SAN FRANCISCO | Post Street Tower | 407 FT / 124 M | 38 FLOORS | PRO
 

A new thread for the fairly recent proposal of the Cathedral Hill Tower. While not part of the Financial - SOMA Central Skyline, it should make for a very nice addition to its part of the city. At 407', it will certainly be visible from many vantage points.

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/1...errendevl2.jpg

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/2...errendeoa7.jpg

The Skidmore, Owings and Merrill design for a proposed 38-story and 300 unit condominium development across from St. Mary’s Cathedral has been unveiled. The glass-walled oval tower would replace the current Cathedral Hill Plaza Athletic Club swimming pool and tennis courts (the swimming pool would be moved underground; the tennis courts, not so much) and would include five floors of below grade parking (one space per unit).

All 300 units in the tower are proposed to be market rate with the developers looking to fulfill their BMR quota offsite (within a mile). And the development would also include an education/community center at the corner of Gough and Geary and adjoining ground level commercial space.

In terms of a timeline, expect at least a year for planning and permitting (we’d guess quite a bit more) and then another two for actual construction.

Renderings provided by: Socketsite.com

:haha: two threads for the same project. nice looking tower too.

Careful not to confuse this project with 555 Washington St. Both towers are 38 stories, and about the same height. I think the two buildings would be more than a mile apart. Maybe someone could check?

^^^Check what? 555 Washington has its own thread: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=130808

Reminds me of Foster's UES tower that fell through...

http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com...%20Madison.jpghttp://img230.imageshack.us/img230/1...errendevl2.jpg


http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com...%20Madison.jpg
worldarchitecturenews.com

idk i think it looks more like the St. Rgis tower in Mexico city

That's uncanny. I was going to say the exact same thing. Let's hope this equally dynamic proposal does not suffer the same fate. Not in open-minded San Francisco. :cool:

The title of the thread is a bit of a misnomer, as the developers are actually billing this project as the "Post Street Tower(s)." There's already a "Cathedral Hill Tower" (1200 Gough), built by the same developer back in 1965, as seen in my avatar :)

Awesome looking tower. Hope to see it rise soon.:) :) :notacrook:

I should have said, "...check the distance between each of the two building sites." Sorry, if that wasn't clear, or even much important. I was in a rush at the time.

That had gone through my attention after I had created the thread. However, I see that one of the administrators has taken the liberty to change it to "Post Street Tower", which seems more appropriate.

Anyone by chance know the approximate land elevation of this location? I was estimating somewhere around 200'.

By my Muni map it's about 1.25 miles or a bit more. But why does it matter?

The name change of the thread makes my previous post obsolete!

On to substantive issues: while this is a nice looking tower, I think the drawings are a bit deceptive as to the perspective -- this will be seriously close (about 70 feet) to the existing 25 story Sequoias tower, which is presently one of the more visibly imposing buildings in the area. So it will look awkward from the West, coming East up Geary, as it will be seen as sort of sprouting from behind the Sequoia. From the South or North, both buildings will look oddly close (far more than in the drawings, which seem to place the new tower further South than it actually is). So the only unobstructed view of the new tower will be from the East (downtown), over the 14 story Cathedral Hill Plaza (which is, generally, a non-entity). To give an idea of what a small footprint this is on, it will rest on an area presently occupied by two consecutive tennis courts, lying width-wise between the Sequoias and Cathedral Hill Plaza. In all, I don't think this will be as graceful as it appears in the drawings, and will actually create a rather crowded effect.

As you say, both the rendering and the model seem to show the base of the tower very close to the sidewalk on Geary to the south. Have you seen a site plan or other drawings of this proposal to support your claim that the renderings are inaccurate, and the latest scheme(s) has the tower actually further north? I agree it would be rather crowded, if this is true.

I went to the public presentation that the developer held at St. Mary's, and looked closely at the model -- it's definitely going to be a shoehorn fit, and quite awkward with respect to the Sequoia tower. I can't figure out how to save the picture, but look up 1333 Gough on Mapquest or Google maps, and click the satellite/aerial view -- you can see how little space there is between the Sequoias and Cathedral Hill Plaza (basically, the tennis courts). The tower will not be all that close to he sidewalk, as they plan low-rise retail on Geary, and roof gardens above that.

It's a very interesting design with quite the dynamic looking crown. I hope it becomes a reality!

Here you go - from Google Earth:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m...33Goughmap.jpg

If I am not mistaken, the existing swimming pool is under the dark gray roof near the center of this image. North is pointing upwards. Geary is the large street running left-right near the bottom. The Sequoias Tower is at the middle-left. Cathedral Hill Plaza is at the middle-right. The large entrance plaza to the St. Mary's Cathedral is at the bottom.

How long ago was the public presentation? Hopefully the renderings show a newer scheme. Various reviews by the public and the city could push the tower location further south. Do you recall any comments from anyone from the Sequoias at the public presentation?

That's indeed the spot. The meeting was only a couple of weeks ago, and the renderings were the same. It's the actual model that really shows the dynamics between the two towers. Hard to tell from the satellite photo, but the Sequoias (to the left of the tennis courts) is considerably taller than the Cathedral Hill Plaza (to the right). Basically, for both the Sequoias and the new tower, from looking at the model, there's be about 25 stories of people looking right into each others' living rooms. Not sure who exactly was from the Sequoias at the presentation, but neighborhood reaction varied from anxious to angry. On the other hand, a new development, and especially some decent retail, might help enliven the area. The developer was pretty fuzzy about the nature of the retail (they mentioned a cafe and a dry cleaner, as possibilities), and even more fuzzy about the nature of the "community center" that's included in the project. I'd like to see them scratch the community center and put in some more retail space, fronting Gough.

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Architecture has come full circle: It reminds me of this, built many years ago (about the same time as the Sequoias):

http://www.emporis.com/en/il/im/?id=501571

For those interested in how residents of Cathedral Hill feel about it, BTinSF and I evaluate its contribution to our neighborhood in the following local San Francisco thread:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...114324&page=31