it is well used, this park could become a tremendous civic asset for San Francisco and the Bay Area. I am also very excited about the “Bus Fountain”, in which bus traffic below the park triggers the release of water in the rooftop park fountains. However, it is of utmost importance that the park actually be used. The proposed park is 5.4 acres, and it will take quite a lot of people to make the park look attractively crowded and vibrant in the way that the Pelli Clarke Pelli renderings suggest. The question is: how could a park that is raised several stories in the air be designed so as to encourage this kind of extensive use? People in transit are likely not going to be waiting for their train or bus in the park; unless the waiting time happens to be very long, they will be waiting on the platform. Therefore, the design should be obvious and highly interconnected, in a way that encourages people — just casually walking on the street without a desire to get on a train or bus — to actually enter the Transit Center for the sole purpose of going up to the rooftop park. To sum up: this park does not have the tremendous advantage of being directly accessible to the street, and so the design will have to compensate by thoroughly integrating the park into its surroundings through other means.

Not that my opinion really matters, but from a design perspective, I still prefer the SOM design, whose twisting tower is much more interesting and has a greater shot at being a truly iconic building than Pelli’s more conservative structure. My overall support for the entire Pelli package is tentative, and it requires that the above two points be addressed. If the TJPA and the City decide to build the Pelli design, I sincerely hope that the City emphasizes both the need to change the current plan into a mixed use tower and to take care that the park is very well integrated into its environment in a way that encourages extensive use.

Above image courtesy Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects.

Most of this first post will be devoted to recently completed or largely complete projects, at least on the exterior. Later this week or early next week, I plan to write another post in this series, with photos of projects that are still not anywhere near completion, but which I’ll of course follow more later as they go up. The Construction Progress posts will most likely not follow any sort of regular schedule. Rather, they will appear a bit more irregularly, whenever I remember a couple projects that really ought to be documented.

Note: Unless otherwise noted, I personally snapped all the photos that appear in this post (or indeed, anywhere in this blog). Just a reminder: full-sized photos are hosted on my Flickr account. To see any of these pictures in full detail, just click through, and the link will take you to the relevant Flickr page. I will probably also include additional photos on Flickr that are not explicitly included in the blog post. My photography skills are amateur (at best), so the purpose of these photos is not to indulge in any advanced photographic experiments, but simply to document the rising of these new developments.

The only project in this particular post located comfortably outside of downtown is the Fillmore Heritage tower:

Located in the Western Addition at the corner of Fillmore and Eddy Streets (not far from but still definitely not located on the highly gentrified Pacific Heights stretch of Fillmore Street), this 13-story tower is part of a continuing experiment of putting market rate housing in rough-and-tumble neighborhoods known better for housing projects and gang turf wars. Notably, this tower contains in its ground floor a new branch of Yoshi’s Jazz Club. The word “heritage” in the name of the building is a nod to the Fillmore District’s history as a centerpiece of the Bay Area jazz scene in the years before redevelopment projects wrecked the Western Addition. Still, there is something fiercely ironic about this new jazz club making its home in a condo tower.

690 Market, at the corner of Kearny and Market, once the headquarters of the San Francisco Chronicle, will soon be home to the posh Ritz-Carlton Residences. The original structure, which dates from 1890, was designed by architect Daniel Burnham, who worked on several high-profile projects, including Manhattan’s famous Flatiron Building. This building is notable for many reasons — not only is it one of the few structures east of Van Ness to survive the 1906 earthquake, but it is also the first “skyscraper” in San Francisco to be constructed with a steel frame; not a skyscraper by modern standards perhaps, but it was the tallest thing around at the time it was built. The original structure and entryway to 690 Market have been preserved, but with additional stories added above:

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For reference, here is a picture of the original building, as it looked in 1890:

[Picture lifted from the Ritz-Carlton website.]

The two Infinity towers (300 Spear Street) and their associated mid-rise podium will add 658 housing units to Rincon Hill. The first tower (36 stories) has been constructed (left picture), while the second, taller tower (41 stories) has just recently begin construction (right picture):

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Just a few blocks from the Infinity towers is One Rincon Hill, the centerpiece of this area. Constructed in a prominent landmark location just a few feet from the Bay Bridge (left picture), the tower is finally getting topped off (right picture). These pictures denote only the taller of the two planned towers:

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Next, here are three angles on the Hotel Intercontinental at 5th and Howard Streets. From left to right, these views are from the west, the south, and the north:

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The hotel is located next to Moscone Center and will no doubt prove to be popular with attendees of conferences and conventions in the area. Coming from the east (keeping in mind the context of the Metreon, Moscone, and Westfield) this hotel fits in rather well; however, approaching from the west side, the hotel is a sudden and stark contrast to its surroundings, acting as a clear demarcation point between the Yerba Buena district to the east and the rest of South of Market.

To close this post, here are two further additions to South of Market, near Civic Center. The recently completed Federal Building (left picture), shown in this picture rising ominously behind the older low-rise storefronts on Market Street, is understandably controversial, but I find its striking austerity to be a refreshing change. The other tower here is the SoMa Grand (1160 Mission) condo tower (right picture), a 246-unit development:

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These two buildings are oriented perpendicular to each other, in the same block bounded by Mission, Stevenson, 7th, and 8th Streets.

Although I hope to have a couple more posts before then, please be sure to check back later this week or early next week for a follow-up construction progress post featuring projects that are still further away from completion.

While aimlessly surfing the Internet, I ran into the following YouTube clip. It’s short, but it depicts a 3D model of downtown San Francisco, with several of the towers proposed for Transbay and Rincon Hill inserted into the correct locations:

[Video clip removed, hopefully a similar replacement clip will be posted soon.]

The height of the signature Transbay Tower has not yet been determined (proposals go as tall as 1,375 feet), but for the purposes of this clip, it was given a height of 1,200 feet. The 900 foot tower on the east side of the Transbay Transit Center and south of the Millennium Tower (currently under construction) is the newly proposed tower at 181 Fremont Street. An aside on the Millennium: when it was first proposed some five years ago, it was indeed quite an exciting project: one of the tallest new buildings for the city, and at over 600 feet tall, a beacon of the South of Market skyline. The Millennium will hopefully still be impressive in its own right, but fast forward a few years from when it was first proposed, and this video clip demonstrates how the Millennium will be dwarfed by the more recent buildings proposed for the Transbay district.

Meanwhile, the clip shows that if it were built to be at around 900 feet, 181 Fremont would still be a very noticeable addition to the skyline, but nonetheless appropriate in the context of the other towers nearby — assuming, of course, that the building is carefully designed so as to minimize shadow and wind impact. The boxes used in the video clip to represent the various proposed buildings are somewhat misleading in terms of assessing the effect the building mass will have on the skyline, but the clip offers a nice way to visualize how these buildings fit into the existing context, in a more interactive way than simply through renderings and sketches. Thanks to kimchalmers for the clip. For more fun animations depicting the future skyline, check out the websites of the three architects competing in the Transbay competition.

The tower for 181 Fremont (between Mission and Howard), proposed by SKS Investments, is designed by Heller-Manus, an architectural firm (based right out of Transbay’s ground zero) that is also working on 555 Mission, and many other San Francisco projects. The proposed tower is 900 feet (66 stories) tall, featuring about 140 homes above 500,000 square feet of office space. Although 900 feet may seem short compared to the soaring heights proposed for the signature Transbay Tower, it is still 47 feet taller than the Transamerica Pyramid, and thus is still quite tall for this town. The building would be LEED certified, and the developer is studying use of wind turbines and solar power.

Of course, this is only a proposal, so nothing is set in stone. With so many towers proposed, planned, and under construction in the Transbay/Rincon Hill area, the city still needs to carefully analyze how the tower will affect wind tunnels and cast shadows, in addition to studying the impact the tower’s occupants could have on traffic patterns in the area, the way in which this tower interacts with the street, and other issues. That said, the proposed design is quite slender: the plot of land is 15,500 square feet in area, and while the footprint is 14,000 square feet, the stories higher up would have floor plates closer to 10,000 square feet. The slender design is consistent with the Planning Department’s approach to this area, a plan that is largely modeled on Vancouver. What’s more, the 181 Fremont site is one that has been identified for using the tax revenue from the development to fund the new Transbay Transit Center. Although the area is currently zoned for buildings 300 to 500 feet tall, there is every reason to think that the city would upzone the site, since a taller building would be entirely consistent with the densities planned for the immediate area. The fact that the tower is mixed use is also key — although, with this site right next to the Transit Center, I would like to see even more homes and less office space. Still, it’s another exciting project to keep our eye on.

Image is from SocketSite.

If these photos are not enough to satisfy your curiosity, I highly recommend you take a look at the models and posters yourself, in person. These have been moved from City Hall and are now on display at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts at 3rd and Mission Streets, where they will remain for the next two weeks, until September 16.

The Transbay Joint Powers Authority is expected to announce the winner of the design competition on September 20, so I’ll be sure to have some more discussion about the designs and the winner when that date rolls around. For now, though, head over to Yerba Buena for a glimpse of San Francisco’s future.