A proposal has been submitted to build a new skyscraper in San Francisco that would eclipse the city’s 61-story Salesforce Tower and become the tallest building on the West Coast.
Mayor Daniel Lurie said in a social media post that the project would transform the former Pacific Gas and Electric headquarters at 77 Beale Street into a skyscraper that would offer a mix of housing, office space, retail, and public space.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that real estate investment and development firm Hines filed an application to build a 1,225-foot tower that would include 1.6 million square feet of office space. It would rise some 15 stories above the Salesforce Tower, about a block away, and be 125 feet taller than the Wilshire Grand Center in Los Angeles, currently the tallest building west of the Mississippi River.
The proposed tower would rank as the 11th tallest in the U.S. and the highest outside of New York City and Chicago, the Chronicle reported. The report also said the project would restore two buildings, the PG&E and Matson Block at 215 and 245 Market Street – both on the National Register of Historic Places – and convert the adjacent 25 Beale Street to housing units.
Hines was the co-developer of the Salesforce Tower, which opened in 2018, dwarfing the city’s former tallest building, the iconic Transamerica Pyramid. The Salesforce Tower remade the San Francisco skyline along with several other skyscrapers built in the city’s South of Market area. View live Salesforce Tower cameras
The city’s revamped skyline since the turn of the century is a sharp departure from previous decades, which saw little appetite for new skyscrapers. During the 1960s and 1970s, residents and city leaders bemoaned what was called the “Manhattanization” of the downtown area, especially in neighborhoods with views of the San Francisco Bay.
In the early 1970s, San Francisco imposed height and bulk limits on new high-rise buildings, and while the Transamerica Pyramid opened in 1972, it remained the tallest building in the city for decades. The tech boom of the late 1990s and surging demand for office and residential space moved the pendulum toward taller, higher-density buildings.
In 2009, the 58-story Millennium Tower opened as the first downtown high-rise in 20 years.
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