San Francisco’s tallest tower approved for construction

By Sarah Korones | October 20, 2012, 6:38 PM PDT

By the year 2017, San Francisco’s skyline will have one giant addition. The Californian city will soon become home to the West Coast’s tallest skyscraper, the Transbay Tower.

The 80-story skyscraper, which received its final approval from the Planning Commission on Thursday, will be a key part of the area’s planned South of Market district transportation hub, the Transbay Transit Center. Projected to stand tall at 1,070-feet, the skyscraper will just barely top the 1,018-foot U.S. Bank Tower in downtown Los Angeles.

Designed by architecture firm, Pelli Clarke Pelli, the steel and glass tower will connect directly to the Transit Center, which will serve as a home base for 11 area transit systems.

A 5.4-acre rooftop park to be called “City Park” will sit atop the transit center and will attach to the Transbay Tower by a 30-foot wide pedestrian bridge that will flow into the building’s 5th-floor atrium.

“In the spirit of New York’s Grand Central Terminal and London’s Victoria Station, Transbay’s soaring light-filled spaces will give San Francisco a grand entrance that befits its status as one of the world’s great cities,” the architects state on the Pelli Clarke Pelli website. “Together, the two buildings represent novel approaches to public-private collaboration and sustainability in urban projects”