Agreed - the design of third tower is really awesome. I think the 2nd tower will be laughed at - and it will be the one that appears in all the opposition pamphlets, fliers, and websites (Guardian, anyone?). The 2nd tower just looks silly - although maybe the pictures don't do it justice, I don't know. But I mean there were only 3 designs...and one of them was that? Makes me wonder what Norman Foster and Santiago Calatrava would have come up with.
Regardless, if this thing does indeed get built at these heights, the 1st and the 3rd will likely be in the running. The 3rd tower, while bold and exciting, might be too much for a place like San Francisco. All the more reason for it to be put up here, in my opinion. Here's hoping the city and its residents support it, and that the heights don't get significantly lopped off.
Here is another article in the chronicle. The link also includes the pictures (although their the same as the above posted article).
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...SBAY.TMP&tsp=1
BOLD PLANS FOR THE TRANSBAY TERMINAL
The West Coast's tallest building: 3 competing ideas show audacity that adds to the city's rising skyline
John King and Jonathan Curiel, Chronicle Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Three competing proposals for what would be the tallest building on the West Coast were unveiled Monday in San Francisco amid architectural hyperbole and political buzz.
There's no guarantee that any of the towers will be built, or that the design to be selected next month by public officials will reach the heights envisioned by the development teams. But the audacity of the designs -- and the favorable response from elected officials -- showed that the recent startling changes to the city's skyline are only a prelude to what could lie ahead.
"There they are," San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said with a wave of his right hand as black mesh was pulled from three lavish large models. The event was held in a crowded event room at City Hall filled with dozens of people and several television crews. "Today is an historic day."
The three proposals range in height from 1,200 feet to 1,375 feet -- each extending well past the 853-foot Transamerica Pyramid, the tallest tower in San Francisco. And each is accompanied by a transit terminal that is intended to function as a major civic gateway.
The competition is being held by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, a regional government body created in 2001 to bring about the construction of a new transit terminal in San Francisco that backers say could become the regional equivalent of Grand Central Station.
The authority would sell or lease the tower site to a developer, with the proceeds going toward the estimated $983 million cost of the terminal and related infrastructure projects, such as new bus-only ramps from the Bay Bridge.
While the public attention is likely to be on the towers, public officials stress the transportation payoff of the new terminal located one block from Market Street and BART.
"Through this facility we can create a statement to the rest of the world while creating a seamless transportation network connecting the Bay Area to the rest of the region and state," said San Mateo County Supervisor Jerry Hill, who chairs the Transbay authority's board of directors. "It will make daily commutes and longer trips easier."
Long-term plans for the transit complex include an extension of commuter rail lines from where they now stop at Fourth and King streets. The design would also allow for high-speed rail service from Southern California, although there is lukewarm support from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for putting a bond for such a system on the ballot.
In the early years of planning for the new terminal, it was assumed that any tower alongside it would climb no higher than 55o feet, the zoning cap now in the neighborhood. Now, though, public officials say the extra height is merited -- not just to boost the land sales, but to reflect the importance of mass transit and to show that San Francisco continues to measure itself against other cities of global status that also are seeing super tall towers proposed or built.
"It's certainly a banner day for San Francisco," said Dean Macris, the city's planning director. "One hundred years ago, no one could have imagined the city it is today."
Each of the bidders seized the opportunity to push the design envelope.
The most visually dramatic proposal is from a team that includes Skidmore Owings Merrill and Rockefeller Group Development Corp.
The team proposes a tower that would fold and twist as it rises and is topped by a publicly accessible rooftop space wrapped in glass. The first floor would be lifted 100 feet above the street.
By comparison, the design by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects for Houston-based developer Hines is relatively tame: a tapering, obelisk-shaped tower with a sleek skin. At the base there would be a glass-covered public square, while the transit station would be topped by an open-air rooftop garden extending more than two city blocks.
The third proposal is from a team that includes the Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, working for developers Forest City Enterprises and McFarlane Partners.
Like many designs by English architect Richard Rogers, this one has a muscular look. It rises straight up from a plaza on Mission Street and is topped by an enormous wind turbine framed by portions of the tower's metal structure that extends past the roof.
With an eye toward environmental issues, each of the three designs also emphasizes sustainable design elements such as the turbine.
For all the hoopla connected to the idea of a skyline-topping tower, there's no guarantee that any of the visions unveiled on Monday will be built -- or even that they'll be the deciding factor in determining which team wins the right to conduct exclusive negotiations with the authority.
Each proposal was evaluated in private last week at Fort Mason by an appointed jury that includes architects and engineers as well as a transportation expert and a real estate analyst. The jury will present its recommendation to the authority board on Aug. 30.
In evaluating the three proposals, jury members are directed to base 60 percent of their evaluation on the design for the transit station and on "functionality and technical issues," according to the evaluation sheet. As for the tower evaluation, economics are every bit as important as aesthetics, indicated by such directives as "The jury will focus on the timing and amount of revenue to the TJPA and the overall financial feasibility of the Tower proposal."
Another unresolved issue: how tall the tower will be allowed to be.
City planning officials aren't shy about wanting an extremely tall tower, and they encouraged the types of height in the proposals unveiled on Monday. But a full environmental study is needed before zoning can be changed -- and the formal planning work to test such heights only now is getting underway.
Whatever proposals do emerge will be scrutinized by potential foes in a city traditionally wary of high-rises. Indeed, a voter-approved proposition from 1984 makes it difficult to erect any tower that will cast shade on a public park. Tower foes also have allies at the city's Building Inspection Commission, where several members in the past year have voiced skepticism about the seismic safety of the narrow towers preferred by the city's Planning Department.
Still, support for the tower is considerable.
Besides public officials, it includes a number of environmental groups who in the past have lobbied for height limits but now see mass transit as a critical issue for the region. There's also support from civic groups that want to concentrate development in the core of the city -- the same impulse that prompted the residential towers now rising between Mission Street and the Bay Bridge.
But the tallest such tower -- One Rincon, which was recently topped off at Harrison and Fremont streets -- is 550 feet tall. Others near it are allowed to be no more than 450 feet. That's half the height of what the three development teams are proposing.
The Transbay authority is scheduled to vote on September 20 to select the development team. The goal is to have the new transit station in operation by 2014.
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My vote goes to the SOM design, very bold and inviting yet mostly unique. I hope it goes through the hoops of fire that I am sure await it at the approval boards and that it getis built soon. 
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