Salesforce Tower, formerly known as Transbay Tower, is a 61-story

skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...

at 415

Mission Street Mission Street is a north-south arterial thoroughfare in Daly City and San Francisco, California that runs from Daly City's southern border to San Francisco's northeast waterfront. The street and San Francisco's Mission District through which it r ...

, between First and Fremont Street, 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 ...

district of downtown

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. Its main tenant is

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 ...

, a cloud-based software company. The building is tall, with a top roof height of . Designed by

César Pelli César Pelli (October 12, 1926 – July 19, 2019) was an Argentine-American architect who designed some of the world's tallest buildings and other major urban landmarks. Two of his most notable buildings are the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur a ...

and developed by

Hines Interests Limited Partnership Hines Interests Limited Partnership is a privately held company that invests in and develops real estate. The company has developed, redeveloped or acquired 1,450 properties, comprising over 485 million square feet. The company currently manage ...

and

Boston Properties Boston Properties, Inc. is a publicly traded real estate investment trust that invests in premier workplaces in Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. As of June 30, 2022, the company owned or had interest ...

, it was the last building designed by Pelli to be completed in his lifetime. As of 2018, Salesforce Tower is the

tallest building in San Francisco San Francisco, California, in the United States, has at least 482 high-rises, 58 of which are at least tall. The tallest building is Salesforce Tower, which rises and is the 17th-tallest building in the United States. The city's second-tal ...

and the second-tallest building both in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

and west of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

after the

Wilshire Grand Center Wilshire Grand Center is a skyscraper in the financial district of downtown Los Angeles, California, occupying the entire city block between Wilshire Boulevard and 7th, Figueroa, and Francisco streets. Completed in 2017, it is the tallest bui ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

. Salesforce Tower is

obelisk An obelisk (; from grc, ὀβελίσκος ; diminutive of ''obelos'', " spit, nail, pointed pillar") is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape or pyramidion at the top. Originally constructed by Anc ...

-shaped, with a grid of metal fins running from the base of the building to the roof. The building sits on a

land fill Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new land from oceans, seas, riverbeds or lake beds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamati ...

, and multiple load-bearing pillars reach below the foundation and into

bedrock In geology, bedrock is solid Rock (geology), rock that lies under loose material (regolith) within the crust (geology), crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface mater ...

. The exterior of the building consists of a glass and steel curtain wall with a steel frame and a concrete core. Each floor of the building uses ''

brise soleil ''Brise soleil'', sometimes ''brise-soleil'' (; ), is an architectural feature of a building that reduces heat gain within that building by deflecting sunlight. More recently, vertical Brise soleil have become popular. Both systems allow low-l ...

'' to deflect sunlight. Salesforce Tower is designed to be a

green building Green building (also known as green construction or sustainable building) refers to both a structure and the application of processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's life-cycle: from planni ...

, with the building employing water conservation measures and air intake systems. A public art light sculpture at the top of the building, consisting of 11,000 LEDs, displays video animations every evening that can be seen from up to 30 miles away. Throughout the 2000s, the city of San Francisco invested into a redevelopment plan in the area surrounding the

Transbay Transit Center The Transbay Transit Center (officially the Salesforce Transit Center for sponsorship purposes) is a transit station in downtown San Francisco. It serves as the primary bus terminal — and potentially as a future rail terminal — for the San ...

. The plan was adopted by the city in 2005, and following an

architectural design competition An architectural design competition is a type of design competition in which an organization that intends on constructing a new building invites architects to submit design proposals. The winning design is usually chosen by an independent panel o ...

in 2007, Pelli became the chief architect behind the plan. In 2011, the

San Francisco Transbay Terminal The San Francisco Transbay Terminal was a transportation complex in San Francisco, California, United States, roughly in the center of the rectangle bounded north–south by Mission Street and Howard Street, and east–west by Beale Street and 2 ...

was completely demolished, beginning the plan, and in 2013, construction on the building began. Salesforce Tower was completed in 2018 for over $1.1 billion. By 2019, Boston Properties had acquired 100% of the property.

Site

Salesforce Tower is located at 415

, at the intersection of First and Fremont Street, south of

Market Street Market Street may refer to: *Market Street, Cambridge, England *Market Street, Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia * Market Street, George Town, Penang, Malaysia *Market Street, Manchester, England *Market Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia ...

and within the

Financial District A financial district is usually a central area in a city where financial services firms such as banks, insurance companies and other related finance corporations have their head offices. In major cities, financial districts are often home to s ...

. The building's

land lot In real estate, a lot or plot is a tract or parcel of land owned or meant to be owned by some owner(s). A plot is essentially considered a parcel of real property in some countries or immovable property (meaning practically the same thing) in ...

is rectangular and covers , while its frontage is . Salesforce Tower is adjacent to the

, a transit station that replaced the

, which had been severely damaged as a result of the

1989 Loma Prieta earthquake The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake occurred on California's Central Coast on October 17 at local time. The shock was centered in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park in Santa Cruz County, approximately northeast of Santa Cruz on a section of t ...

and served as the central focus of the San Francisco redevelopment plan. The building is located near Millennium Tower.

Architecture

Salesforce Tower was designed by

Argentine-American Argentine Americans ( es, argentino-estadounidense) are Americans whose full or partial origin is in Argentina. They are part of the broader Hispanic and Latino American category, and make up a scant 0.1% of the U.S. population, compared to lar ...

architect

and developed by

and

. It was one of Pelli's last finished works before his death in 2019. Other companies involved with the project include glass manufacturer

Guardian Industries Guardian Industries is a privately held industrial manufacturer of glass, automotive and building products based in Auburn Hills, Michigan, Auburn Hills, Michigan. The company manufactures float glass, fabricated glass products, fiberglass insulat ...

, plumbing manufacturer

Kohler Co. Kohler Co., founded in 1873 by John Michael Kohler, is an American manufacturing company based in Kohler, Wisconsin. Kohler is best known for its plumbing products, but the company also manufactures furniture, cabinetry, tile, engines, and g ...

, elevator manufacturer

Schindler Group , logo = Logo-schindler.png , logo_size = 200px , image = SchindlerTestTowerHeadOfficeEbikon.jpg , image_size = 250px , image_caption = Schindler Test Tower at the Head Office in Ebikon, Switzerland , type = Public (''Aktiengesellschaft'') , ...

, engineering consultant

Morrison Hershfield Morrison Hershfield is an employee-owned professional services firm providing engineering and management consulting services in the areas of energy and industrial, buildings, technology and telecom, transportation, environment, water and wastew ...

, and structural engineering firm

Magnusson Klemencic Associates Magnusson Klemencic Associates is an American structural and civil engineering consulting firm with its headquarters in Seattle, Washington. The company has completed projects worth more than $99 billion in 48 states and 54 countries. Significant ...

. As of 2019, Boston Properties owns the building. Salesforce Tower is 61 stories tall, and covers of

floorspace In architecture, construction, and real estate, floor area, floor space, or floorspace is the area (measured as square feet or square metres) taken up by a building or part of it. The ways of defining "floor area" depend on what factors of the buil ...

. The 61st floor is known as the "Ohana Floor" and serves as an observation deck and lounge for Salesforce employees and guests. It is made available for use by nonprofits on evenings and weekends. On February 5, 2019, the company announced and opened advance registration for public tours of the "Ohana Floor" once every month starting February 23. The building's top 150 feet above the 61st floor have been described as "largely ornamental". Salesforce Tower facade detail (2020) (cropped)

Salesforce Tower facade detail (2020) (cropped)

The Salesforce Tower consists of a glass and steel curtain wall, surrounding a structural steel frame, which surrounds a reinforced concrete core. The building is enclosed in a lattice consisting of white aluminum fins and perforated sunshades, which reach out as much as two feet beyond the glass skin. The tower's silhouette is smoothly tapering off toward the top. In 2017, Pelli stated that the aim had been something "very tall, very big, but still polite and appropriate." The footprint of Salesforce Tower rests on

near San Francisco's original waterfront, an area prone to

soil liquefaction Soil liquefaction occurs when a cohesionless saturated or partially saturated soil substantially loses strength and stiffness in response to an applied stress such as shaking during an earthquake or other sudden change in stress condition, in ...

during

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...

s. To account for this seismic risk, the tower uses a design that is modeled to withstand the strongest earthquakes expected in the region. Its foundation includes 42

piles Hemorrhoids (or haemorrhoids), also known as piles, are vascular structures in the anal canal. In their normal state, they are cushions that help with stool control. They become a disease when swollen or inflamed; the unqualified term ''hemo ...

driven down nearly to

and a thick foundation mat. The Transbay Transit Center is located directly adjacent to the building, and is connected to the park level by a bridge on the 5th floor.

"Day for Night" light sculpture

The crown of the tower features a nine-story electronic

light sculpture Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 ter ...

, "Day for Night", by artist Jim Campbell. At its activation on May 21, 2018, it was considered the tallest public art piece in the world, visible from up to 30 miles away. At the time, its daily schedule began at dusk with a display of the sunset's colors, followed by low resolution videos derived from footage filmed during the day by 12 cameras in various San Francisco locations (including the Ferry Building and the Cliff House), and concluded with displaying a star constellation from midnight to sunrise. The installation went toward fulfilling the requirement of San Francisco's "Downtown Plan" that one percent of construction costs have to be set aside for public art. The animations are generated by 11,000 inward-facing LED lights on the top six floors (which are unoccupied), supported by color lighting on the three floors below them (which house building infrastructure). By 2022, "Day for Night" was also featuring monthly "Midnight Artist Series" by other artists, and sometimes themed content for occasions such as Lunar New Year or

Pride Pride is defined by Merriam-Webster as "reasonable self-esteem" or "confidence and satisfaction in oneself". A healthy amount of pride is good, however, pride sometimes is used interchangeably with "conceit" or "arrogance" (among other words) wh ...

. For Halloween 2018, in response to a petition that gathered 11,000 signatures, the light installation was made to look like the

Eye of Sauron Sauron (pronounced ) is the title character and the primary antagonist, through the forging of the One Ring, of J. R. R. Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings'', where he rules the land of Mordor and has the ambition of ruling the whole of Middl ...

. As of 2021, this has happened on every subsequent Halloween, too.

History

Developer

, with a proposal by architect

of Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, was selected as the winner of a global competition in 2007 to entitle and purchase the site. A seven-member jury of development experts assembled by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA) selected Hines over proposals from Forest City Enterprises and architect Richard Rogers; and from Rockefeller Development Group Corp. and

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is an American architectural, urban planning and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel A. Owings, Nathaniel Owings in Chicago, Illinois. In 1939, they were joined by engineer Jo ...

. In 2012,

acquired a 50% stake in the project and in 2013 acquired most of Hines' remaining interest to become 95% owners of the project. The site of the tower was in a dilapidated area, formerly used as a ground-level entrance to the

, which was demolished in 2011. The TJPA sold the parcel to Boston Properties and Hines for US$192 million, and ceremonial groundbreaking for the new tower occurred on March 27, 2013, with below-grade construction work starting in late 2013. The project is a joint venture between general contractors

Clark Construction Clark Construction, also referred to as Clark Construction Group, LLC, is a construction firm headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, and founded in 1906. The company had 2018 annual revenue of more than $5 billion, and is one of the largest commerc ...

and Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction. The development was originally contracted on spec, as Hines did not have a major tenant lease secured beforehand. On April 11, 2014,

Salesforce.com 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, an ...

announced that it signed a lease for to become the building's anchor tenant. Previously known as the Transbay Tower, the building was renamed Salesforce Tower. The lease was valued at US$560 million over years starting in 2017. The tower opened in 2018 and has 61 floors, with a decorative crown reaching . The original proposal called for a tower, but the height was later reduced. The building's first tenants began moving in on January 8, 2018. Upon opening, the building was 97% leased to tenants including Salesforce,

Covington & Burling Covington & Burling LLP is an American multinational law firm. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the firm advises clients on transactional, litigation, regulatory, and public policy matters. In 2021, Vault.com ranked Covington & Burling as th ...

WeWork WeWork Inc. is a provider of coworking spaces, including physical and virtual shared spaces, headquartered in New York City. As of December 31, 2021, the company operated of space, including in the United States and Canada, in 756 locatio ...

Bain & Company Bain & Company is an American management consulting company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. The firm provides advice to public, private, and non-profit organizations. One of the Big Three management consultancies, Bain & Company was fou ...

Accenture Accenture plc is an Irish-American professional services company based in Dublin, specializing in information technology (IT) services and consulting. A ''Fortune'' Global 500 company, it reported revenues of $61.6 billion in 2022. Accentur ...

McDermott Will & Emery McDermott Will & Emery is an international law firm with a diversified business practice. The firm is one of the largest grossing law firms in the US and globally, and its lawyers represent a wide range of commercial, industrial and financial e ...

and

Hellman & Friedman Hellman & Friedman LLC (H&F) is an American private equity firm, founded in 1984 by Warren Hellman and Tully Friedman, that makes investments primarily through leveraged buyouts as well as growth capital investments. H&F has focused its efforts o ...

. In May 2019, Boston Properties bought out Hines' remaining 5% stake in the building to become the sole owner and operator.

Critical reception

At the time of the building's opening in January 2018, the San Francisco Chronicle's architecture critic John King characterized it as "Immense but understated. Overwhelming yet refined. A study in thick-walled minimalism that seems to hover more than soar. All of which makes for a nuanced tower, conscientious and self-assured even as it reorients the skyline and redefines San Francisco’s visual image." King also reported that " chitecture buffs already dismiss Salesforce Tower as old hat, another Pelli Clarke Pelli shaft with a tapered silhouette — just like the International Finance Centre in Hong Kong or Torre Costanera in Santiago, Chile" (the tallest building in South America). However, he defended it against such criticism, pointing out differences like the Salesforce Tower's "smooth ascent". On 10 April 2019, the

Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) is an international body in the field of tall buildings and sustainable urban design. A non-profit organization based at the Monroe Building in the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States ...

(CTBUH) named Salesforce Tower as the “Best Tall Building Worldwide" for 2019.

Gallery

File:Salesforce Tower April 2017.jpg, Salesforce Tower in April 2017, the day before its topping-out ceremony with

181 Fremont 181 Fremont is an mixed-use skyscraper in the South of Market District of San Francisco, California. The building, designed by Heller Manus Architects, is located adjacent to the Transbay Transit Center and 199 Fremont Street developments. 1 ...

under construction on the right File:SFO skyline 09 2017 6224 cropped.jpg, The Salesforce Tower (center-left) and 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 ci ...

(center-right) with

Coit Tower Coit Tower is a tower in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California, offering panoramic views over the city and the bay. The tower, in the city's Pioneer Park, was built between 1932 and 1933 using Lillie Hitchcock Coit's beq ...

(left) and the

Pier 43 Ferry Arch The Pier 43 Ferry Arch is an historic ferry arch at Pier 43 in San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco, Fisherman's Wharf, in the U.S. state of California. Its headhouse, a decorated hoisting tower for loading and unloading rail cars on ...

(foreground) File:Salesforce Tower Completed 2018.jpg, A ground-level view in late 2018 after construction was completed File:Salesforce Tower Street Level.png, Salesforce Tower Street Level View from August 2019 File:Salesforce Tower At Night Hdr (249442863).jpeg, Night-time view from Salesforce Park File:Salesforce Tower Roof.jpg, The roof of Salesforce Tower

References

External links

*
Transbay Demolition and Construction BlogSalesforce Tower construction webcamTransbay Transit Center proposal from Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects
{{DEFAULTSORT:Salesforce Tower Salesforce Economy of San Francisco Hines Interests Limited Partnership Skyscraper office buildings in San Francisco South of Market, San Francisco Information technology company headquarters in the United States Office buildings completed in 2018 2018 establishments in California César Pelli buildings