Yet another reason I HIGHLY recommend you subscribe to the San Francisco Business Times or at least periodically check their site. The jury is in on the Transbay Terminal:
The jury charged with ranking three proposals for San Francisco’s tallest building and the new Transbay Terminal has picked the team of developer Hines and architect Pelli Clarke Pelli as its recommendation. The Pelli/Hines team beat out Forest City and architect Sir Richard Rogers, which was ranked second, and Rockefeller Group and Skidmore Merrill Owings, which landed in the third spot. The Hines/Pelli proposal includes an understated, 82-story, oblisk-shaped tower with a 5.5-acre CityPark above the terminal bus parking. At a recent Chamber of Commerce presentation of the three plans, Hines Executive Vice President Paul Paradis called the proposal “a real project.” “If we were to be selected we could go ahead and build this,” said Paradis. The full jury report was expected to be posted on the Transbay Joint Powers Authority web site this afternoon. The jury’s recommendation is subject to the approval of the TJPA board.–sf business times email alert
The winning Transbay terminal proposal by developer Hines and architect Pelli Clarke Pelli offered $350 million for the tower property, more than twice what the other two teams were willing to pay, according to the nine-person jury appointed by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority.–sf business times article by J.K. Dineen
–Jury Picks Hines for Transbay Tower [San Francisco Business Times-J.K.Dineen]
–transbaycenter.org [website]
–Proposals [transbaycenter.org]
Nice, but does it say anything?
I suppose if they had flipped it so that the vertical part of the building were as green as the park lying horizontally…
…why didn’t I go to school to be an architect?!
Editor’s note: I think this is an important part of the decision: “Vice President Paul Paradis called the proposal ‘a real project.’ ‘If we were to be selected we could go ahead and build this,’ said Paradis”. Not to mention the $350,000,000 they offered for the property…]
This is a GREAT project, and has the potential to transform the transit terminal into a great, humanizing space, both with the urban park in the sky…and the ultra elegant high rise tower.
This was my first choice when I began to study all 3 proposals. The park promises to be like no other in any major city in the world.
Exciting architecture like this is one of the many reasons why I went to school for 5 years to become an architect.
US$350,000,000? Double the second bid? Is this a sign that the SF market is not healthy? lol
This is a sad, sad day for San Francisco. Have any of you asked yourselves just how the Hines/Pelli group could afford to offer DOUBLE what the other proposals put on the table? There are several factors. First and foremost, the Hines/Pelli proposal demands control of the highest levels of their tower, and is building office space ONLY. The superior proposal from SOM will be a mixed-use structure incorporating retail, office, musuem space, public art collaboration with SFMOMA, an elevated park and, most important: residential space. San Francisco law requires a certain percent of the residential units to be “affordable”, which alone costs SOM over 70million dollars. From the start, constructing a mixed-use building is more expensive than the cookie-cutter office space proposed by Hines/Pelli. Can downtown San Francisco really afford another tall office building which is essentially abandoned nights and weekends? C’mon, folks, we are discussing what promises to be the most significant west-coast building of our generation. We need that SOM building.
I’ll stick with the Pelli/Hines project ANY day. It’s just simply a great, world class urban transit center and ultra elegant supertall building.
The SOM solution adds confusion and lack of clarity to the access points for transit. They make people go higher and higher to catch a bus. The so called “grand central” space is way overscaled, and feels just too full of Craig Hartman’s ego (he’s the SOM design partner). The high rise building twists and turns its way up to the sky…not for any particular structural reason, but rather because that’s the current TREND of the day. Just look at all the “turning torso” buildings being planned for other big cities. trendy and trite.
The Pelli solution is going to give downtown this incredible new urban park, almost 5 acres, above street level…in addition to keeping the clarity and openness of the transit station on track. The Pelli high rise is pure elegance, simplicity and timelessness. No big structural tricks, nothing that screams “look at me”, like the SOM building does.
The Pelli proposal has many uses planned for the entire project. It will be infused with mixed use functions. As for housing..well..that just may not be the building and location for housing, especially so called affordable. There are plenty of solid reasons to build an office only high rise in that location. We have many other mixed use and housing projects under way or being planned for the downtown /SOMA area.
Simply stated the Pelli project will give San Francisco an exciting, dynamic USEABLE transit center with a great new urban park and an understated, but elegant world class building.