Organized Labor

Team #3

Paul Paradis, Senior Vice President of developer Hines, said his firm was responsible for 3 million square feet of development in the City and that “We really do care about what gets built here because our team will use it.” The company is partnered with Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, best known for the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, once the world’s tallest building at 1,483 feet. Other designs include UC San Francisco’s Biology and Genetics Building and the Museum of Modern Art Tower in New York City.

Cesar Pelli and Landscape architect Peter Walker of Berkeley’s Peter Walker and Partners presented their plan that featured a mixed-use obelisk-shaped tower and a five-level transit terminal topped by a new 5.4-acre a 1,300-foot-long rooftop park with large skylights that allow sunlight to shine onto the floors below. Pelli said that the proposal would transform Natoma Street with new shops, cafes and trees. The Transit Center that would be open and full of light. “We are very aware that the Transit Center serves not just the city but the entire region and we designed with the region in mind,” Pelli said. The Center would be open from all sides, with escalators linking the levels and open to the sky above.

Pelli called the creation of a new park, “a fantastic asset for the city,” – large enough to accommodate multiple activities. The park would also be planted to attract birds and become a natural habitat The Pelli proposal would also reduce emissions by enclosing busses in glass and using filters to remove pollutants. He said his firm takes sustainability seriously and the design would reduce energy consumption by about 38 percent. A unique component of the Pelli-Hines plan would be a water management system that traps rainwater as well as grey water from the building.

Walker said that the water would be released into a stream alongside the new park and taken through a series of environments including a salt-water marsh to naturally clean the water to be used to irrigate the park. He said Pelli had created a similar project in Sydney, Australia, and for Boeing in Washington State. The three proposed designs will be evaluated by the D/D Competition Jury, a nine-member panel with a broad spectrum of design and development expertise. The five-member TJPA Board will select the most qualified architect-developer team on Sept. 20. Construction is scheduled to be completed by 2014. Plans also call for extending Caltrain 1.3 miles from Fourth and King Streets into the new Transit Center. Construction of the Caltrain Downtown Rail Extension would be the second phase of the project, estimated to begin in 2012 and be completed and operational by 2018.

According to the TJPA, “… as a regional project whose benefits will reach far beyond San Francisco and the Bay Area, our regional partners have also have committed significant funding for this project as has the State and Federal Government, thanks to strong support from our elected officials.” The Transbay Transit Center/Caltrain Extension Project received $56.2 million in federal funding from the Federal surface transportation bill in August 2005.

The new Transbay Terminal is expected to cost about $3.14 billion. The project is funded through a combination of regional, state and federal money. Additionally, Proposition K, a half-cent sales tax extension for transportation passed by San Francisco voters in 2003, earmarked $270 million for the Transit Center. Regional Measure 2, which passed in 2004 and raised Bay Area bridge tolls, allocated $150 million in project funding. Additional funding may come if a statewide High-Speed Rail bond measure proposed for the Nov. 4, 2008 ballot passes.