It may be a tall order to lure high-rise tenants to Downtown San Francisco with a stand of redwood trees.
Yet that’s what Texas-based Hines plans for its block-size development of homes and offices at 50 Main Street in the Financial District, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The Houston-based developer aims to surround its 800-unit apartment tower and 1.5 million square feet of offices with a mini Muir Woods. Its dozens of redwoods would send their evergreen whiff into the sliding-glass “air porches” of redeveloped offices.
The mid-block cluster of 75 redwoods would tower over well-lit gardens – with the entire development at Main and Market streets to be called City Grove.
The redwood grove, designed by Berkeley-based PWP Landscape Architecture, would take up 70 percent of the block, to create a bower for the ferns and flowers below.
“A great redwood forest has a power to it that can stand up to buildings on either side,” Adam Greenspan, a partner with PWP, told the Chronicle. “But closer in, these redwoods create and make an outdoor room where the trunks are like columns and their canopy is like the ceiling.”
Plans for the former PG&E headquarters include the 800-unit tower at 50 Main, which at a revised 992 feet would be the second tallest in the city.
They also include the redevelopment of an office building at 77 Beale Street, and the renovation of two historic buildings at 215 and 245 Market Street.
“The pandemic brought new focus on the desire for access to fresh air and natural light and nature,” said Jon Pickard of Pickard Chilton Architects, which is designing the office buildings with windows to let in the redwood scent. “To bring our tenants back to downtown San Francisco, we need to provide a place they can recruit, retain and engage the talent.”
Office vacancy in Downtown San Francisco hovers above 25 percent, surpassing the worst of the dot-com crash two decades ago.
Planning Commissioner Sue Diamond questioned whether the tower would cast shadows over any open spaces, which an attorney for the developer said is being studied in an environmental review.
She also asked why Hines decided to overhaul 1.5 million square feet of offices during an uncertain office market.
Hines Senior Managing Director Paul Paradis said the company is trying to position the City Grove to draw the best tenants “four to five years” from now.
“The companies making commitment to office space are making it to the very best buildings,” Paradis said during a project demonstration. “They are demanding new systems, great buildings. They are trying to keep their employees safe and attract their employees back to work.
“So you have to have a great building for it to lease.”
— Dana Bartholomew
Read more
Development
San Francisco
Hines office tower would be tallest building in East Bay
Residential
San Francisco
Hines sued by tenants displaced by flooded SF highrise