San Francisco Could be Getting the West Coast’s New Tallest Tower
Partial view of San Francisco skyline, including the Salesforce Tower.
Pelli Clarke & Partners’ Salesforce Tower, currently the tallest building in San Francisco and the second tallest on the West Coast at 1,070 feet tall, might be getting some competition in the height department.
Houston-based developer Hines recently submitted plans for a 1,225-foot supertall as part of a larger mixed-use redevelopment scheme at the former Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) campus at 77 Beale Street in San Francisco’s financial district—roughly a block away from the Salesforce Tower. (PG&E is in the process of relocating its headquarters to downtown Oakland.) The proposed tower would be 155 feet taller than the 61-story Salesforce Tower, which was also developed by Hines and sold to Boston Properties in 2019. It would also steal the tallest-on-the-West-Coast crown from the Wilshire Grand Center in Los Angeles, which, at 1,100 feet, is currently the tallest skyscraper outside of New York and Chicago. Per the San Francisco Chronicle, if the tower is completed at its proposed height, it would be the 11th-tallest in the United States, coming in just under the Empire State Building by 25 feet. An architect has not been named for the tentative project although the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) notes that Pickard Chilton has been tapped for the site master plan.
In addition to the new title-grabbing tower, the proposed redevelopment plan, which follows an earlier scrapped scheme by Hines to remake the site that involved Foster + Partners, also entails the restoration of two historic office buildings along Market Street that are both listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The plan also calls for a third office building at the site to be converted into a 120-unit residential complex and the creation of a new park spanning over an acre. Roughly 1.6 million square feet of new office space would be generated.
In a social media post, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said that Hines’ proposal “shows what’s possible when people believe in our city’s future.”
Up until the 2018 opening of Salesforce Tower, William Pereira’s 1972 Transamerica Pyramid, recently revamped by Foster + Partners, reigned as the tallest building in formerly skyscraper-resistant San Franscisco for a decades-long run.
A construction timeline for the tower is pending city approval of the plan.
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