The ground breaking ceremony for the construction of Transbay Transit Tower was held Wednesday in San Francisco. The building will be the tallest structure of the city and the seventh tallest in the U.S. upon completion. Work on the tower is slated to be completed by 2017.
Located in 101 First Street, the tower is a part of the new 1.5 million square feet, five-level Transbay Transit Center project. The complete project has been designed by famed architecture firm, Pelli Clark Pelli Architects, who also designed the famous Petronas Towers of Kuala Lumpur and the World Financial Center in New York. The firm had won the competition to design the new Transit Center project back in 2007 and won final approvals for it in the fall of 2012, reports Architizer.com.
Cesar Pelli, the designer of the tower, said to the San Francisco Examiner that designing the Transit center and the tower was like materializing a dream.
According to the rendering photos, the tower looks like a large obelisk, shooting up in the sky. The building will be 1070 feet tall with 60 stories. Initial design plans of the tower prescribed a glass and steel exterior. However, due to security, financial and sustainability issues, the exterior surface will now be built using perforated aluminum. Additionally, the tower will also have a 150-feet tall "transparent crown" that will be lit by sparkling neon lights in the night.
"The Transbay Transit Tower and neighboring Transbay Transit Center are powerful individual buildings designed with a common civic purpose-to create the 21st century gateway to San Francisco and a state-of-the-art place marker on its skyline. Embodying sustainable, transit-based development, the tower combined with the transit center is a model for the future of our cities," Fred Clarke, head of Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, said in a statement.
The tower will be used for mixed commercial purposes including offices and retail stores. At the ground breaking ceremony, the ownership of the building was handed over to developers, Hines and Boston Properties, who paid a little over $191 million for the parcel. Apparently, the amount will go into funding the construction of the $4 billion Transbay Transit Center.
"Transbay Transit Tower will be a new icon for the city and state. The tower will also set a new standard for healthy and productive work environments," Paul Paradis, Hines senior managing director, added in the statement.
Check out the new renderings of the Tower, here.
Another 54-story high rise in 181 Fremont Street is also set to join the Transit Center Project's high-rise clan. The building will be developed by Jay Paul Company and will cost around $375 million.
