Rincon Center is a complex of shops, restaurants, offices, and apartments in the

South of Market South of Market (SoMa) is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, situated just south of Market Street. It contains several sub-neighborhoods including South Beach, Yerba Buena, and Rincon Hill. SoMa is home to many of the city's museums ...

neighborhood of

Downtown San Francisco The Financial District is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, United States, that serves as its main central business district and had 372,829 jobs according to U.S. census tracts as of 2012-2016. It is home to the city's largest conce ...

, California. It includes two buildings, one of which is the former Rincon Annex

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional ser ...

building, completed in 1940. Rincon Center occupies an entire city block near the Embarcadero, bounded by

Mission Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to: Organised activities Religion *Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity *Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...

, Howard, Spear, and Steuart Streets.

Rincon Annex

Southern Pacific The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...

(SP) originally purchased the land where the original Rincon Annex was completed, next to its headquarters for the extension of its rail line to downtown San Francisco, but the western terminus of the

San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, known locally as the Bay Bridge, is a complex of bridges spanning San Francisco Bay in California. As part of Interstate 80 and the direct road between San Francisco and Oakland, it carries about 260,000 ...

interfered with the proposed site and the increasing popularity of the automobile also reduced demand for SP's

Peninsula Commute The Peninsula Commute, also known as the Southern Pacific Peninsula or just Peninsula, was the common name for commuter rail service between San Jose, California and San Francisco, California on the San Francisco Peninsula. This service ran as a ...

service. The original Rincon Annex was designed by

Gilbert Stanley Underwood Gilbert Stanley Underwood (1890–1960) was an American architect best known for his National Park lodges. Born in 1890, Underwood received his B.A. from Yale in 1920 and a M.A. from Harvard in 1923. After opening an office in Los Angeles that ...

in the Streamline Moderne style. Groundbreaking on the site occurred on June 1, 1939, the building was completed by October 15, 1940, and the facility opened on October 26. The exterior is decorated with stone relief

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

s of dolphins above the doorways and windows. The original Rincon Annex building has a footprint of , with three floors and a half basement. The first floor interior has ceilings that are high; the large L-shaped lobby is long (for the portion parallel to Mission) and long (parallel to Spear). The third floor was used for employee lounge areas, dressing rooms, and offices. At its peak, there were 1,000 to 1,500 Postal Service employees working simultaneously in the building; air conditioning was installed in 1958 to reduce interior temperatures. The first expansion of Rincon Annex occurred between 1959 and 1960 on the southeast side of the block to handle mail intake and distribution; automated mail sorting machinery was installed in 1963, 1966, and 1966–78. The United States Postal Service (USPS) was spun off as a government corporation in 1972 and because it was less efficient to sort mail in a multilevel facility, the USPS began negotiations to move the mail sorting facility from Rincon Annex to India Basin Park in 1976; the move was completed by 1979. The Rincon Annex building was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

the same year.

Murals

The interior of the lobby (parallel to the Mission and Spear street facades) features the ''History of San Francisco''

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...

series, comprising 27 tempera-on-gesso murals painted by the Russian immigrant artist

Anton Refregier Anton Refregier (March 20, 1905 – October 10, 1979) was a painter and muralist active in Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project commissions, and in teaching art. He was a Russian immigrant to the United States. Among his best-kn ...

from 1941 to 1948 under the

Section of Painting and Sculpture The Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture was a New Deal art project established on October 16, 1934, and administered by the Procurement Division of the United States Department of the Treasury. Commonly known as the Section, it was rena ...

of the

United States Department of the Treasury The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and ...

. The murals, in the

social realism Social realism is the term used for work produced by painters, printmakers, photographers, writers and filmmakers that aims to draw attention to the real socio-political conditions of the working class as a means to critique the power structure ...

style, depict the history of California and San Francisco's role in it. As they were completed immediately following World War II, they generated fierce controversies. Refregier's detractors criticized his artistic style and questioned his political leanings. The controversy eventually reached the U.S. Congress, where critics called for the murals to be destroyed. The murals led to the preservation of the post office lobby as part of the Rincon Center development.

1980s expansion

In 1978, the

United States Postal Service The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U ...

announced it would move the mail sorting facilities from Rincon Annex to a larger building at India Basin, and the Rincon Annex Post Office was shut down by 1979. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors subsequently adopted the ''Rincon Point – South Beach Project Area Redevelopment Plan'' on January 5, 1981, which provided controls for land use, development standards, and urban design guidelines for the area including Rincon Annex. Specific Rincon Annex controls were adopted on October 18, 1983, and the USPS entered a 65-year lease with Rincon Center Associates, a partnership headed by Perini Land & Development Company, to develop the former Rincon Annex. The original building and site was developed into a mixed-use center by Rincon Center Associates; the design was approved on August 20, 1985. The lead designer was Scott Johnson of Pereira Associates, the firm founded by

William Pereira William Leonard Pereira (April 25, 1909 – November 13, 1985) was an American architect from Chicago, Illinois, who was noted for his futuristic designs of landmark buildings such as the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco. Remarkably pr ...

, designer of the

Transamerica Pyramid The Transamerica Pyramid is a 48-story futurist skyscraper in San Francisco, California, United States, and the second tallest building in the San Francisco skyline. Located at 600 Montgomery Street between Clay and Washington Streets in the c ...

. The complex was completed in 1988. Rincon Center (aerial, 2010)

Two new stories of offices were added to top of the original Rincon Annex building, which was also opened up to create a five-story atrium in the rear courtyard, topped by a long skylight with a food court on the lower level. A new mixed-use building on the southeast side of the block contains a new post office, offices, and 320 apartments in twin 23-story towers rising from the commercial levels. The base or commercial podium of the new building is six stories tall. The residences were completed in 1989, originally intended as condominiums. After the completion of Rincon Center, the parcel was divided into four lots: the original Rincon Annex, the commercial "podium" of the new building, the new postal facility, and the residential towers of the new building. The USPS transferred its ownership of three of the four lots to BRE/Rincon Land LLC in 1999, retaining ownership of the new postal facility only. The buildings were subsequently sold to

Beacon Capital Partners Beacon Capital Partners is an American real estate investment firm based in Boston, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1998, after Beacon Properties, Inc., Beacon's predecessor, was acquired by EQ Office in a $4 billion transaction. The company fo ...

in July 2006 for $275 million, and the apartments were sold to Capital Properties in June 2007 for $143 million. Beacon had been planning to convert the apartments to condominiums prior to the sale. Capital Properties took a two-year, $110 million loan from

Bear Stearns The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. was a New York-based global investment bank, securities trading and brokerage firm that failed in 2008 as part of the global financial crisis and recession, and was subsequently sold to JPMorgan Chase. The comp ...

to fund its purchase; in the wake of that bank's collapse during the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...

, the debt was acquired by Carmel Partners, which foreclosed on Capital Properties and took over the residences. In 2010, Capital Properties filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to have the property returned. Beacon Capital sold its remaining interest in Rincon Center to Hudson Pacific in April 2011. Until the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, San Francisco City Guides led walking tours of the Rincon Annex murals. Because of the pandemic, retail space in the atrium became significantly less viable, and the historic nature of the original Rincon Annex lobby meant the atrium could not be opened to the street to facilitate customer traffic. San Francisco approved an amendment to the redevelopment plan to allow the ground floor retail space to be used as offices in December 2020.

Tenants

Corporate tenants in Rincon Center have included

AIG American International Group, Inc. (AIG) is an American multinational finance and insurance corporation with operations in more than 80 countries and jurisdictions. , AIG companies employed 49,600 people.https://www.aig.com/content/dam/aig/amer ...

and

Salesforce Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides customer relationship management (CRM) software and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, a ...

, which moved in 2018 to

Salesforce Tower Salesforce Tower, formerly known as Transbay Tower, is a 61-story skyscraper at 415 Mission Street, between First and Fremont Street, in the South of Market district of downtown San Francisco. Its main tenant is Salesforce, a cloud-based so ...

, replaced by

Twilio Twilio () is an American company based in San Francisco, California, which provides programmable communication tools for making and receiving phone calls, sending and receiving text messages, and performing other communication functions using i ...

Restaurants

Notable restaurants in Rincon Center include Etrusca (1990–93, operated by the

Il Fornaio Il Fornaio is a chain restaurant, chain of twenty (as of 2019) Italian cuisine, Italian-themed fine dining restaurants operating primarily in California (16 locations of its 20) in the United States. History The Il Fornaio brand was established i ...

restaurant group) and Yank Sing (1999–present).

Artwork

The ''Rain Cloud''

installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...

work in the atrium was designed by the contemporary artist Doug Hollis and consisted of a continuous column of water drops falling from an eight-foot by eight-foot

acrylic glass Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) belongs to a group of materials called engineering plastics. It is a transparent thermoplastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and brands Crylux, Plexiglas, Acrylite ...

box at ceiling level perforated with 4,000 holes. It was removed in an early 2020s renovation that also removed an

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

-inspired frieze by

Richard Haas Richard John Haas (born August 29, 1936) is an American muralist who is best known for architectural murals and his use of the ''trompe-l'œil'' style. Haas has a 1959 B.S. from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and a 1964 M.F.A. from the U ...

on recent California history from the atrium and installed vegetated panels.

Gallery

Rincon Annex Post Office

File:Rincon Annex (San Francisco).jpg, Exterior of Rincon Annex, 2008, view east from intersection of Mission and Spear File:Rincon Center Entrance-9438.jpg, Rincon Center entrance, Mission Street facade File:Rincon Center Sign-9435.jpg, Detail of sign File:Rincon Center, San Francisco (2013) - 15.JPG, Eagle statue flanking main entrance File:Rincon Center, San Francisco (2013) - 14.JPG, Main entrance details File:Rincon Center interior Marker -9447.jpg, 1939 post office dedication plaque File:Rincon Center interior Parcel Post-9448.jpg, Former parcel post window File:Rincon Center interior Marker Post Office-9452.jpg, 1961 Post Office war memorial plaque File:Rincon Center Historic Marker-9442.jpg, Rincon Annex historic marker File:Rincon Center, San Francisco (2013) - 02.JPG, Entrance to elevator lobby

''History of San Francisco'' murals in Annex lobby

File:Rincon Center San Francisco Interior Hallway.jpg, Main lobby of Rincon Annex (parallel to Mission) File:Rincon Center, San Francisco (2013) - 07.JPG, Junction of main and side lobbies of Rincon Annex File:Rincon Center, San Francisco (2013) - 05.JPG, Side lobby of Rincon Annex (parallel to Spear) File:IMG_2181_sir_francis_drake_by_Anton_Refregier_Rincon_Center_San_Francisco.JPG,

mural, Panel #3, "Sir Francis Drake" File:Rincon Center, San Francisco (2013) - 10.JPG, Refregier mural, Panel #10, "Raising the Bear Flag" File:Rincon Center interior Mural-9450.jpg, Refregier mural, Panel #16, "Building the Railroad" File:Rincon Center interior Mural 3-9451.jpg, Refregier mural, Panel #20, "San Francisco as a Cultural Center" File:Rincon Center interior Mural-9446.jpg, Refregier mural, Panel #27, "War and Peace"

Rincon Center commercial building (1988)

File:Inside Rincon Center.jpg, Interior of atrium, view northwest towards Mission Street File:Rincon Center.jpg, Atrium skylight detail File:Two Rincon Center Looking Up.jpg, Exterior courtyard of 1988 commercial building and residence towers, view southeast towards Howard Street

References

External links

Rincon Center: Slide show of the Refregier mural panels
* * {{Authority control Buildings and structures in San Francisco South of Market, San Francisco Post office buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in California National Register of Historic Places in San Francisco San Francisco Designated Landmarks Government buildings completed in 1940 1940s architecture in the United States Works Progress Administration in California Streamline Moderne architecture in California 1940 establishments in California