Transbay Terminal Project Input Sought

Cecilia M. Vega Saturday, February 11, 2006 (SF Chronicle) 

Management of the $4 billion Transbay Terminal replacement project is being called into question by San Francisco officials, who said “uncertainty persists as to what is the best way to proceed” despite years of planning. Mayor Gavin Newsom and Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, who also is chairman of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, said in a letter to the regional Transbay Joint Powers Authority this week that a separate group of city leaders, including the planning director and city administrator, has been appointed to come up with recommendations on how to proceed on the project.Issues such as funding plans and design objectives still need to be “fully understood” before any action should be taken on the project, the letter said.

The Transbay Terminal is one of the most costly development projects in San Francisco history. It calls for a new transit station with high-speed rail, Caltrain and bus connections, and a new neighborhood with housing, retail and offices. At 800 feet, it would change the city’s skyline.

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Transbay Planners See New Landmark

by Dan Levy

Sunday, December 25, 2005

Transbay Terminal planners are viewing their controversial idea for a new San Francisco high-rise as nothing less than the signature building of our time — much like the Transamerica Pyramid defined the skyline in the 1970s.”It would be a landmark statement,” said architect Paul Woolford of HOK, which has been hired by Transbay project manager URS to do the master plan for the terminal redevelopment area.

“The tower would essentially speak to the pyramid and the Bank of America building. If you were on one of the hills or on the bay, you would see those towers as the spires of the city.”

The current proposal is for an 850-foot mixed-use tower on Mission Street, but a spire on top of the building would bring the height to 925 feet, making it the city’s tallest.

An international design competition is being coordinated by architecture consultant Don Stastny. Transbay Joint Powers Authority Director Maria Ayerdi said she hopes to get board approval for the contest early next year.

Still, city officials remain skeptical about the $4 billion Transbay financing scheme and question whether the authority should be pursuing the high-rise proposal at all.

“The high-rise is not the project voters approved,” said Jose Luis Moscovich, executive director of the San Francisco Transportation Authority, which doles out sales-tax revenues to the Transbay planning process. “It’s a deviation from the plan.”

 

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Transbay Redevelopment Project Area

The Transbay Redevelopment Project Area, created in 2005, is an opportunity for the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency to participate in the alleviation of blight within a large portion of the city’s southern Financial District through a wide variety of projects and activities. The Project Area is currently adopted only for the purpose of establishing the base year for tax increment generation. All implementation activities, including zoning changes and project approvals, are currently on hold.

The Project Area is approximately 40 acres in size and located south of San Francisco’s Financial District. The Project Area is roughly bounded by Mission Street in the north, Main Street in the east, Folsom Street in the south and Second Street in the west. The Project Area is currently composed of transportation-related infrastructure, a large number of vacant parcels, and commercial uses.

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