Since 1906, the San Francisco skyline has continued to evolve with the addition of new buildings that reshape the image of the City by the Bay. Now, the Salesforce Tower is ready to take its mantle as the newest jewel in the city’s skyline.
Completion of Salesforce Tower is set for this summer and Salesforce.com will be the tenant. The building is designed to fit seamlessly into the urban fabric of San Francisco. The Pelli Clarke Pelli-designed tower is set to break two records: tallest building in the city and the most expensive. At 1,070-feet tall, the building cost its developer, Boston Properties, a whopping $1.1 billion. Hines also owns a stake in the tower.
Salesforce.com CEO Marc Berinoff, celebrating the new headquarters earlier this month, was all smiles during a “topping off” event.
“I used to walk this very street with my grandfather,” Benioff said at the ceremony, which involved lifting a giant beam to the roof. “And he used to tell me about how the future of San Francisco was rising up.”
The company has leased out about 70 percent of the tower, according to its website. It also will use it to house up to 10,000 Salesforce.com employees. About 400,000 square feet of space remains available for lease.
Jack Nelson, a research analyst at JLL, a real estate services firm, said the developers have catered to the tastes of the tech industry.
For example, architects provide fresh air and natural light through decks on multiple stories, floor-to-ceiling glass and open spaces, to form what has been dubbed a “vertical campus.”
Salesforce, a cloud-computing company that specializes in customer relationship management, will occupy floors three to 30 and the top two levels, 60 and 61.
However, Elizabeth Pinkham, Salesforce executive vice president of global real estate, said the top floors will be reserved for all employees and their guests.
According to Salesforce.com, other tenants include Accenture, CBRE and Bain & Co.
Transmerica Pyramid, which stands at 853 feet, was the previous tallest building in the City by the Bay. The Bank of America Building is 799 feet.
“This one is sort of – ‘Hey, I’m here, you’re not going to miss me,” said Jasper Rubin, a professor of urban planning from San Francisco State. “You know when you have the tallest building, there’s something about ‘the tallest building’ that really marks a spot.”
John King, the architecture critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, said the tower marks a turning point in the city. In the 1970s, its planning department down-zoned the towers that were allowed.
The result was a skyline many described as boring.
“The refrigerator boxes – which people called them from the 1970s were aesthetically displeasing to many people,” Rubin said.
King said the tower shifts the focal point of the city.
“Theoretically, this is the heart of big city San Francisco,” he said.
